The students’ home districts — Agua Dulce, Premont, Brooks County, Freer and Benavides — used to operate separately. They had a shrinking student population, were unable to provide much career and technical education, and struggled with low achievement. But seven years ago, a handshake between the superintendents of the Premont and Freer independent school districts gave rise to what would become the .

Today, the consortium, created to stave off consolidation threats and improve student outcomes, is being lauded as a . And the Texas legislature has encouraged other districts to follow its lead.

The five districts, located 45 to 90 minutes southwest of Corpus Christi and serving a student population that is at least 75% Hispanic, share six academies: Early College, for credit toward an associate degree; Grow Your Own, for future teachers; Ignite Technical Institute, focusing on welding; Next Generation Medical Academy, offering nursing and pharmacy education; Willa Zelaya STEM Discovery Zone, featuring computer technology, drone aviation and robotics; and Trade Winds Academy, for HVAC, construction and electrical.

Students wishing to participate in an academy choose the program they want in eighth grade. They take traditional core classes at their home high school and travel to the academies twice a week and every other Friday — about 10 times a month. 

Sophomore Juliana Farias catches a 6:45 a.m. van, driven by school staff and internet-equipped, at her high school in Agua Dulce for the 45-minute trip to the Grow Your Own Academy. Her friend Emmerson Perez, also a sophomore, does the same in the small town of Freer, nearly an hour west. 

They meet up at Premont Collegiate High School around 7:30 a.m. and walk to a nearby elementary to begin their day as teacher interns. The two won’t be in Premont long. They’ll return to their respective high schools by midday to continue their regular classes. 

Mylan Pena, a junior at Falfurrias High School in Brooks County Independent School District, chose the welding academy because it offers the chance to earn a free associate degree as well as industry credentials. When Pena was a child, his uncle and grandfather worked as oil pipeline welders, leaving home for weeks at a time. It’s a job he wants to pursue after he graduates.

“I’m blessed to even have this opportunity,” he said. “My mom is a single mother. I know she wouldn’t have the funds to provide this for me. Getting the opportunity to take college (classes) for free and learning to weld for free means a lot.”

Pathways like these are more commonly found in larger, wealthier metropolitan school districts. Texas has more schools in rural areas than any other state — about . As families flock to more densely populated communities, rural schools are left with scarce resources and sometimes merge as they struggle to serve isolated towns. 

That was the situation in 2019, when the Rural Schools Innovation Zone officially launched. 

The districts had to find something innovative to keep the doors open, said Michael Gonzalez, Rural Schools Innovation Zone director. “We had no opportunities for kids,” he said. “We needed to do something about it.”

The Premont and Freer districts obtained grant funding and partnered with Brooks County Independent School District to form the consortium. It expanded to include the Agua Dulce and Benavides districts in 2023. The five districts together have about 3,250 students.

Last year, 424 students were enrolled in the academies. Now, there are nearly 600. Gonzalez said 680 are projected to participate in the 2026-27 school year.

It “was phenomenal” how the Rural Schools Innovation Zone turned trends around for the communities in south Texas, Gonzalez said. He’s been the consortium’s director since it was created and was the sole employee for five years, before recently hiring a liaison to help coordinate between the districts and their college partners.

Premont, which had the worst of the partner school districts, increased its student population from 570 students in 2012 to in 2024. From 2018-19 to 2023-24, the school districts the percentage of their graduating students who pass the state’s in both math and reading from 30% to 51%. The percentage of seniors with dual credit jumped from 16% to 50%, while those with industry certifications increased from 8% to 38%.

Based on the program’s success, Texas legislators in 2023 to create a that funds similar collaborations among rural districts. The Rural Schools Innovation Zone is such partnerships across Texas. Last year, lawmakers for career technical and education programs, including the rural collaborations, and promoted them as a key strategy for economic growth in the state. 

Here’s a look inside some of the academies, and what their students have to say about their experiences.

Grow Your Own Educator Academy 

Farias chose the Grow Your Own Educator Academy at Premont Collegiate High School to fulfill dreams she’s had since she was a little girl.

“My mom was an aide for special education students and some of my best friends are autistic, and as a little kid, you don’t realize the differences until you grow up,” she said. “I get a lot of, ‘You don’t want to do special education. It’s a hard place to be and it’s a lot of work.’ But that’s what I want to do, so looking into the program, I was like, ‘I need to be in this. It’s something I want to do and I get to start early on in my life.’”

It was initially intimidating for Farias to travel to Premont, because she was the only Agua Dulce High School student in the teaching academy. But soon she met Perez, from Freer High School, and Ava Gutierrez, a Premont senior.

“They’ve made it so much more than just the program, and I think that’s what keeps our programs going — because we all have relationships within the program that make it so much more than just college hours,” Perez said. “It’s cool because we’re from different districts, but we’re still friends.”

The trio assist classes at Premont’s elementary school and day care before taking college courses at the high school. Premont High School staff teach some of the classes, while others are in person at colleges closer to Corpus Christi, like Texas A&M University’s campus in Kingsville, about 30 miles away.

“On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I was traveling to Kingsville, and then on Monday, Wednesdays and every other Friday, I was in the classroom in Premont,” Gutierrez said. “It was pretty overwhelming for a while, having to travel back and forth, but you get used to it. After a while, it just kind of starts becoming part of your routine.”

Will Zelaya STEM Discovery Zone 

Andrew Herrera, 16, is a junior firefighter for a Brooks County volunteer fire department. He has been known to stay up until 5 a.m. at the station fixing equipment and changing the oil in the fire trucks.

His dad, the department chief, encouraged the Premont sophomore to enroll in the school’s science, technology, engineering and mathematics academy because of his passion for drones and fire truck mechanics. The program offers instruction in computer technology, engineering, oil and gas drilling, robotics and drone aviation. 

Herrera is pursuing a drone pilot license to assist with fire department calls. 

“I want to do it because nowadays it’s been getting a lot more difficult for ranch (owners), since they’re building so many houses and stuff like that,” he said. “If there’s ever a fire, I’ll be able to fly (the drone) up and I can do 3D mapping or I can find better routes for the trucks to take.”

Haven Farias, a Premont senior, earned his drone pilot license this year. He said he’s also proud of his work building a life-size robot in one of his academy classes. The two passions are something he wants to continue to follow when he pursues a mechanical engineering degree in the fall at Schreiner University in Kerrville, Texas.

“I’m licensed to fly, so I’ll have more opportunities with jobs and everything for the drone side,” Farias said. “I think it’s a great opportunity. Even though I’m in, like, 10,000 sports, and I’m doing five college classes, and then I have to do all my high school classes, it’s not really difficult. It’s all about time management.”

Ignite Technical Institute 

For Amber Garcia, a commitment to achieving an associate degree is what’s kept her going at Ignite Technical Institute, the welding pathway at Falfurrias High School in Brooks County Independent School District. 

The Premont senior works two part-time jobs — sometimes overnight until 6 a.m. — while taking her regular classes, pursuing pathway courses and gaining college credit. Garcia was in the foster system when she was introduced to the Rural Schools Innovation Zone. Now she’s one of the best welders in the program, Gonzalez said, and one of the few female students.

“In my eighth grade year, my older brothers were doing it, and I was kind of inspired by it, but they didn’t like it,” she said. “I wanted to do it. I fell in love with it.”

Garcia said it’s sometimes hard to get up in the mornings and make it to school, but she always attends her welding classes. Gonzalez said he calls her on days she doesn’t travel to Falfurrias to make sure she’s still going to Premont High School. The work has paid off, she said, because soon she’ll go straight into the workforce as a welder.

“A lot of kids are lazy, and our generation is horrible, but you just have to want it,” she said. “You’ve got to push yourself. You have to say, ‘I’m going to do it.’ And no matter how frustrated you get, you just have to keep going. It’s just the growth mindset, but a lot of people don’t have that.”

Next Generation Medical Academy

Mary Alice Cantu was admiring neighborhood Christmas lights with her children and Freer High School’s curriculum director in 2016 when she heard the school had landed a grant to build a health science pathway. She was the school nurse at the time.

“I said, ‘I really would love to do that,’ ” Cantu said. “(My co-worker) turns around and goes, ‘You’re running it.’ And I’m like, ‘I’m what?’ So I went from the school nurse to this, which was a totally different hat that I wasn’t expecting, but I’ve loved it ever since.”

Cantu began teaching classes at what would become the Next Generation Academy without an education degree. She soon pursued a master’s program to have the credentials under her belt and entered her district’s new teacher academy. 

“I realized it’s one thing to be a teacher and another to be a nurse,” she said. “There’s behavior management, pedagogy — all these terms. I was like, ‘You want me to do a lesson plan?’ It’s like a patient care plan, but it’s for your class.”

The nearest college program and hospital is close to an hour away, so it’s important that the medical academy be equipped as closely to a professional setting as possible, Cantu said. The high school’s home economics kitchen was into a model hospital, complete with a reception desk, patient beds, drug administration carts, IV stands and dummy patients. 

Students wear blue scrubs, clock into class with timecards and poke needles into silicone arms to draw synthetic blood before they practice on each other. There are multiple 7-foot-long touchscreen tables with digital replicas of bodies donated to science. Cantu can peel back layers of the cadavers and simulate health conditions for her anatomy or physiology classes.

Students can earn certifications in phlebotomy, electrocardiogram testing, patient care and medical assistance that can be used in the workplace. The academy got so popular that Freer’s next school nurse was hired as a second educator.

“It’s a good problem to have that we’re going to have so many students with certifications, and I don’t mind it, the numbers are growing, and we’ll just figure it out,” Cantu said. “There’s just so much opportunity for these students, whether they decide to go into nursing or not, they’re going to have the confidence and the people skills to be able to step into any setting and succeed.”

This growing enrollment is a double-edged sword, Gonzalez said. As more students join academies like Next Generation, teachers have to play a game of Tetris with class schedules and schools have to consider hiring more staff in a remote area that’s hard to recruit for. 

Student attendance can also be tricky. Gonzalez said some teachers and coaches value athletics or extracurriculars over their academy programs, and students may miss a class they get only twice a week if their team has to travel for a game or conference. 

The number of educators who were present during the zone’s creation is also dwindling. The partner districts have gone through five superintendents in the past three years together, meaning more people are coming in who are unfamiliar with the model and how it works, Gonzalez said.

A couple of districts have the traditional eight class periods, while the others have block schedules, making it difficult to coordinate transportation between schools. And then there are the students who switch academies or decide to leave a program altogether. The STEM academy has the lowest retention rate, at 86%. Next Generation Medical Academy retains more than 96% of its students.

“It’s crucial that we have ‘kid magnets,’ or teachers who have a relationship with these youngsters,” Gonzalez said. “They keep them in there, right? I’m not going to lie — we lose kids all the time.”

Gonzalez’s own job keeps him working all hours of the day. That dedication earned him a from South by Southwest last year.

“I didn’t realize the magnitude of it,” he said. “It’s pretty neat. You know, I just try to stay the course, try to stay on it. I use the word ‘grinder’ a lot because that’s just the way I was raised.”

