More Than Just an Internship: One University’s Collaboration with a Rural School District to Attract, Develop, and Retain School Counselors

This promising practice describes an innovative collaboration between West Virginia University, a land grant institution situated in the middle of rural Appalachia, and Kanawha County Schools, located in Charleston, WV. The partnership aimed to assist the rural school district by supporting children in three elementary schools and by providing the university’s school counseling students an immersion experience in rural schools, with the hope of retaining them in the school district following graduation. The collaboration fulfilled the original mission of the program in two ways; first, the school district retained one-third of the school counseling students who participated. Secondly, the collaboration was met with overwhelming support by district leadership, resulting in an increase in school counseling students entering the program in the next academic year.

Benefits of Mindfulness Professional Development for Elementary Teachers

Using an embedded quasi-experimental mixed-method approach, this exploratory study aimed to understand the benefits of mindfulness training for elementary school teachers and leaders in one rural school district. After the delivery of two 90-minute mindfulness professional developments with on-the-job practice of strategies over 2 weeks, quantitative statistical comparisons of the intervention and inactive control groups were made using survey results from the Mindfulness in Teaching Scale (Frank et al., 2016). Qualitative analyses used intervention participant journal entry responses along with one-on-one interviews. After analyses, the results suggest mindfulness training can benefit teachers, specifically in the use of intrapersonal mindfulness practices, reshaping daily interactions with students, and reducing stress.

Exploring Enabler Actions Influencing Basotho Teachers’ Wellbeing to Cope with Schools’ Adversities at a Rural School

Teachers at South African schools work under unfavourable conditions that manifest as burnout, fatigue, exhaustion and stress, violence, lack of infrastructures, lack of resources, poor working relationships, inflexible curriculum, etc. Despite these conditions, they still managed to do their jobs to uplift their community. Against this background, this study explored enabler actions that influence Basotho teachers to surmount schools’ adversities at a rural school district. It adopted a qualitative multiple case study as a research design and semi-structured interviews as data collection instrument. Four participants (n=4; females, aged 25-35 years) were selected through purposive and convenience sampling techniques. All participants worked at a South African rural school in Free State province, South Africa. They are Basotho speakers and have at least three years of teaching experience. The thematic findings revealed that Basotho teachers developed enabler actions to cope with schools’ adversities and adjust to social and cultural environments. These include the availability of supportive services, awareness of inadequate assets, awareness of teachers’ strengths, developing of teacher resilience, self-efficacy, problem-solving skills, managing self-emotions, and self-confidence. This study concluded that the identified enabler initiatives contributed and stabilized the Basotho teacher wellbeing effectively regardless of challenges at a rural school. Received: 25 August 2020 / Accepted: 23 November 2020 / Published: 10 May 2021

Keeping Up With the Joneses: District Adoption of the 4-Day School Week in Rural Missouri

In recent years, rural school district adoption of 4-day school weeks has grown markedly. Despite this rapid growth, scant empirical evidence has documented the factors associated with district adoption and subsequent effects on student, labor, and economic outcomes. We examine the spread of the 4-day school week in rural Missouri, where over 10% of the state’s districts have adopted the policy in the past decade, the majority over the past 2 years. To help policymakers understand why districts forgo a day of instruction and to contextualize postpolicy effects, we conduct a survival analysis to assess student, district, and staff characteristics associated with policy adoption. We find that the presence of nearby 4-day school week districts most strongly predicts policy adoption. Adopting districts typically offer lower teacher salaries than nearby districts and have declining student enrollments. Our findings may inform policy focused on teacher recruitment and retention in rural locales.

Examining Student Achievement, Teacher Effectiveness, and Merit Pay in a Rural School District

With more rigorous standards and testing at the forefront of educational reform across the nation, the rural school district in this study developed a strategic compensation plan with bonus pay based on student test scores as a teacher success incentive. A causal-comparative study was conducted to examine the effect of teacher merit pay levels on teacher effectiveness and student achievement within a rural school district. The study also considered if there is a difference among the teacher effectiveness levels and student achievement scores and certain moderating variables including content area, years of experience, gender, and education level. One-way ANOVA analysis determined student achievement scores were significantly lower when the teacher did not qualify for a bonus than at any and every other bonus level. Linear regression analyses found significant moderation effects for years of experience, education level, and content area, but not for teacher gender.

Measuring Rural P-12 Teachers’ Attitudes, Perceptions, and Utilizations of Social Media

Social media continues to evolve and change the way people interact, learn, and communicate. As social media continues to grow in importance within societies, it is critical to better understand how teachers view social media as an educational resource. This quantitative study examines the general attitudes, perceptions, and utilizations of social media among P-12 teachers in a rural school district. Findings indicate that most teachers view social media as a high risk proposition for student use in the classroom, but do see social media as potentially useful and relevant to learning in the P-12 classroom.

Is the grass really greener? A qualitative study of teacher reflections on their decision to migrate from small rural districts to larger school districts

Teacher retention in rural schools continues to be an area of concern. This qualitative study examines why teachers migrate from small, rural school districts to teach in larger districts by interviewing teachers who have already made the move and who have taught in both environments. It also shares the perceptions of teachers as they reflect on their experience in the small district as well as how they now feel about their decision to leave the small rural district. Findings indicate that teachers look back fondly at their time in small rural schools and, while they do not regret their decision to leave, they do think more teachers should have that experience. Teachers discussed the similarities and differences of the district sizes and gave their personal reasons for leaving. Findings reveal teachers primarily leave small rural districts for financial concerns and enjoy a smaller workload at the secondary level in the larger districts. Workload at the elementary level seemed to be similar. Recommendations for small rural school district leaders are presented.

Students and Perceived Screen Time: How Often Are Students in a Rural School District Looking at Screened Devices?

As technology advances across the United States, schools should consider not only the benefits of using screened devices but also the short- and long-term effects on student health. Both the positive and negative effects of using devices are often intensified for students in rural schools, as online learning and the use of e-therapy becomes more prevalent. The purpose of this study was to investigate stakeholders’ perceptions of device use in one eighth-grade cohort in a rural school, differences between device use by students with and without disabilities, and to provide an awareness of student screen time exposure and its potential consequences. Basic qualitative methods were used to assess student, teacher, and parent perceptions of screen time use and perceptions of the recommended daily allowance of screen time in an eighth-grade cohort in a rural western New York school. Findings suggest that students, parents, and teachers perceive screen time as “excessive.” Implications for practice and future inquiry are reported.