Commentary: Times Article on Rural School Misses Half the Story—Educational Success

Despite lack of funding, rural schools can serve as sites of learning, community, and excellence. We need to understand both the problems and opportunities to make good education policy. This commentary was originally published in the October 6th edition of The Daily Yonder.

Exploring Rural Engineering Students’ College-Choice Process at Two Land-Grant Universities

This qualitative case study examines the college choice decisions of rural students enrolled in engineering majors to understand what conditions and experiences led rural students to pursue engineering at their institution. We found four themes that help illuminate rural engineering students’ college choice journeys (1) The Inextricable Nature of College, Major, and Career Choice (2) “The Smart Person Thing to Do:” The Power of Prestige, (3) “Are You Sure You Don’t Want to Change your Major?” Dissonance Between Aspirations and Expectations, and (4) School and Community as Crucial Resources in College and Major Exploration. These findings have implications for those working with rural high school students seeking engineering degrees and admissions processes at four-year colleges and universities.

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.

Rural principal perspectives of leadership development needs

Rural school principals often face issues of professional isolation and lack of access to leadership development opportunities. To address these challenges, the Elgin Children’s Foundation launched its Principal Support Program (PSP) in 2017 to support the development of effective school leaders in three states with high rural student populations in the Appalachian region. The PSP posited four components as essential for principal development: professional development, networking, mentoring, and learning plans. The aim of this qualitative study was to determine what PSP participants believed to be the most effective in terms of principal development. Results indicate that because of PSP training, rural principals grew from managers to instructional leaders and changed their mindsets and practices regarding shared leadership. Principals believed that they benefited most from the networking and coaching that the PSP provided. Future professional development for rural principals should consider a focus on opportunities to learn with and through others.

Growing Your Own Educational Leaders: Implications for Rural School Districts and Institutions of Higher Education

The purpose of this article is to examine a ‘grow your own’ model of leadership preparation and placement of educational administrators in the state of Tennessee. The growing need for school and district administrators in the rural counties of Tennessee mirrors a nationwide issue, and state policymakers and practitioners must respond appropriately to sustain adequate K-12 educational leadership that is representative of state demographics. Recommendations for policy and practice are provided for state and local education agencies as well as principal preparation programs in higher education.

ESL Programs in Rural High Schools: Challenges and Opportunities

Rural and small-town communities in the United States have been rapidly diversifying over the last few decades and rural schools have faced challenges in supporting changing populations. This article builds on a limited body of education research that has focused on diversity in rural areas, driven largely in the U.S. by Latinx immigrant populations. This research draws on several data sources from multi-week visits in a mixture of new and established immigrant destinations to profile the challenges educational leaders faced developing ESL programs in five rural high schools and explores challenges such as how schools struggle to recruit and retain administrators and teachers, how they often have limited knowledge and resources to support curriculum development, and how program size limits schools’ ability to place students appropriately. The article concludes with suggestions for education programs, rural administrators, and state policy makers to better support English learners in rural schools.

Will They Stay or Will They Go? Leadership Behaviors That Increase Teacher Retention in Rural Schools

Hard-to-staff rural schools often struggle to attract and retain promising educators. Experts have consistently identified administrative support in rural schools to be of unique importance for recruitment and retention, yet a lack of clarity continues to surround the specific leadership behaviors that new teachers interpret as supportive. This qualitative study collected data from three focus groups; including superintendents, principals, and teachers in a program for aspiring administrators; and found that rural schools have to try much harder and in more active ways to retain new teachers because of the constraints existing within rural education. Rural school support for new teachers needs to be a collective responsibility to positively impact the retention of new teachers and the structural supports, affirmation, and encouragement offered by their organizations help to heighten the retention of new teachers. The study confirms that rural school leaders can leverage leadership behaviors to better retain talented teachers.

This Old House

In this essay, I explain how I switched the lens of my sophomore research unit to one that focuses on rural issues. This essay follows the unit from beginning to end. I explain what I do to raise awareness through the use of daily articles along with providing models for their own research. The essay then details the writing portion and how it has changed over time. The essay ends with a reflection of my work and choices.

Meeting students where they are: Trauma-informed approaches in rural Schools

Twenty-five percent of U.S. schoolchildren attend a rural school. Yet, rural school issues are typically subsumed by debates focused on urban problems and the misguided notion of ample resources available for their remediation. These assumptions belie the reality of the spatial mismatch that exists for rural schools, especially around mental health supports. Adverse childhood experiences and trauma disproportionately affect rural schoolchildren, putting them at greater risk of academic underachievement and other negative throughout the lifespan. Trauma-informed approaches in rural schools may mitigate the effects of childhood adversity and help close achievement gaps for rural students. Rural schools and students have needs and challenges distinct from those of urban and suburban schools, but only 2% of peer-reviewed publications address trauma-informed approaches or social-emotional learning in rural schools. More research is needed to help our 13 million rural schoolchildren develop the resilience necessary to overcome adversity and achieve healthy outcomes.