Gonzalez said the Rural Schools Innovation Zone allows the remote, small districts of south Texas to remain operating and, in turn, keep their communities alive. 

Each town can still gather under bright stadium lights on autumn Fridays to cheer on its football team. Students can continue to walk to their neighborhood school. And families stay because their children can still get big-city opportunities, he said.

“Why do kids pick schools? Usually for programs. They don’t go because they have the best English teacher, right?” he said. “They have the best nursing program, the best baseball program, the best football program. They go for programming and then the ‘kid magnet’ teachers running the program. So if I can allow you to be involved with the best program in the world and you don’t have to leave your school district, it’s a no-brainer. That’s what we did.”

Scribbled in green marker, Reagan’s list already began with selfless requests: for her best friend to move back and a classmate to recover from a broken wrist. Then, the usuals: an iPad and boots.

But her last wish was for Santa to keep her school open. 

This fall, she and the community of Prescott, Washington, learned their school was in danger of being shut down due to financial mismanagement. In 2021, the district had a $2 million budget surplus. But this year, Prescott it had roughly $1 million in credit card and bank loan debt. The district — home to 219 students and 40 employees — was told by the state department of education in June that it needs about $1 million by the end of March to remain open for the 2026-27 school year. Otherwise, state officials will dissolve the district.

“We try not to talk about the big details, but she does know that the school could close, and she actually did her [Christmas list] on her own and brought it to me,” Fletcher said of Reagan, who is in second grade. “So it’s definitely affecting her — probably a little bit more than we thought.”

Fletcher is a member of a recently formed parent-teacher organization that has joined the district teachers union and local businesses to raise the to keep Prescott open. They created a , hosted auctions, dinners, sales and festivals, and have even planned a gala. The efforts have raised about $77,000 so far. 

Parents and staff say that if the district is dissolved, the town will lose a place that has not only educated a highly diverse farming population for more than a century, but is a cornerstone of the community.

The Prescott School District has always been small. Serving about 360 residents, it sits among rolling hills in southeastern Washington state, about 25 miles from the Oregon border. Pre-kindergarten through 12th grade classes are held in several buildings on a single campus. 

Most students are Hispanic, and English isn’t their first language. Many come from the nearby Vista Hermosa community, which has a large migrant population that works in a local fruit orchard. 

At a , the school board and then-Superintendent Justin Bradford said they discovered in fall 2023 that purchases were made with money that was already spent elsewhere, and that the district’s business manager at the time, who was working remotely from Seattle, had been providing inaccurate financial information since the pandemic began. Things snowballed from there, they said, and soon the administration discovered a stream of unknown overdue bills and unpaid taxes. 

A from the state education department recommended that the district be put under “enhanced financial oversight” after an investigation found accounting wasn’t supervised and invoices weren’t processed efficiently. A attributed the problems to repeated turnover in the business manager and finance director positions between September 2021 and August 2024. No employees were named, and no charges were filed.

The district was put under in March 2024 and for the 2024-25 school year by $750,000. After more budget cuts and staff reductions this summer, the district is still grappling with a $1 million deficit. 

When Bradford resigned earlier this year, school Principal Jeff Foertsch stepped in as district leader. He said he had no idea how much financial trouble the district was in. 

“There were a lot of people we did not know we owed money to — I was getting emails from them saying [we’re] a year past due, and there were no records on it,” he said. “We were spending more than we were bringing in, and whoever was in charge of reporting those numbers was not reporting it correctly.”

Prescott isn’t the only district in crisis because of alarming budget deficits. Six other Washington school districts are also in financial oversight, according to the . 

Money mismanagement and overspending has also plagued districts in , , and , among others. One school district in West Virginia is at after it went from having $9 million in the bank to a projected budget deficit in three years.

In Washington, districts under financial oversight can be dissolved if they can’t come up with a two-year plan that resolves debt while restoring a balanced budget, according to the state education department. The last time a district was shut down was in 2007, when the following financial struggles. 

On Dec. 10, a financial oversight committee recommended that Chris Reykdal, Washington superintendent of public instruction, begin the steps to dissolve Prescott while it searches for more revenue. The superintendent can stop the process if the district raises enough funds by the end of March.

“If the [Prescott] district is able to secure revenue that is measurable and reliable in the amount of at least $1 million by March 31, 2026, then the district will likely continue operations in the 2026-27 school year,” the department said in an email to ����Ӱ��.

Foertsch said the district’s plan for recouping the money includes selling teacher housing, which is worth $380,000; asking voters to approve a special tax; fundraising; and seeking help from the state legislature.

Last year, Washington’s Marysville School District was found to be in after a state audit and of the state’s risk management pool. Instead, the district was given money from a special to buy its own insurance. Foertsch said a local state senator is trying to revise the budget to allow any money left over in that fund to be distributed to districts like Prescott. 

“It would be a bailout, which doesn’t feel good to say,” he said. “But [there] is a possibility that we can get a little bit of money as well.”

Auctions and spaghetti dinners

For now, teachers, parents, staff and local businesses are stepping up to fill the funding gap.

Travis Zigler, president of the Prescott Education Association and a social studies teacher, said the reason behind the financial crisis is irrelevant with the school’s future hanging in the balance. 

“I don’t even like to think about blame in this situation, because we’re just in it and we need to move forward,” he said. “This community deserves to have their school.”

Zigler said he knows every kid’s name. Students in the first class he taught when he began his job five years ago are graduating in the spring. While he and the roughly 18 teachers in the union were unaware of the situation a few months ago, they’re now determined to raise the money needed to prevent dissolution.  

The union, community members, businesses and the parent-teacher organization have hosted auctions and spaghetti dinners. They’ve sold nameplates for bricks on school property, partnered with restaurants for fundraisers and created a Breakfast with Santa Claus. A formal gala is scheduled for March in hopes of bringing in an additional $100,000. 

The parent-teacher organization also collected donations to restore traditional extracurricular activities that were lost to budget cuts, like a fifth grade ski summit and a band trip.

“Despite what’s going on, the students are still the No. 1 priority, and we are massively focused on just continuing to provide the best education we can,” Zigler said. “We’re doing our best to be positive.”

Kaleb Young, a PTO member, said he worries about how the school closing could impact students and their families, especially those from vulnerable populations. Young graduated from the Prescott School District, and his daughter is in fifth grade there. His mother is a paraprofessional, his grandmother is a bus driver and his father was on the school board for 13 years.

Prescott School District is where kids get meal assistance in the summer. Young said the school is easy to get to on foot or by bike, and kids in the classes grow up together. If the district were dissolved, he said, friend groups would be broken up and students would be scattered among various districts several miles away.

“I wish that there was more time,” he said. “We’re working with what we’ve got, and people are scrambling and rushing, and we’re doing what we can.”

Sitting on the Kentucky border, the Christian Academy of Indiana draws students from 56 different ZIP codes in southern Indiana. Some come from as far as 30 miles away and live in counties without private schools.

Families in those distant communities make the drive every day — sometimes carpooling — because they’re drawn to the school’s environment and extracurriculars, and especially its Christian teaching, said Lorrie Baechtel, director of admissions for the school, which is part of a three-school network in Indiana and Kentucky.

“There are lots of good public school options in Indiana. Families come to our Indiana campus more for that mission,” Baechtel said.

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The school’s enrollment has boomed in the last four years, driven in part by the expansion of the Choice Scholarship, Indiana’s signature voucher program. That’s made tuition more affordable, Baechtel said. More than 1,200 students attended in 2024-2025, up from around 700 in 2021-22.

That reflects a statewide trend: Voucher use has surged in recent years as Indiana lawmakers loosened eligibility requirements. In 2026, the program will open to all families, regardless of income.

But the Christian Academy’s ability to attract students from far away tells another story too. Even as vouchers have become more accessible, Indiana’s rural students aren’t using them at the same rate as their urban and suburban peers. That’s in part because one-third of counties don’t have a private school that accepts vouchers within their borders, and distance is a factor in parents’ decisions on school choice.

The result is that students who live closer to an urban center — which typically have one or more voucher-accepting private schools — may use vouchers at rates up to 30 percentage points higher than those for students who live in a neighboring district.

That also means rural families may be at a significant disadvantage when the state opens the Choice Scholarship to all, and when also begin to roll out in 2027.

“If there are no schools there for you to attend it’s unlikely it’s going to be all that useful for you,” said Jon Valant, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution.

More than that, public education advocates say splitting state school funding with vouchers leaves less for the rural public schools these students do attend.

“We’re making the policy choice to fund a lot more choices than we used to,” said Chris Lagoni, executive director of the Indiana Small and Rural Schools Association, which represents public schools. “We’re inviting more and more folks to Sunday dinner. It’s a little bit of a bigger meal, but a lot more guests.”

But the state’s Republican lawmakers have dismissed the fears of a hit to public rural schools as a result of vouchers, saying that rural voters support choice and parents want educational options — whether that’s private, charter, or traditional public schools.

Meanwhile, school choice advocates say the latest expansion of the Choice Scholarship, along with a growing preference for smaller learning environments and the rise of voucher-accepting online schools, could mean more private school access for rural areas in the near future.

“I think we’re best when we have a robust ecosystem of private and public options,” said Eric Oglesbee of the Drexel Fund, a nonprofit venture philanthropy organization that funds new private schools in Indiana and throughout the U.S.

Location matters in accessing a private school

Across the state, for the 2024-25 school year — an increase of about 6,000 students from the year before. The program cost the state $497 million last year, and the average voucher recipient came from a household with just over $100,000 in income.

But around one-third of Indiana counties don’t have voucher-accepting private schools within their borders, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of state data, which also shows that voucher use is lower in rural areas than urban ones.

Voucher use can shift dramatically even between nearby areas. For example, around 16% of students who reside in the Madison school district in southern Indiana use vouchers, but that rate drops to as low as 1% in nearby districts that are more rural. Similar trends hold in other areas of the state, like Indianapolis, Evansville, Fort Wayne, and South Bend.

Location matters because driving distance has been shown to be a factor in how parents choose a school.

In a 2024 survey of parent preferences by EdChoice, an Indianapolis-based group that supports vouchers, around half of parents said they would drive a max of 15 minutes for their children “to attend a better school.” Just over a quarter said they would drive no more than 20 minutes, and the final quarter said 30 minutes would be their max.

Concerns about this issue have persisted in the state for years. Alli Aldis of the advocacy group EdChoice pointed to a 2018 report from her organization that called .” It estimated that in the 2017-18 school year, around 3% of Indiana students, many in rural counties, lived more than 30 minutes from a charter, magnet, or voucher-accepting private school.

Starting a new school anywhere, but particularly in a rural area, comes with challenges like finding a building, said Oglesbee of the Drexel Fund.

A 2023 Drexel Fund report found that facilities in the state are “inadequate to meet the needs of new entrants to the market.” Though the report notes that real estate is both affordable and available, there are no public sources of facilities funding, and surplus facilities are not available to private schools.

