ORONO — The University of Maine Aspirations Project has received a $50,000 grant to pursue a school reform program that concentrates on changing attitudes and encouraging increased personal responsibility for effective education.

Robert Cobb, dean of the College of Education and the project’s director, said the grant from the Jessie B. Cox Charitable Trust would be used to develop further a project under way in the rural schools of Searsport, Harrington, Howland and Hermon.

The three-year project, titled “School Improvement: A Process of Personal Empowerment,” was initiated in response to administrators’ request for assistance in dealing with some problems common the the four districts. In these school areas, socio-economic factors have contributed to high dropout rates and low academic aspiration and achievement levels.

Working in a partnership with the college’s faculty, the school districts will identify specific improvements or reforms they want to make, then design and implement responsive programs.

The people-intensive project offers a cost-effective, sustained alternative approach to school improvement, without the need for structure or schedule changes or additional personnel or funding. It does call for school officials, students, and the community to focus on developing and enhancing high expectations by the individual and others and improving interpersonal communication.

The critical first year of the project centers on the adults who are in a position to combat apathy and frustration and make the school system function better.

The commitment includes participating in a 48-hour motivation course taught by Aspirations Project associate William N. Cumming. Cummings said that the course was about caring, responsibility and empowerment.

“It allows people to get in touch with how powerful they are and to understand the kind of caring environment needed for kids to make choices and take responsibility for their own lives,” he said.

He said that adults completed the course with a greater sense of value and self-worth and an increased ability to communicate with students about their own capability and contributions to the world.