With state and federal standards rising, at-risk schools often need to implement drastic change to avoid sanctions or government takeover. This presentation takes you through the journey of a rural middle school on the brink of collapse, the steps taken to save it and how many of these strategies and programs can be used to help any struggling school reverse course and emerge from it. Many steps were drastic, some were painful, others had to be "tweaked," but in the end, a completely different school emerged, one shining so bright that the Teacher Of the Year was awarded to the co-presenter for "reinventing his classroom and bringing profound change to a 'school on the brink.'"