But new laws in Indiana have the potential to change that. House Enrolled Act 1515 established voluntary school facility pilot programs open to both public and private schools to “allow for additional flexibility and creativity in terms of what is considered a school facility,” like colocating with schools, government entities, and community organizations.

Oglesbee said the organization is fielding an explosion of interest from potential new private schools in Indiana, possibly as a latent result of the 2023 expansion to voucher eligibility, which made the program nearly universal.

School succeeds ‘if the community asks for it’

Other challenges to opening a private school include hiring staff and recruiting students, which can be a particular issue in rural areas with both fewer children and licensed teachers, advocates said.

Opening a school also requires a team of people with both education and business experience, Oglesbee said. And they’re more likely to succeed if they have roots in the community they hope to serve.

“I see less of the ‘if you build it, they will come’ idea,” Oglesbee said. “A school is successful if the community asks for it.”

At a recent , Indiana House Speaker Todd Huston said rural Indiana communities were “super excited” for school choice, and noted that no Republican lawmaker had been beaten in a primary for supporting the policy.

But Indiana voters haven’t voted on school vouchers, and don’t have a legal avenue to overturn the policy, said Chris Lubienski of the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy at Indiana University. Last year, voters in Kentucky and Colorado ballot measures in favor of school choice, while Nebraska voters partially repealed a state-funded scholarship program.

“There’s resistance: ‘Why do I want to have my taxes fund a program I can’t use?’” Lubienski said.

In rural areas, support for school choice may actually mean support for transfers between public school districts, said Lagoni.

Ultimately, the Rural Schools Association believes any school receiving state dollars should be subject to the same expectations of transparency and accountability, Lagoni said.

Asked about concerns that rural students often have difficulty using vouchers, Huston said he expects voucher usage to continue to grow once the program becomes universal in 2026-27.

“We want to make sure our policies align with what works best for families,” Huston said.

Vouchers add to financial stress for rural schools

With more school options in Indiana, , and declining population, rural public schools feel pressure to compete. Sometimes that means closing and consolidating schools.

Vigo County schools recently announced plans to close two rural elementary schools as part of a plan to renovate facilities and offer more programming. The school corporation’s enrollment has declined slightly, due in part to an overall decline in the county’s total population, said spokesperson Katie Shane.

More students who reside in the district are using vouchers, although they’re not the biggest reason for the district’s falling enrollment. While 429 students used vouchers to attend private schools last school year, an increase from 252 the year before, around 870 Vigo students transferred to another public school district in the fall of the 2024-25 school year. That reflects .

Without their nearest public elementary schools, students may have to travel by bus for half an hour or more to the nearest school, according to community members who have started a petition to save one of the two schools marked for closure, Hoosier Prairie Elementary School.

“Hoosier Prairie isn’t just about going to school,” said Shyann Koziatek, an educational assistant at the school who also signed the petition to stop its closure. “Kids love to learn and love the routine we have.”

Rural schools also often function as large area employers and drivers of the economy.

“Schools are often the center and identity of the community, how people view who they are,” Lubienski said. “You go and cheer on your football team, it’s where you put on your school play.”

But private schools can serve the same role, choice advocates say.

“If people have stronger educational options, more choices, that only strengthens the community,” said Aldis of EdChoice.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at .

She and 15 other students had started at the college that fall in the hopes of studying to become highly effective educators. Many of them planned to return to their rural communities after graduation to help fill a gaping teacher shortage. They were all recipients of full-tuition scholarships through the , a three-year, federally funded project meant to diversify and increase the number of teachers in Nebraska and Kansas.

What they learned that February afternoon has left many of them reeling and questioning what comes next: Abrupt federal cuts from the Trump administration — meant to root out ��෡��” practices — resulted in every one of them losing their scholarships, effective immediately. They’d be able to finish out the spring term, but as of May, the money would be gone. Of the 16 students, 14 are first-time freshmen, just beginning their higher education journeys.

“I knew we were going to get told something terrible, but I couldn’t put a stop to it,” said Vianey, who asked to be identified by her first name only because of concerns that speaking out in the media could have negative ramifications. “To me, this scholarship was my way out. It was my way to be something. To contradict all the odds that were placed on me,” she added as her voice broke and she began to cry.

“I’ve wanted to be a teacher my whole life. Now, with all of this happening, I don’t know if I can recover.”

Amanda Morales, associate professor at UNL and principal investigator on the RAÍCES project, said telling her group of undergraduate students about the funding cuts was “by far, one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.”

“When you see young people’s dreams just shattered in an instant because of something you said or this message you had to give, how do you bounce back from that?” she asked. “What is happening to these projects and these programs is unprecedented, and it is really inhumane. There’s no other word for it.”

RAÍCES, whose name is derived from a Spanish word meaning “roots,” was one of many teacher preparation programs that suddenly lost their funding when the Education Department canceled more than in grants. The programs, meant to increase the number of teachers in high-need and hard-to-staff schools, were accused by the department of discriminating against certain populations and embracing “divisive ideologies” which aligned with diversity, equity and inclusion and “social justice activism.”

Eight attorneys general have since filed alleging the cancellation of the congressionally approved grants was unlawful. On Monday, a federal judge ordered the administration to in those eight states, which don’t include Kansas or Nebraska. Three teacher prep programs have also filed  

The scholarship, whose name stands for Re-envisioning Action and Innovation through Community Collaborations for Equity across Systems, had been promised $3.9 million through a grant, which sought to train more highly effective educators. It was housed at UNL and Kansas State University, which were required to match at least 25% of the federal funding.

RAÍCES was designed to be a comprehensive program that addressed the intractable teacher shortage in rural areas from recruiting novices to retaining veterans. It began with a high school-based program called Youth Participatory Action Research, providing students with the opportunity to explore careers in the classroom and investigate problems affecting their own education and communities. A number of students who ultimately received the full undergraduate scholarships, including Vianey, were recruited from this program. 

It also included funding for graduate-level scholarships, mentoring for teachers and ongoing professional development — meant to help educators stay in the profession long term. 

On Feb. 10, at 8:55 p.m., Socorro Herrera, professor and executive director of Kansas State’s Center for Intercultural and Multilingual Advocacy and the project’s lead principal investigator, received an email with an attached letter from the Education Department, telling her the grant would be terminated because it “is inconsistent with, and no longer effectuates, Department priorities.” 

She was shocked. 

“My thought is,” she said, “it’s not ‘department priorities,’ but it is community priorities. It is state priorities. It is the priority of human beings who want to go back into those public schools in which they grew up to give back [and] to be the most highly qualified teacher they can be for all students — but also for students who are like them.”

Morales said the letter and “blanket termination” of all SEED grants “left all of us just reeling with no clarity, no support, no one to call. Even our program officers are inaccessible. We were just left in the lurch — left to just flounder and try to pick up the pieces of this shattered project.”

‘[The] teacher that I wish I had’

Vianey was born in Mexico and came to the U.S. as a toddler with her parents and three siblings. The family spent their first decade or so in Washington state, where Vianey attended school as an English language learner. Even as a kid, Vianey was aware of the shortfalls of her school’s program and the negative impact it had on her and her English learner classmates.

“I just want to be that teacher that I wish I had when I was growing up to others,” she said.

She noted it was particularly challenging to not have any teachers who looked like her or shared her life experiences. At the time, this made her feel like her dream of becoming an educator might not be attainable, a narrative she hopes to combat.

“It gives you a sense of belonging when you see somebody that looks like you in the classroom,” she added.

When Vianey was in high school she moved to Nebraska with her mom, where she attended Lincoln High School and participated in the youth action program, which allowed her to do research on English language programs in her state. Eventually this led her to the RAÍCES scholarship at UNL, where she’s studying secondary education for Spanish, in the hopes of eventually returning to her own high school. 

As of December 2024, Nebraska schools had about , meaning they were staffed by someone other than a fully qualified teacher or were left totally vacant. About half of districts that responded to the state’s request for data reported complete vacancies. 

At roughly the same time, Kansas had almost — an 8%  increase from the previous spring, according to the teacher licensure director for the Kansas State Department of Education.

Nationally there were almost according to the Learning Policy Institute’s most recent analysis, likely a significant undercount because only 30 states and Washington, D.C. publish such data. 

has shown that rural schools face distinct difficulties filling their teaching positions, and that teacher turnover is especially common in high-poverty rural schools. And hiring foreign language and bilingual education teachers is especially hard.

“The money, explicitly and intentionally, was about increasing the number of teachers in rural schools,” said Herrera. 

Vianey had acute ELL teacher shortages in her own district in mind when she decided to apply to RAÍCES. Getting accepted into the full scholarship program “meant everything” to her and to her parents, whose formal education ended after third grade. 

“[My mom] felt like she succeeded and she was finally being able to achieve what she came here to do, and that is to give us a better life,” said Vianey.

‘We’re not rolling over here’

Vianey is among the at least 70 high school students, 26 undergraduates and 40 master’s students across the two universities who have been impacted by the cuts, along with the almost 1,000 teachers in partnering districts who were receiving ongoing education and professional development.

The ripple effects are far-reaching, potentially impacting thousands of students whose chances of getting a highly qualified, fully certified teacher have now been diminished.

When the funding runs out this spring, Tiffaney Locke — a 42-year-old career changer who has spent the past 12 years working in community mental health — will be just two courses shy of her master’s degree. 

She said as a Black student in Kansas City schools, she was able to find success because of educators who believed in her. Her plan was to return to a similar school to be that teacher for kids who look like her. She quit her full-time job to complete what she thought would be a fully funded program and is now scared about what comes next but hopeful that her teaching career is still within reach.

While the population of the scholarship recipients is diverse, the only requirement for application was that students come from one of the six partner districts in Nebraska and Kansas, all identified as difficult to staff and, in most cases, rural. One of the districts they partnered with had almost 120 vacancies.

Of the 16 undergraduates at UNL who were supposed to receive full scholarships — including housing, meal plans and a laptop — one quarter identified as white and half identified as Hispanic or Latino, according to Morales. Three-quarters were first-generation college students and over half came from rural communities. They were all high-achieving high school students and 15 of the 16 had GPAs just over 3.5 in their first semester, well above the program’s 2.0 requirement.

“The fact that the government doesn’t think you’re worthy to be here is tragic,” Morales said.

Morales and Herrera are now scrambling to find external funding, making any attempt they can to keep the program alive, but “this may be the end of the road for many of [the students] because just loans and Pell grants wouldn’t be enough to see them through,” Herrera said.

These across-the-board cuts have also had a chilling effect, she said, making those at the university level scared to speak out for fear of retribution from the federal government. Their concern is not baseless: the Trump administration recently in funding from Columbia University and halted payment on in grants to the University of Maine system.

“Everybody’s in this silent mode, like ‘Don’t call attention to yourself, go under the radar, keep doing the work,’” she added.

But the leaders of RAÍCES aren’t done.

 “We’re not rolling over here,” said Morales. “We’re not tucking our tail and just saying, ‘OK, I guess this is just the way it is.’ We’re fighting on every front we possibly can and [are] continuing to fight up until the very last moment. I’m not giving up.”

