The United States is experiencing a teacher shortage crisis that is even more pronounced in rural communities. Teachers may be driven away from the profession if they feel inadequately trained or under-supported to address students' mental health needs. As such, an important teacher retention strategy is to ensure schools have enough mental health…

Developed by the National Writing Project (NWP), the College, Career, and Community Writers Program (C3WP) seeks to improve students' argument writing by building teachers' understanding of and skill in teaching source-based argument writing. The program features intensive professional development, skill-based instructional resources, and…

The Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) has been studying the four-day school week since 2015. Since then, the phenomenon of the four-day school week has spread into non-rural areas and interest appears to be growing. Given these apparent changes, the author wanted to know more about recent trends in the initiative. As districts continue…

In this descriptive and comparative study, we present results highlighting the complexity and scope of the challenges facing rural districts as they navigate the changing demographics of the students and families they serve. Rapid increases in the number and concentration of racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse students in rural areas…

This study evaluated whether the Targeted Reading Intervention (TRI), a classroom teacher professional development program delivered through webcam technology literacy coaching, could provide rural classroom teachers with the instructional skills to help struggling readers progress rapidly in early reading. Fifteen rural schools were randomly…

This article reports the results of an inquiry into the dynamics of principal selection in rural school districts in two mid-American states with high numbers of rural schools. The study focuses on two questions: (1) are rural school districts experiencing a shortage of qualified applicants for vacant principal's positions; and (2) what…

Explored where bullying occurred, what kind of bullying happened, how often bullying occurred, and whom students confided in when bullying occurred at school. Surveys of rural 9th and 10th graders indicated that bullying was a very real part of their daily lives. Nearly 75 percent reported some type of bullying at school, and many observed…

Describes four small school programs, i.e., curriculum enrichment through use of volunteer instructors, "Saturday Class" assignments for disciplinary purposes, elementary science classes visiting high school classes, and improving basic instruction through meaningful inservice programs. (AH)

The rural school project of the continental United States consists in educating over 18 million young people between the ages of 5 and 20 who live in small towns and villages, or in the open country. The 300,000 or more schools classified as rural enrolled nearly 12.5 million pupils in 1920, employed 425,00 teachers, supervisors, and principals,…