Many school districts struggle to retain early career teachers, but the challenge is particularly pronounced in small and rural districts (Frahm & Cianca, 2021). The School-University Resource Network, a university center at William & Mary School of Education in Virginia, discovered this firsthand through a community of practice they…

There is a need for both special education teachers and Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs) who are trained to work in rural school settings with students with disabilities and problem behaviors. The specific challenges presented by rural communities, such as diminished access to resources and fewer community partners, can make it difficult…

A networked improvement community can be a tremendous resource for people who share a common interest and desire to learn from each other, and, thanks to technology, this can occur even when participants are separated by a large distance. This article discusses Virginia Advanced Study Strategies' Rural Math Innovation Network, a four-year project…

World-ready learners require world-ready educators. One group of inspiring teacher educators share how they ignited a fire of awareness around the importance of global competency education at a small, rural teacher college.

Rural community colleges are employing several fundraising strategies to offset the pain of increasingly anemic budgets in the face of higher student enrollments. Whether it's educating stakeholders about the potential impact of campus improvements or reaching out to donors for financial support, it's critical to tout the economic and educational…

This article describes how out-of-work miners are engaged in the Empowering Education Initiative, a unique alliance between Country Music Television (CMT) and community colleges in Appalachia. The initiative, which includes a website and a series of country music concerts, is changing the conversation in the Appalachian region, giving hope to…

Even though non-print-based learning objects have been in the classroom for years, the shift to digital content has gotten more attention lately. One development that has made the difference is the Apple initiative to introduce its iBooks textbooks for iPads, generating a notable amount of buzz. That and President Obama's announcement that he…

High-poverty schools in rural areas and small towns are under attack from state policy makers who want to consolidate these schools in order to save money. In addition to calls for consolidation, rural schools also are threatened by unfair and inadequate funding formulas.

As Internet technology encroached on the public school classroom about a decade ago, Kim Ross, superintendent of the Houston School District in Houston, Minnesota, saw an opportunity. At first, he and his administrative team simply wanted to offer students in the district of 1,300 access to more classes via the web than what a district that size…

The author explains how her college has worked with other institutions as part of CraftNet, a program supporting arts and crafts education and business in the surrounding communities.

Historically, it has been tough to get teachers for urban districts, but this is not the case in Baltimore, Maryland, anymore. Since 2002, the New Teacher Project has been finding at least 10 applicants for each teaching job it fills for the once hard-to-staff Baltimore district. Armed with unorthodox recruitment strategies, the group targets…

The Jeanes Fund helped solve the rural school problem and recognized the work of Virginia Randolph whose philosophy and teaching techniques were adopted by the Jeanes teachers. The work of Virginia Randolph and the Jeanes teachers is detailed and how their contributions throughout the South earned accolades for local school and community…

Describes how a rural Virginia school used a $10,000 state grant to purchase and set up an earth station which enabled them to increase their educational television reception from one poorly visible station to 80 clear channels. Discusses implications for teachers and students. (DC)

This essay argues that Amherst County citizens and policy makers treated Monacan children differently than white, black, and even other Indian students in Virginia and were determined to keep this particular group of children out of "their" schools and out of "their" community. Even despite federal mandates to do otherwise,…

The Southwest Virginia Education and Training Network (SVETN) is installing a fiber-optic network that enables the use of 2-way interactive television and that eventually will link 60 secondary schools and colleges in 16 southwest Virginia counties. Students in these rural schools can participate in advanced academic courses that would otherwise…