And Vianey isn’t quitting either. She wants to send a clear message to the people who took away her scholarship: “It’s not going to stop us from achieving our dreams. We will find a way out … my purpose is to become a teacher — and I’m not going to stop until I’m able to.”

Rural school districts — already beset with financial struggles — are furiously scrambling to save a century-old funding source that Republican lawmakers last month eliminated from the federal budget. 

The Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act, which has been approved almost continuously since 1908, is intended to compensate rural counties that have large swaths of non-taxable national forest land. Last year, the bill brought nearly $40 million to 39 California counties, funding everything from after-school programs to school roof repairs. 

The  that, because of lower enrollment, receive less money from the state than their urban and suburban counterparts yet tend to have large numbers of high-needs students and higher costs, such as providing bus service to remote areas.

In December, amid the flurry of last-minute budget negotiations, the bill died in the House after House Speaker Mike Johnson did not put it forward for a vote. The bill’s original sponsors hope to reintroduce it in the next few weeks in a last-ditch effort to get it passed before the final budget deadline in March.

It’s a longshot, but school officials are renewing their fight because the loss of those funds could have deep repercussions for rural school districts.

“It might not seem like much, but it’s real money for us,” said Allan Carver, superintendent of schools for Siskiyou County, which last year received $4.3 million from Secure Rural Schools. “If it was to go away, there would be a hole in our budget that would have an undeniable impact on children.”

GOP promises to cut federal spending

Republican Congressional leaders did not respond to interview requests from CalMatters. But , they have vowed to reduce government spending, including . President-elect Donald Trump has also proposed eliminating the U.S. Department of Education and making other cuts to schools. His advisor, Elon Musk — whom Trump recently named head of a yet-to-be-created Department of Government Efficiency — has been outspoken in his desire to cut federal programs.

That’s been frustrating for rural residents, many of whom supported Trump in November and feel Secure Rural Schools is neither a partisan issue nor a government handout. 

“This is not a ‘gift’ of Congress,” said Lonnie Hunt, a retired judge from rural Texas who’s head of the National Forest Counties and Schools Coalition. “It’s a pact made more than 100 years ago between the government and local communities. If the federal government had not made this deal, they’d never have been able to create the National Forest Service.”  

“Yet somehow it’s been lost in the politics,” Hunt added. “It’s a shame that rural America is being victimized here. And I’m pointing fingers in all directions, not just one side.”

Mold and layoffs in Trinity County

Secure Rural Schools dates from the creation of the National Forest Service in the early 20th century, when the federal government set aside millions of acres of land for logging. Because that land was removed from the local tax rolls, nearby communities were left with budget shortfalls — and few options to make up the cash. To compensate, the federal government agreed to share a portion of timber profits with those areas. When the logging industry started to decline in the 1990s, the government started augmenting the payments through the modern version of Secure Rural Schools.

Congress gave these counties $35.8 million for rural schools last year — but no more is coming

In 2024, these 39 California counties received money through the Secure Rural Schools program because they have National Forest Service land.

The money goes to counties that have National Forest Service land, where it’s divided between schools and public works. California, with nearly 21 million acres of national forest, receives far more than any other state. And within California, Trinity County receives the second-highest amount – $3.5 million last year. 

Located in the mountains of northwest California, Trinity County spans 3,208 square miles and is more than twice the size of Rhode Island. About 80% of it is owned by the federal government, which means it has limited ability to raise money through local tax measures. Due in part to the decline in logging, it’s also one of the poorest counties in the state, with a , compared to 12% statewide.

Trinity Alps Unified, the largest district in the county, received about $600,000 from Secure Rural Schools last year, about 5% of its overall budget. That money was crucial for paying for things like teachers’ aides, art and music programs, field trips and after-school programs, Superintendent Jaime Green said. 

Local residents know all too well what could happen without Secure Rural Schools. In 2016, the only other time in recent memory the bill didn’t pass, Trinity County school districts didn’t have money to make basic repairs to school buildings, leading to dangerous outbreaks of toxic mold at numerous campuses. Students’ and teachers’ lives were disrupted by school closures, and the state had to spend more than $50 million to help districts rebuild. 

This time, Green is warning that the district may have to eliminate seven jobs, leading to bigger class sizes and fewer enrichment programs. He worries that the students who need the most help will suffer the worst impacts.

“We’re an impoverished county, and the only way to reverse that pattern of poverty is through education,” Green said. “Cutting funding hurts kids. We have to be realistic about that.”

Keeping the pressure on

Green and other rural superintendents have traveled to Washington, D.C. almost a dozen times in the past year or so to lobby for Secure Rural Schools. Their work paid off, at least in the Senate, where the bill passed unanimously.

Green and his colleagues plan to keep the pressure on through emails and phone calls to Republican leadership, in hopes of convincing them to support rural schools even as they face pressure from Musk and Trump to slash federal spending.

Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore, president of the National Association of Counties, has also been persistently lobbying for Secure Rural Schools. He said there’s usually some last-minute wrangling before the bill passes, but this year “was vastly different.”

“Every time it comes up, all the cowboy hats show up” to advocate for the bill in Washington, D.C., he said. “This year we had a lot of momentum and we thought we’d get it over the hump. It was a gut punch when it didn’t go through. We were shocked, to be honest.”

Rural areas’ lack of population and money often means that politicians overlook residents’ needs in those areas, Gore said. Likewise, few people outside of rural areas would hear about the impact if programs are cut, he said. None of the House Republican leaders, including Johnson, party leader Rep. Steve Scalise and House Majority Whip Rep. Tom Emmer, represents areas that receive Secure Rural Schools funding. None of the three responded to requests for comment.

“It’s a catastrophe that no one knows about,” said Gore, referring to the bill’s failure. “But we have an absolute responsibility to these small towns, who are the stewards of these largely unmanned federal lands.”

The last Secure Rural Schools payment was in April. Even if Congress returns to funding the bill next year, even one missed year of payments may leave an impact, superintendents said. Children will have fallen behind academically and teachers will have lost their jobs. In small communities where jobs are scarce, layoffs can have a disproportionate impact, sometimes leading to families moving out of the area entirely.

“In the past, we’d go through the motions but we always got it solved by the buzzer,” Hunt said. “This year we’re past the buzzer and we’re in OT. But we won’t quit.”

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COLUMBIA — Citing multiple late audits, reports of possible misspending and the potential to lose federal aid, the state Board of Education agreed Tuesday to take control of Jasper County School District’s finances.

Unlike a state takeover of a school district, which allows the state superintendent to fire the local school board and make decisions in its place, financial control gives the state Department of Education the district’s purse strings but no other decision-making power, a department attorney told the board Tuesday.

“This is essentially like helping them complete their homework,” said board member Chris Hanley, a family doctor in Summerville.

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The state will remain in control of Jasper County schools’ finances at least through June, the end of the fiscal year. However, the state can retain control for as long as necessary to get the district back into fiscal shape.

of the countywide district’s 2,600 students live in poverty. It receives about $21,000 per pupil this school year, with just over a third of that coming from state taxes and 11% from federal aid, according to the latest estimates from the state .

Having control of the finances will allow state officials to intervene and ready the district for state- and federally required audits, which haven’t been done since 2022. The district has contracted with an auditing firm but has not taken any more steps to prepare for auditors to come in and review the district’s finances, said Daniel Haven, a fiscal analyst for the education department.

State officials will also train the district’s financial workers to better track the district’s money and be prepared for upcoming reviews. And the state will help find and train a permanent chief financial officer, since the district has had someone in charge in only a temporary capacity for the past year.

In Jasper County School District’s case, the move came after years of missed deadlines for district-wide audits.

“They need our help,” Haven told the board.

The district, located in South Carolina’s southern tip bordering Georgia, first missed its deadline in December of 2022, prompting the state to put the district on fiscal watch, the lowest of three escalating tiers.

The district turned in that year’s audit and a plan to avoid missing the deadline again. But come 2023, the district again failed to complete an examination of its finances, moving its status to the next tier, fiscal caution.

It submitted another plan to avoid further problems to the state, but state officials declined to accept it until they had the 2023 audit.

Meanwhile, in July, that district officials spent $228,000 on travel and lodging during the prior 3½ years. That same month, the board voted to put then-Superintendent Rechel Anderson on paid administrative leave. The board fired Anderson in October without giving a reason, .

By August, state officials learned that the district had no timeline to complete its audit and the potential to lose federal funding because of the unfinished review, Haven said.

Because of that, state Superintendent Ellen Weaver declared a financial emergency in the district, the highest level of scrutiny from the state. She also called for an investigation by the state Inspector General’s Office for any signs of potential financial waste, misconduct or law-breaking, according to an August letter.

That investigation will continue during the state’s control over the district, Haven said.

As of Tuesday, the district had not submitted its 2023 audit. State officials had not received the district’s 2024 audit by the Monday deadline, Haven said, though districts are allowed to continue submitting without penalty .

A spokesman for the district said it welcomes the agency’s help.

“They will provide guidance and expertise to help us resolve the delays in delivering our 2023 and 2024 financial audits,” Travis Washington said in a statement Wednesday to the SC Daily Gazette. “Additionally, they will assist us in the search for a permanent finance director and help improve our financial practices to ensure quality and efficiency within our finance department.”

The Jasper County district is one of three school districts in danger of a full state takeover, based on its financial and academic performances, a spokesman has said previously. A district is eligible for takeover if the district consistently receives scores of “unsatisfactory” on its annual report cards, if its accreditation is denied, or if the superintendent decides the district’s turnaround plan is insufficient, .

Jasper County schools have not met that criteria, though the district is on the state department’s radar. Four of Jasper County’s six schools were rated average during the 2023-2024 school year. One was below average, and one was unsatisfactory, the lowest possible grade.

Two rural school districts remain under total state control.

Williamsburg County’s local board is , so long as they get state education department approval, in the first step toward moving decision-making powers back to the board. Allendale County remains under complete control, with no clear timeline as to when local leaders might be able to make decisions again.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. SC Daily Gazette maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seanna Adcox for questions: info@scdailygazette.com. Follow SC Daily Gazette on and .

A new initiative from the University of Vermont hopes to address the shortage of mental health professionals available to support the state’s youth.

Known as the Catamount Counseling Collaborative for Rural Schools, the program plans to train and place 52 school counselors, social workers and mental health clinicians in rural schools throughout Vermont for the next five years.

 from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have found rising levels of depression and anxiety among Vermont middle and high school students. 

Despite this, Vermont lacks an adequate number of . In 2023, the state’s Workforce Development Board estimated a need for 230 more providers to meet growing demand. 

The new Catamount Counseling Collaborative for Rural Schools aims to address the gap. 

Through the program — funded by a $3.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education — University of Vermont graduate students are expected to contribute at least 25,000 clinical hours annually to support rural communities.

“Vermont mental health needs are pervasive and complex and they’re currently underserved and this is a way to reach them,” said Anna Elliott, associate professor of counseling.

Elliott, the principal investigator for the grant, has experience running a similar initiative in Montana, where she spent five years developing a program to support rural communities with mental health professionals. 

