Educators who understand the benefits to children of expanding their exposure to arts often have to find innovative ways to bring arts education to children who otherwise would not be exposed to quality and inspiring arts experiences.

Mentoring programs are beneficial in northern or rural Canadian communities. Educators teaching in these areas often have higher demands placed upon them and encounter different challenges including higher workloads, a lack of personal and professional resources, and difficulties adjusting to life in isolated communities. Mentoring programs…

Washington State struggles to retain qualified and diverse teachers. This teacher shortage is particularly acute in rural areas. To address this issue, the 2019 State Legislature directed the Washington Student Achievement Council (WSAC) to produce a report with policy recommendations for increasing student teachers' field placement in rural areas…

In this article, we describe the evolution of a statewide alternative teacher preparation program for teachers of students with disabilities and explain current processes to revise and expand the program to increase accessibility to teacher candidates in rural schools. We will identify important features of the program including (a) significant…

Rural poverty rises to higher levels than poverty in urban and suburban areas, and rural communities and their schools face greater isolation, which means that families must travel farther than their urban and suburban counterparts to access available services and learning opportunities. Elaine Weiss describes two rural communities, one in…

Rural America is experiencing an era of unprecedented demographic change, as rural communities of color are growing--an expansion that is necessary for keeping rural America thriving. But racial and class inequality divides many rural places, threatening rural students' education and rural communities' well-being, and the current pandemic is…

Career Technical Education (CTE) can provide an on-ramp for rural learners to access meaningful, high-wage careers while simultaneously strengthening the talent pipeline to meet regional labor demand. Yet rural learners all too often face an uphill battle when it comes to accessing high-quality CTE. Scarce resources, limited regional employers and…

Teacher shortages in special education have been a source of long-standing concern for professionals and parents involved in the education of students with disabilities. Because of their geographic location, culture, and lack of resources, rural administrators have always struggled to staff their schools with qualified special education teachers.…

Inertia created by the 15 years of teacher quality reform leading up to Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), coupled with a renewed focus on innovation and flexibility under ESSA, might provide a recipe for establishing new ways to recruit, develop, and retain teachers in rural schools. Many hope that the development of complex and tailored staffing…

A critical aspect of rural research is carefully defining and describing the rural context. This is particularly important in rural special education research because different definitions of rural may influence resource allocation, grant funding eligibility, and/or research findings. In order to highlight the importance of operationalizing rural,…

K-12 online distance education is growing rapidly and many organizations focus on virtual schooling in Canada. The centre for Distance Learning and Innovation (CDLI) was established in 2000 in Newfoundland and Labrador and has been offering numerous opportunities to rural high school students through online distance education. In this paper, the…

Exposure to the various presentations and discussions on that workshop day in 2014 highlighted the largely uncritical way in which I had previously understood the complexity of rurality and its educational and social implications. This suite of papers makes a valuable contribution to better understanding the issues confronting the current state of…

This article shows how community libraries can create and support literate environments, which are essential for building and sustaining literacy skills in local communities. The paper begins with a subject analysis reviewing available background materials and literature on the topic. Next, relevant issues are considered based on experiences and…

This paper describes a digital storytelling project, completed with two classes of "non-college bound" Seniors at Shady Grove High School in the Midwestern United States. Using narrative inquiry as a methodological framework, student's stories were examined and considered as meaningful contributions to current knowledge about issues in…

This article describes a statewide online alternative teacher preparation program in early childhood special education. The history and evolution of the program is explained along with the programmatic changes that resulted from working with noncertified teachers with a wide variety of backgrounds in both rural and urban districts. Challenges and…