A key part of the program, Elliot said, is to encourage graduates to continue working in rural schools or mental health facilities after completing their training. She said she tailored the program to Vermont’s unique needs. This included analyzing various statistics from community needs assessments on issues such as suicide rates, substance use disorder and the stigma associated with seeking mental health services, ensuring the program aligns closely with the landscape of Vermont’s mental health needs.

“One of our primary goals in setting up the training program was attending to students’ reports that they often didn’t feel prepared to go and work in a rural environment,” she said. “Having an intensive and intentional training program that sets them up to really understand what they’re walking into and how to be prepared and how to ask for support incentivized students to stay, so we’re hoping to replicate that here.”

The program offers a stipend to those who remain in their assigned schools for at least one year, helping to ease potential barriers like securing a full-time job or finding affordable housing.

In Montana, Elliott said she noticed some graduate students couldn’t stay in rural schools due to limited funding for permanent positions. Other challenges, including housing and job security, also made it difficult for them to remain in these high-need areas.

“I’m taking the model that I did in Montana and integrating that in with the community schools model to not just say, ‘here’s a couple graduate students that will be here for a year’ but let’s actually take a systemic look at what’s happening in the school — what are the needs, resources, barriers and strength,” Elliott said.

To address these challenges, the program focuses on recruiting graduate students who already come from rural areas. By offering low-residency options, the program allows these students to complete much of their coursework remotely. This means they can stay at home rather than moving to campus, making it easier for them to balance their studies with their existing commitments.

“This grant provides significant opportunity to bring students into the helping professions who might not otherwise have access to this kind of specialized training,” said Danielle Jatlow, a co-principal investigator and social worker who coordinates UVM’s bachelor’s of social work program, in a press release from the university.

UVM faculty, including program co-leaders Robin Hausheer and Lance Smith, both associate professors of counseling, are starting outreach to rural schools. They hope to place graduate students in schools as early as this semester, according to the release.

“There are people and kids that are getting served this year that might not have been otherwise,” Elliott said in the release. “So that feels like everything.” 

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COLUMBIA — The Williamsburg County school board will be able to start making decisions again with oversight from the state Department of Education, marking the first move toward regaining local control in six years.

The rural, county-wide district of 2,800 students — located in the Pee Dee between Sumter and Georgetown — has been under the state’s control since 2018, meaning the district Board of Trustees can meet but can’t make any decisions for the district.

The return of some power is the first step in returning control to the locally elected board members, according to a Tuesday news release.

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“We’re excited to serve in the capacity the citizens elected us,” said board Chair Marva Cannion, who was elected in 2019.

A report on the district’s improvements, which a state budget clause requires the state education agency to produce, could offer other poor, struggling school districts some insights into how they might boost performance and avoid a state takeover, Rep. Roger Kirby, D-Lake City, told the SC Daily Gazette on Wednesday. The directive in the state budget was his idea.

When the state first stepped in under then-state Superintendent Molly Spearman, the district was in dire straits financially and academically.

Officials had to repay more than $280,000 to the federal government and use another $368,000 to hire help in following federal spending and reporting requirements, at the time. Less than a quarter of all students could read on grade level, and even fewer third- through eighth-graders were passing their state-required math tests, according to state education data.

The district had been under notice for three years by that point, but little had changed, Cannion said. When Spearman declared a state of emergency and outlined the issues, Cannion agreed something had to happen, she told the Daily Gazette.

“At the time, it was warranted,” Cannion said of the state takeover. “But it is now time, definitely, for local governance.”

Improving grades

District officials thought they had hit the goals Spearmen set for them by 2022. The district’s finances were in order. The past several years of audits found no major issues. And students were improving academically, Cannion said.

When state Superintendent Ellen Weaver started her term last year, she gave a more specific benchmark. All eight of the district’s elementary through high schools needed to be rated at least “average,” Cannion said the department told board members. As of 2022-2023, the district still had three schools falling behind that goal.

When the state for last school year, though, officials saw marked improvements.

The scores were enough for to receive at least an average rating, which takes into account student progress: Five received an “average” rating, two were rated “good,” and one — an arts magnet middle school — rated “excellent,” the highest possible.

Scores in every subject increased from the school year before. The largest jump was in the number of students passing their end-of-course Algebra 2 tests, which went from 20.7% to 59.2% — an increase of nearly 40 percentage points.

Improvements were even more significant when compared with scores during the 2017-2018 school year, the year before the state education agency took over.

On average, the percentage of third- through eighth-graders able to pass the end-of-year English test — showing they can read on grade level and are ready to advance — jumped from 24% to 42%.  In the same group, 25% received passing math scores at the end of last school year, compared to 18% six years before.

Still, just in the district’s Class of 2024 were considered , while 60% met benchmarks for being prepared to enter the workforce.

Students’ performance remains below the state’s , showing the district has more work ahead of it. But the improvements are promising, Kirby said.

“It certainly is an indication that improvements are being made, but I don’t think anyone would argue there’s not progress to be done,” Kirby said.

The state department will continue to monitor the district’s progress over the next year and will discuss next steps with district leadership when the 2024-2025 report cards are out, according to the news release.

How it happened

Monitoring student progress and helping those who lagged behind played a major role in improving test scores, said district Superintendent Kelvin Wymbs, who was hired by the state agency.

After the takeover, the district started assessing students weekly to check their progress, Wymbs said. Teachers could then use those scores to determine which students needed extra help.

Teachers shifted their focus to what is known as tiered instruction, grouping students based on their skill level and giving them different versions of the same lesson in an effort to make sure every student grasped the concepts being taught, Cannion said.

That gave students who were struggling smaller groups to work in, she said.

Beginning in 2022, the district started offering specialized classes for eighth- through 12th-graders who had to repeat a grade at any point and were not on track to graduate.

Students in the program, known as , could enroll in middle and high school-level classes simultaneously, with smaller class sizes than typical, in an effort to make up any credits they may have missed, according to the district.

“These were students who may have been counted as dropouts,” Cannion said.

Partnerships with outside groups have helped give students access to opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise have, such as that offers cybersecurity courses. That, in turn, encourages students to engage with their other schoolwork, Kirby said.

He credited Wymbs’ leadership in pursuing those sorts of opportunities.

“It’s those types of things that could create exceptional outcomes, innovative things that previously were lacking,” Kirby said. “There are new ideas that are yielding results that point to visionary leadership.”

Part of the change came from a shift in culture, Cannion and Wymbs said.

Teachers and administrators tried to drive home a sense of ambition and confidence in students, more than 90% of whom live in poverty, Wymbs said.

“Our students are competent. They want to compete academically,” Wymbs said. “I think we’ve done a good job of instilling the idea that poverty, your ZIP code, none of that matters if you really engage in what we’re trying to teach you.”

The district also hired security officers and started using wands as metal detectors at school entrances in order to bolster security and students’ feeling that they were safe at school.

And a hired consultant helped officials come up with plans and coached teachers, especially the district’s growing population of teachers from other countries, Wymbs said.

“It comes down to personnel and having people who truly care about student success,” Wymbs said.

What comes next

Other school districts, particularly those at risk of a takeover under state law, could use similar methods to improve their own academic performances, Kirby said.

Kirby’s proposal for the state budget directive came out of frustration from Williamsburg County’s board of trustees, who met with him. Inserted by the House during floor debate on the budget, it required the department to give legislators a report on why Spearman took over the district, what the state has done since then, and what specific benchmarks the district must meet to receive full governing powers.

The budget clause, which ended up in the state’s final spending package, was meant to give clarity to the school board, which was “truly almost in the dark for the past four years,” Kirby said at the time.

The report is due by Jan. 1. It must be provided to legislators representing the county. The entire delegation consists of one senator and two House members, with Kirby representing the majority of the county.

The report should give district officials in Williamsburg County a more detailed idea of what to expect moving forward. It could also help other districts understand what, exactly, the department considers success in struggling schools and what help is on the table, Kirby said.

Agency spokesman Jason Raven said the department offers extra support to districts underperforming academically to keep them from getting to the point of a state takeover.

Three districts “facing potential takeover” — Colleton, Jasper and McCormick counties — improved in their report cards this year, he said in an email.

, the former state superintendent, took over three failing districts in a . State law has authorized such takeovers of schools and entire districts since 1998, but no other superintendent had attempted to take control of so many.

The other two were , which remains under state control, and tiny Timmonsville (Florence 4), a district so small that all of its students were on one campus. State control ended there following a with neighboring Florence 1, the county’s largest school district, which includes the city of Florence.

Kirby said the agency’s report could give Allendale County officials a better idea of what benchmarks it needs to meet.

Without that information, Kirby’s not sure what must happen to improve rural districts’ performances, he said.

“I’m anxious to see what the department is recommending,” he said. “What is their answer to this?”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. SC Daily Gazette maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seanna Adcox for questions: info@scdailygazette.com. Follow SC Daily Gazette on and .

Rural Alaska schools despite Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s veto of a multipart education bill this week.

Early Thursday morning, the Alaska House of Representatives voted 36-4 to advance , which offers rural schools as much as $39.4 million in state aid to match federal dollars intended to improve their internet service.

Rep. Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham and the leading House lawmaker behind the bill, said he expects the Senate to take it up speedily and said the governor’s office has told him that Dunleavy is inclined to allow it to become law.

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Legislators must act quickly: March 27 is the final federal deadline for rural school districts to apply for funding that pays for nine in every 10 dollars of their internet bills.

If districts miss that deadline, they won’t be able to reapply until next year.

Currently, the districts are limited to speeds of 25 megabits per second, slow enough that it no longer qualifies as “broadband” under published by the Federal Communications Commission last week.

HB 193 provides a state match for federal funding that pays for speeds of up to 100 mbps.

“No. 1, we don’t have much time left. We have seven days until there’s an absolutely hard stop,” Edgmon said late Wednesday night.

Last year, 151 schools benefited from the program, but many have said that the current limits on bandwidth and speed are too low for modern use.

“We’re in an era when schools are relying more and more on better internet speeds for everything from teleconferencing to taking tests … it’s become an essential service,” Edgmon said.

Rep. Thomas Baker, R-Kotzebue, said that in some of the schools he represents, it might take 15 minutes to open a Wikipedia page, and that some administrators have to cut internet to parts of their school building to ensure that there’s enough bandwidth for other students.

Rep. Alyse Galvin, I-Anchorage, urged lawmakers to support the bill, citing public testimony that showed it took some students four days to take an online test because of inadequate internet. Students in Anchorage could complete the test in a single day, she said.

“If we’re going to have a system of public education, then we need to make sure this gets leveled out,” she said.

Funding for the improved internet program had been included in Senate Bill 140, comprehensive education legislation that passed the House and Senate in February, but Dunleavy vetoed the bill and on Monday, lawmakers failed by a single vote to override the veto.

House Rules Committee Chair Craig Johnson, R-Anchorage, said the push to get HB 193 through the House late Wednesday and early Thursday was at least partially attributable to the Alaska Beacon’s reporting on the issue.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alaska Beacon maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Andrew Kitchenman for questions: info@alaskabeacon.com. Follow Alaska Beacon on and .

When Denise Massey’s daughter was 6 years old, she put the girl, who has Down Syndrome, on a van every morning for speech therapy in El Centro: 100 miles round trip, sometimes braving 120-degree heat, monsoons and severe dust storms known in the desert as haboobs.

Thirteen years later she’s still making that daily trek, because her Imperial County school district is so small it can’t offer a full gamut of special education services, and so remote that there’s nothing closer.

“It was hard at first. My daughter was really tired, and she’d act out,” Massey said. “But it’s been worth it because it’s so important my daughter gets the services she needs.”

Special education is only one of the challenges in rural districts like San Pasqual Valley Unified, a 591-student district in the southeastern corner of the state where Massey’s daughter, Annabelle, is enrolled. Transportation, recruiting teachers, finding contractors, tracking mountains of paperwork and complying with state regulations have become so burdensome that superintendents in those districts are begging for relief. Meanwhile, students like Annabelle  sometimes miss out on opportunities that their peers in more populated areas take for granted.

“We have a system that works through an urban and suburban lens, but leaves rural schools behind,” said Rindy DeVoll, executive director of the California Rural Ed Network, which advocates for California’s hundreds of small, remote schools. “Everyone in education has challenges, but they are amplified for rural districts.”

Rural vs. urban outcomes

Despite California being the most populous state, 35% of its school districts are considered rural – which the state defines as having fewer than 600 students and located more than 25 miles from a city. Nearly every county, including some of the most populous, has rural schools, even Los Angeles.

By most measures, rural students lag significantly behind their urban and suburban peers. They’re well behind the state average in meeting English language arts and math standards, and their graduation rate is 79% — 12 percentage points lower than the state average, according to a CalMatters analysis of California Education Department data. Only 29% complete the classwork required to attend California’s public universities, compared to 50% statewide. The college-going rate is nearly 20 percentage points lower than the state average. 

Despite the hardships, superintendents said, state political leaders rarely consider the needs of rural districts when crafting policies.

“There are those who don’t understand that California extends past Woodland (near Sacramento),” said Jeff Harris, superintendent of the Del Norte Unified School District and chair of a coalition of the state’s six single-district counties. “There’s a lot of well-intended legislation that gives no thought to the impact on rural areas.”

A place of extremes

San Pasqual Valley Unified is near Winterhaven, adjacent to the Fort Yuma Quechan Indian reservation on the California-Arizona border. The area is a patchwork of tribal and non-tribal lands, arid desert and lush green lettuce fields, opulent casinos and a dilapidated trailer encampment called the Jungle. The Colorado River, lined with reeds and cottonwoods, winds slowly to the east. Atop a hill in the center of town sits a historic Catholic mission, a white stucco reminder of the days when the Spanish and Americans colonized the area.

Like many rural communities, Winterhaven struggles with poverty and drug abuse. The town has four cannabis dispensaries and a strip club, but no grocery store. Yet there are also signs of hope and renewal. Cultural festivals are well attended, a modern health clinic recently opened, and a thriving new cafe serves as a community hub.

San Pasqual Valley Unified is also a center of the community. Generations of families have attended school in its tidy cinder block buildings, where the elementary, middle and high schools share one campus. Native American cultural festivals, San Pasqual Valley High Warriors basketball games and science fairs can draw the whole community, and signs in Spanish, English and Quechan adorn school walls and hallways. 

But challenges persist, and state laws can sometimes make things even harder. Last year, for example, California mandated that  by 2035. In San Pasqual Valley, which covers 1,800 square miles of sand and scrub in the Sonoran Desert, the two-hour charge on an electric bus barely gets you through the morning route. 

“It makes no sense,“ said Superintendent Katrina Leon. “I’m all in favor of clean energy, but there’s no way we can comply with this. There has to be some flexibility for districts like us.”

Leon applied for a waiver for the electric bus requirement and is hoping the state grants it — for her students’ sake. One of the district’s bus stops is in a small community called Senator Wash, a remote pumping station on the Colorado River 17 miles away. Leon fears what could happen if an electric bus loses its charge or breaks down, stranding students and the driver in the middle of the desert in extreme heat with no cell service.

“It’s a safety issue,” she said. “We just can’t take that chance.”

Other rural districts face the same challenge. In Mono County, Superintendent Stacey Adler worries whether an electric bus could ascend 8,100-foot Conway Summit in a snowstorm, getting children safely to school. In Del Norte, one of the bus routes runs 70 miles round-trip, on a rugged backroad, and it’s far too risky to send an electric bus loaded with students through the mountains every day, Harris said.

Limited help from government

Small and rural districts can apply for some help through the federal  grant programs. They could use the money for salaries, internet broadband, safe drinking water or other expenses. But the money isn’t much, and not all districts receive funds. In 2022-23, 89 small districts and schools in California shared $5.2 million, with some receiving as little as $6,000. An additional $5 million is available for through a federal grant the state recently won.

The Legislature hasn’t been much help in recent years. Most rural legislators are Republicans, the minority party in both the state Senate and Assembly, with whom urban Democrats often have little incentive to cooperate, said Assemblyman James Gallagher, a Republican from the Chico area who heads the Assembly Republican Caucus.

“California policy largely does not take into account the needs of rural areas. It’s geared toward wealthier, coastal communities. There might be some lip service, but inland, less wealthy areas are stuck with some pretty expensive burdens,” Gallagher said.

DeVoll, of the California Rural Ed Network, said the state can help rural districts by streamlining the bureaucratic paperwork, assisting them in  applying for grants and offering more flexibility with regulations. 

Harris’ single-district counties group, meanwhile, is pushing legislators for  state assistance to build affordable housing for school employees, allow reciprocal agreements with neighboring states to hire teachers and relax student-administrator ratios to accommodate schools that might only have a few dozen students. 

“It’s not a Del Norte County issue. It’s not even a Northern California issue,” Harris said. “It’s an issue of creating equal opportunities for every child, no matter where they live. In small and rural communities, that isn’t always the case and it has to change.”

In San Pasqual Valley, special education is particularly vexing because Yuma, Arizona, only a few miles east, has a plethora of special education services. But they’re off limits to students in San Pasqual Valley because the teachers and therapists are licensed in Arizona, not California, unless the state grants a waiver.

So students like Annabelle, with special needs, either have to rely on virtual services or travel long distances. But in places still more remote than San Pasqual Valley, such as Mono County, even having that choice seems like a luxury. 

“We can’t even bus a child for special ed services, because there’s nowhere to bus them to,” Adler said, noting that Reno is three hours away and Bakersfield five, and in winter the roads are often impassable.

‘Our teachers can’t afford to live here’

But for Adler, Mono County’s school superintendent, the most daunting challenge isn’t special education, it’s housing — or the lack of it. The county is home to Mammoth Mountain, a popular ski resort, and much of the available housing is vacation rentals or second homes.

“Our teachers can’t afford to live here. We get fabulous candidates, but they can’t find a place to live. A lot of them have to turn down the job,” Adler said. “And when you have to hire more specialized positions, it becomes even more challenging.”

Rural schools also find it daunting to hire contractors — especially in districts that border another state. Under California law, districts must hire contractors licensed in California. So even if a district finds a qualified roofer in the next town, for example, the district can’t hire them if the next town happens to be in Arizona, Nevada or Oregon. Few contractors are willing to accept a job that might be hours away, which means many jobs are left undone.

For example, last year the state made two moves to help schools combat extreme heat — a significant issue in San Pasqual Valley, where temperatures can hover in the 100s for weeks on end. In July, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced  with trees and plants, and in October, he signed  easier for schools to build shade structures. 

Although both initiatives would provide welcome relief for San Pasqual Valley, Leon said it was almost impossible to find California-based contractors to do the work.

“We all go into Yuma every single day. It is not a big deal,” Leon said. “Yuma is our community. It makes no sense that we can’t hire there.”

Harris has the same problem in Del Norte, which is close to Brookings, Oregon, but off-limits for hiring without applying for waivers, which is time-consuming, complicated and sometimes unsuccessful. 

Borders and barriers

San Pasqual Valley faces another border challenge, as well: Mexico. A wall traverses the district’s southern boundary, with the Andrade border crossing just a few miles from the campus.  Several dozen students commute through the crossing from Los Algodones, Mexico to attend school. Many are U.S. citizens who live part-time with family in Mexico, and some are children of Mexican farmworkers who travel across the border to toil in Imperial County’s lettuce fields. 

The district’s school buses don’t cross the border, so students rely on rides from their parents. Waits at the border can be long and unpredictable, which means students might have to leave home at 5 a.m. to make it to school by 8 a.m. In addition, the border closes at 10 p.m., which restricts students’ ability to play sports, perform in school plays or hang out with friends on weekends.

Borders can seem like arbitrary lines dividing communities, creating barriers in many aspects of daily life, Leon said.

“Borders are not a thing here. Most of our families have some connection to Mexico,” she said, noting that some employees rely on Mexican health insurance. “When we drive across a border, nothing happens. Flashing lights don’t go off. It’s just part of life here.”

A sacrifice, but ‘worth it’

Despite the challenges, rural schools can offer benefits that are almost unheard of in urban and suburban schools: tight-knit communities where everyone’s rooting for you.

Micah Ericson, a senior at Mono County’s Mammoth High School, said he appreciates the camaraderie he’s experienced at his 350-student school. He plays football, basketball and baseball, and takes online college classes through Cerro Coso College in Kern County. His previous high school in Los Angeles County had 4,000 students — about a third of the population of Mono County — and sports were far too competitive for Ericson to join anything but the wrestling team. 

“It’s just more relaxed here, and it feels like there’s more opportunities,” Ericson said. “I really like the social aspect. You walk around town, and you know a little bit about everybody.”

Ericson plans to move away to attend college next year, and feels he’s well prepared academically as well as socially.

For Denise Massey, Annabelle’s mother, moving away is unthinkable. Her family is there, and as a member of the Quechan tribe, she feels a deep connection to the area. So even when Annabelle needed speech therapy, Massey felt it was better to put her on a van every day to El Centro than move.

That decision was exhausting for the entire family, including Massey’s two older children. Massey switched to the graveyard shift at a local hospital so she could drive Annabelle, when necessary. And Annabelle, stressed from the long commute and being away from home so long, sometimes had meltdowns. 

Now 18, she’s adjusted and has benefited greatly from the special attention she receives in El Centro, Massey said. Outgoing and confident, Annabelle has a slew of friends and is always giving someone a hug or a high five.

“She’s our little superstar,” Massey said. “So it’s been worth it, but we did have to build our whole lives around it. … I wish we had services closer. I think kids in rural areas deserve the same education that other kids get.”

Data reporter Erica Yee contributed to this reporting.

This story was originally published at CalMatters.

A bill requiring public schools to raise teacher pay with no promise of new state funding passed a legislative committee Wednesday in Pierre.

Nobody testified against , but several lobbyists representing the education community called it a work in progress.

“It is not a perfect bill, but a compromise that will hopefully help us attract new teachers and retain the current, experienced teachers, and bring quality education to the students in the state of South Dakota,” said Dianna Miller, a lobbyist for the Large School Group.

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The legislation would set a statewide minimum teacher salary of $45,000, beginning July 1, 2026. That minimum standard would increase each year by a percentage equal to the annual increase in state education funding approved by the Legislature and governor.

The bill would also require schools to raise their average teacher compensation — including pay and benefits — by percentages equal to annual increases in state funding. That requirement would begin with the 2025 fiscal year.

Gov. Kristi Noem, for not matching teacher pay increases with state aid increases, a 4% increase in education funding for the next state budget.

School districts that fail to meet the bill’s requirements could suffer a $500-per-teacher deduction in state education funding. But they could also request a waiver and work with the state School Finance Accountability Board to come into compliance.

Because the bill depends on future legislative decisions to increase state funding, a lobbyist for schools said it will spread the responsibility for teacher salaries beyond local school boards. Schools rely not only on state funding, but also on federal funding and local property tax revenue.

“Let’s make no mistake: This does create some shared responsibility now with the Legislature, because as we move forward, it’s going to be the responsibility of the Legislature to help fund education,” said Mitch Richter, lobbyist for the South Dakota United Schools Association.

Richter said some small, rural schools with stagnant or declining enrollment might be unable to meet the bill’s requirements. State funding for individual schools is tied to enrollment, so schools with declining enrollment may not receive the full benefit of annual increases in state aid. He said some of those rural schools might be forced to consolidate.

“We’ll have to come up with a plan for that, because those districts are going to need some help,” Richter said.

Miller said the bill could also cause difficulties for larger schools with declining enrollment, possibly causing them to use reserve funds to raise teacher pay.

According to the National Education Association, South Dakota ranks (out of 51, due to the inclusion of Washington, D.C.).

That’s despite the passage of a half-percentage-point increase in the state sales tax rate to raise teacher salaries. The legislation sent an infusion of money to schools that pushed South Dakota up a few places in national teacher pay rankings, but the state has slipped in the rankings since then. Last year, legislators and Gov. Noem from 4.5% to 4.2%.

Joe Graves, head of the state Department of Education, said this year’s bill is a continuation of the work that started in 2016. He called the bill a “rock solid step forward in ensuring enhanced compensation for our state’s teachers.”

Graves said the bill includes some provisions to help schools meet the requirements. For example, a provision that was amended into the bill Wednesday would allow school boards to roll some of their excess average compensation forward to future years.

“Districts, in other words, can exceed one year’s increase, in order to have already made progress on future increases,” Graves said.

The House Education Committee voted to send the bill to the House of Representatives. Rep. Phil Jensen, R-Rapid City, and Rep. Stephanie Sauder, R-Bryant, cast the two no votes.

Jensen referenced Rapid City school officials’ inability to win voter approval of bond financing for construction projects, which has made it difficult for the district to maintain its facilities.

“I’m afraid that this would just be disastrous for the Rapid City schools along with all the smaller schools,” Jensen said.

Sauder said the legislation would cause some schools to eliminate teaching positions and combine classrooms.

“It just doesn’t iron out the wrinkles that need to be taken care of before we move forward,” she said.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been altered since its original publication with language to clarify the effect of 2016 legislation on teacher pay.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. South Dakota Searchlight maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seth Tupper for questions: info@southdakotasearchlight.com. Follow South Dakota Searchlight on and .

Arlena Lege is a modern-day traveling saleswoman who represents higher education opportunities at El Paso Community College to hundreds of the region’s rural high school students. Business is good – but it always could be better.

Lege (pronounced leh-JEY) is a “transition specialist” officially, but she is a self-described recruiter. She calls, texts, emails, has virtual office hours and does site visits to provide information to students, parents, families and counselors at high schools in Clint, Fabens, Tornillo, San Elizario and Fort Hancock.

She and two other members of the EPCC Recruitment Services team recently participated in the 2023 TACRAO (Texas Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers) El Paso College Week at Clint High School. EPCC was among the more than 40 institutions of higher education and military service present for the event in the campus gym. While the event was at Clint, students from the other rural schools also participated.

Lege talked about her job as hundreds of students began to mill around the many tables staffed by recruiters from throughout the state and beyond.

“When the students see me at (EPCC) Welcome Days at the start of the semester, they’ll make a point of coming up and telling me how helpful I was to them,” said Lege, who became an EPCC recruiter four years ago. “That just brightens my day.”

Those relationships start or grow stronger at events such as College Week because recruiters often are the initial faces of their institutions.

Lege regularly connects with her rural campuses to talk about admissions deadlines, new degree and credential programs, and work-study opportunities. Her visits along with other special presentations are among the reasons why she accrues approximately 27,000 miles on her car annually.

Campus visits

On this campus visit, the EPCC recruiters covered their table with a purple college drape as well as promotional literature about the institution’s programs and services, as well as SWAG pens marked with the EPCC logo. This day’s crowd is somewhat shy, but the students eventually ask questions about courses, credentials and degree plans in nursing, education, graphic arts, automotive technology, architecture, criminal justice and psychology. Some just want a pen. One group of boys was more interested in the best school for fraternity parties.

The recruiters hand out a bilingual Recruitment Service brochure that features enrollment steps and the, about $1,600 for 12 hours which is called the “best value in El Paso.” Price is important to these students because many of them come from modest backgrounds. Since the 1990s, these rural school districts have been under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Community Eligibility Provision, which allows districts to provide free lunches to all students because at least 40% are considered low income.

Lege stresses the availability of financial aid and scholarships to offset the financial burdens of college. She knows a good percentage dismiss college because they believe they must work to help their families.

For those students, she promotes EPCC’s technical credentials that could be completed in as little as six months. Some of the more popular options include welding, cosmetology, HVAC and diesel mechanics. Her hope is that they will access the financial aid, do well in school and decide to stay for an associate degree.

Briana Lujan, a senior at Fort Hancock High School, called college a “massive risk” but she knows that it is a ticket to a better job and a financially stable future. She wants to start with a cosmetology credential and then move on to a child care career.

Lujan said her initial concern is the cost of tuition and fees, but also transportation. She said the distance – approximately 48 miles – means she will need a car and that includes gas, insurance and a parking permit.

“College is pricey, but that degree would make my family proud, ” Lujan said.

Lorena Flores, Fabens High School college adviser, said she appreciated Lege’s hands-on efforts to connect with her students because many cannot travel to attend recruiting events at EPCC. Flores said face-to-face visits take the recruiting beyond the brochures and videos to create a sense of inclusion.

“(Lege’s) presence makes them think a little more about attending her institution,” Flores said. “It’s like you’re telling the students that you want them there.”

Socorro resident Eddie Villalba graduated from Clint High School in 2022. He said he did not interact with recruiters in high school, but enrolled at EPCC because he thought a smaller campus would suit him better.

Villalba took as many dual credit classes as possible in high school because they were free and to speed up his time to get a degree. He earned an EPCC scholarship that pays for more than half of his college expenses, and juggles his classes with a job as a veterinary tech. The Clint alumnus expects to earn an associate degree in geology next spring, and plans to apply for a job with the U.S. Forest Service.

Villalba said he has enjoyed his college experience in part because of the freedom to select a class schedule around his job, and because faculty always seemed available when he had questions. It also has helped him grow up.

“Going to school is up to you,” Villalba said. “It’s your responsibility to do better for yourself.”

According to EPCC and University of Texas at El Paso records, a small but steady percentage of the rural graduates enroll at their institutions. In most cases, the numbers are still below their pre-pandemic levels, but EPCC’s focus on career-oriented and short-term credentials should help.

The  recently released the preliminary results of its fall 2023 enrollment study. Among its highlights was the growing student interest in credential programs. In contrast to 2022, enrollment for certifications rose almost 10% compared to 3.6% for associate degrees and less than 1% for bachelor’s degrees.

In a study released in January 2022, the  stated that rural-serving post-secondary institutions play an important role in the academic and social well-being of a rural community. The study showed that rural-serving institutions (RSIs) directly or indirectly affect millions of people. One example was during the pandemic when institutions worked to provide technology to students with poor internet access so they could continue their education.

As part of the report, Andrew Koricich, the project’s principal investigator and the alliance’s executive director, said that RSIs were important academic access points for low-income students and those from marginalized racial backgrounds, and were critical to regional economic development because they often are among their region’s largest employers.

Lege said her main message to her rural students is to dream big and to not stress if they do not have an immediate plan for their lives.  

“I tell them they will be happier if they follow a path that they choose themselves,” Lege said.

Lege said the recent College Week event is a warm up for the busy part of her year in early 2024 when EPCC engages in numerous Operation College Bound activities. That is where counselors, advisers, and representatives from the offices of admissions, financial aid and new student orientation go to the rural campuses to help with registration.

But Southeast Lauderdale High School, near Meridian, Mississippi, is not like most schools. Its teachers and staff have made connection and belonging a top priority, with the goal of matching every student with at least one extracurricular activity. Their reasoning? When students are involved in something outside of their core classes, they are more likely to show up at school, build relationships with their peers and staff and succeed academically.

So the school’s student success team — staffers charged with knowing and supporting every student — got together to find a tailored solution for Jamyreon.

He is now the high school’s basketball manager. Jamyreon travels with the team, dresses up on game days, films the games and reviews footage. His teachers have seen improvement in his schoolwork and participation in class. As for the basketball coach and team, they find Jamyreon essential — he’s not only the manager, but very much part of the team.

Southeast Lauderdalel’s approach to strengthening connections can be a model for other schools, particularly amid heightened concerns about student mental health, absenteeism and disengagement. 

The U.S. surgeon general recently issued an calling loneliness an epidemic for the population at large, while noting that the rate among young adults has increased every year between 1976 and 2019. By all accounts, the pandemic’s disruptions only .

Rural communities, like the one served by Southeast Lauderdale High School, face particular challenges. For example, rural residents generally experience more obstacles in accessing mental health care, a challenge known as of availability, accessibility, affordability and acceptability. A recent poll from the data estimates there are just under 400 students for every school counselor in the highest-priority states. 

Rural schools cannot solve the youth mental health and loneliness epidemic alone, but they do have a critical role to play in connecting students to those around them. Research from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that when students feel that adults and peers in school know and care about them, they are less likely to poor mental health and persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness.

Several factors have been key to Southeast Lauderdale’s success in strengthening student connection: 

First, the school leans on the research-driven framework, which encourages schools to designate a group of adults focused on monitoring and improving engagement and connection. Dubbed the student success team, these teachers, coaches, counselors and administrators meet regularly to develop strategies for getting more students involved in activities. As one of 20 members of the Rural Schools Collaborative’s, Southeast Lauderdale receives coaching and technical assistance for its student success team from.

Second, the team has adopted an expansive definition of student data beyond grades and test scores. Southeast Lauderdale also measures student connection to school — in this case, involvement in extracurricular activities.

Its method is one that any school could replicate: a shared Google spreadsheet. The team listed all the students on the spreadsheet and sent it around to school staff so they could input information on which students were connected to which activities — football, cheer, career and technical education clubs and more. The team found that 40% of students were not involved in any activities beyond required courses.

Focusing on those unconnected students, the team sought to find a place for each of them,  matching activities with their interests. For example, a student survey showed that several were interested in a color guard team. A teacher stepped forward to coach the team, and it now includes 10 students, all of whom had not been not connected to any activity before.

Since last year, the percentage of uninvolved students at Southeast Lauderdale has fallen from 40% to just 12%. And after one-on-one meetings with those who remain unconnected, each student has agreed to try something new in the fall.

A healthy American future must include a thriving rural landscape, and schools will be at the forefront of this effort. To address the growing epidemic of isolation and loneliness, schools in rural areas should prioritize relationships and connectedness. Southeast Lauderdale High School in Mississippi is showing how.

Disclosure: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provides financial support to the and ����Ӱ��.

policies that weaken residential assignment can significantly expand students’ options by letting them attend public schools outside their assigned attendance zones. Parents and students can use open enrollment to find schools with open seats that offer the right academic fit, an escape from bullying, better commutes or a variety of other benefits.

Unsurprisingly, open enrollment is popular with parents. According to , 70% of parents with children in public schools are in favor of it. That support spans both sides of the political aisle, with 67% of Democrats and 66% of Republicans expressing support.

Unfortunately, school districts often oppose robust open enrollment proposals. The reasons range from fear of being “” by nonresident, and presumably less affluent, students to concern that an exodus will , force school closures and spur districts to compete with one another.

Fears of this sort, however, are overblown, as last year that 80% of parents say they are completely or somewhat satisfied with the quality of their children’s K-12 education. While open enrollment would let dissatisfied students transfer to new public schools, the vast majority don’t want to.

In fact, there are reasons for school districts to support open enrollment. It can provide an opportunity to attract new students, especially in the face of declining student populations caused by demographic changes or competition. For instance, , a former school district administrator, used Texas’s open enrollment policy after his district lost students to charter and magnet schools. By implementing strategies such as launching specialized schools, his district gained 145 transfer students.

In Ohio, a found the state’s open enrollment program promoted competition and improvement in rural school districts. More than two decades later, research by suggested that high rates of rural Ohio districts are participating in the open enrollment program because they recognize it can help “attract more students and the accompanying state funding” at a time of declining student rosters.

In California, a found some districts that initially lost students to others through open enrollment then went on to improve, reduce the number of student transfers and even attract new transfer students. Five years later, the office reported that participating in the voluntary program were small, rural and using open enrollment to “generate a notable share of their revenue.” Without attracting more students and parents via open enrollment, some of these very small districts would not be fiscally viable.

A found that a high percentage of students enrolled in some rural school districts had transferred from districts a long distance away because they were willing to make longer commutes for the schools of their choice. Some sought-after rural post among the highest rates of inbound student transfers in the state, sustaining their enrollment levels.

Most recently, a found school district administrators in Arizona, North Carolina, Indiana and Florida believe open enrollment incentivizes them “to create new or enhance existing programs in order to increase and retain enrollment.”

These examples illustrate that open enrollment can benefit public school districts, helping to increase enrollment even if their local student population is declining. The additional funds accompanying transfer students help these districts, often small or rural, stay afloat, further demonstrating that school choice is not a death knell for district public schools. In fact, districts worrying about population and migration trends reducing their enrollment may have the most to gain from open enrollment, using it to retain existing students and attract new ones.

Ultimately, districts should embrace open enrollment as an important, straightforward school choice reform with wide-reaching benefits for the large number of students currently enrolled in traditional public schools.

While Hofmeister occasionally led the polls in the weeks before the election, the race wasn’t close on Tuesday night. The Associated Press called the race for Stitt, with unofficial results showing the incumbent with 56% of the vote. 

“This hard-fought election has proven that Oklahomans with different political perspectives can carve a path built on common sense, respect for one another and working hand-in-hand to get things done,” Hofmeister . She congratulated Stitt and said she would “work with him in whatever capacity I’m able.”

With Stitt’s appointed education secretary Ryan Walters for state superintendent, the governor has a unified front to push forward on his agenda to create  and restrict lessons on race and gender. Stitt’s school choice plan —  allowing state education funds to flow directly to families to spend at private schools — became a defining issue in the race. Stitt said parents should be able to escape low-performing schools, and blamed Hofmeister for a lack of improvement during her tenure.

Hofmeister, meanwhile, argued that his proposal would wipe out rural schools that anchor their communities. 

Hofmeister won two terms as a Republican state superintendent. In switching parties last year, she picked up some support from those who view Stitt as too far right and question his integrity.

A  little over a week before the election, former Oklahoma Congressman J.C. Watts appeared in a supporting Hofmeister. 

“I was a Republican then, and I’m a Republican now, and, friends, I’m voting for Joy Hofmeister,” Watts said in the video. “All this scandal and corruption is just too much. Joy is a woman of faith and integrity. She’ll always put Oklahoma first. I know Joy personally, and I trust her, and you can too.”

While charges of corruption dogged Stitt during the campaign, the accusations proved not damaging enough to cost him the election. The governor’s relationship with the owner of a barbeque restaurant chain has been because of a contract the company received for renovating restaurants in state parks. The head of the state’s tourism agency after a legislative investigation found overspending on the projects. 

In another case, found that the state mishandled $650,000 in federal COVID relief funds when the company it hired to oversee a grant program for low-income families approved expenses for items such as video games and Christmas trees. 
Stitt about those issues in recent interviews and attributed the accusations to “special interests trying to buy this election.”

But then Hofmeister, a former teacher and onetime owner of a Tulsa tutoring company, put half a million miles on her car traveling throughout the state. She listened as educators spoke of the challenges facing small-town schools. 

“She was willing to listen and learn by getting out into our districts,” Ford said.

Educational options in those communities are now center stage as voters prepare to choose their next governor. Incumbent Gov. Kevin Stitt is campaigning on a statewide platform and promises to “support any bills … that would give parents and students more freedom to attend the schools that best fit their learning needs.”

A that died in the Senate earlier this year would have opened them to children in families that earn roughly three times what it takes to qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, with most awards ranging from $5,900 to about $8,100. Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat, a Republican, has pledged to if Stitt wins.

But Hofmeister, who switched parties to challenge Stitt as a Democrat, has called the proposal a because it would pull funding from traditional districts.

“I have gone to those communities that have lost their school, and then they lose their town,” Hofmeister told ����Ӱ��. 

As the leader of one of the reddest states in the country, Stitt fully embraces the GOP education agenda, from how teachers discuss race and gender to a policy that allowed students to use bathrooms that match their gender identity. In his State of the State this year, he said, “God gave kids to parents — not the government!” He , who is finishing her second term, for a lack of improvement in Oklahoma schools, while she points to financial scandals under his watch.

show Stitt’s lead over Hofmeister shrinking — a reflection, some say, of the power of her message about rural schools. 

“We’ve hit on an issue that strikes at the heart of a community’s identity,” said Amber England, a public affairs and political consultant who previously ran an education nonprofit. 

A Hofmeister supporter, England said Stitt might roll into a rural town “with a hat on and cowboy boots,” but doesn’t grasp that his proposal won’t help students in remote areas without private schools.

Rural schools depend more on state funding than those with a larger tax base, said Ford, executive director of the Organization of Rural Oklahoma Schools. Vouchers, he said, could translate to an annual loss of $350 million in funding for public schools.

“We’re worried about money,” he said. “Anytime you take money out of the formula, how are you going to replace it?”

But Trent England, a fellow at the conservative Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, accused Hofmeister of seeking to preserve a one-size-fits-all system and “trying to scare people” by implying vouchers will shutter rural schools — often the largest employers in these towns. 

“There are serious problems in public schools, and that’s not limited to urban areas,” said England, who is not related to Amber England. 

‘Hard feelings’

On his campaign website, Stitt said Hofmeister hasn’t done enough to fix Oklahoma’s schools, which have ranked low for decades. The 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress put the state among those performing the U.S. average in math and reading. 

Hofmeister said one way to improve schools is to address the state’s teacher shortage. She has proposed a $5,000 as part of a budget request for next year’s legislative session. Meanwhile, Stitt proposed a bill that would push some teacher salaries to as high as . But the only legislation that passed was a new incentive and scholarship to push high schoolers to major in education when they go to college. 

Oklahoma teachers haven’t had a substantial raise since 2018, when the legislature passed a $6,100 increase, falling short of the $10,000 they asked for. They walked out for nine days, part of the wave of “Red for Ed” demonstrations across the country. Walking out even after lawmakers boosted their pay, Ford said, “created hard feelings between the teachers and legislators” that linger today. 

“Our teachers don’t feel respected,” he said. 

Those feelings have only increased with Republicans’ efforts to clamp down on lessons and educator training that address institutional racism, . In July, the state board of education the Tulsa district’s accreditation after a state prompted by Stitt concluded the district’s training materials violated the state’s law banning critical race theory. 

“I firmly believe that not one cent of taxpayer money should be used to define and divide young Oklahomans by their race or sex,” he said in on the audit. “Let’s teach students, not indoctrinate them.” 

Ryan Walters — the state’s education secretary, a new position created by the governor — has tweeted calling out teachers he says push far-left ideology. Walters, who is running for state superintendent, trails Democrat Jena Wilson, a middle school teacher in Oklahoma City, according to a released last month.

“Many teachers state they don’t know how they will be able to remain teaching should the outcome of the race be a win for both men,” said Stacey Woolley, president of the Tulsa Board of Education. “Many have directly said they will resign immediately.”

‘Overseeing the money’

In addition to decrying Stitt’s culture war focus, his critics draw attention to the misuse of $650,000 in federal relief funds distributed through ClassWallet, an online payment system for educators. Walters oversaw the $8 million program, which offered $1,500 grants to low-income families for educational expenses. 

But some spent the money on video games, Christmas trees and cookware, a . that in his role as executive director of an education nonprofit, Walters helped ClassWallet secure the contract. The ClassWallet’s parent company, Kleo Inc., for breach of contract.

Stitt’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment. 

With Hofmeister and Stitt scheduled to debate on the 19th and the election still weeks away, the race is expected to be close. 

Kenneth Hicks, a political science professor at Rogers State University, said the results might hinge more on voter reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in , which took away the constitutional right to abortion and returned the decision to the states. 

“It was easy as a campaign issue for Stitt to say he would sign any ,” Hicks said “Republicans may be finding themselves regretting jumping on that issue with both feet.”

Regardless of the reason for the race’s narrowing gap, some of Stitt’s supporters are nervous.

“For Republicans, it’s certainly closer than it should be,” Trent England said, but added Oklahomans are “staunchly pro-life” and support the governor’s opposition to transgender females using girls’ locker rooms. 

In a state that was solidly Democratic until its Congressional delegation began to shift in the 1980s, Amber England is hoping for an upset. As someone who led a successful campaign in the state in 2020, she’s seen surprises on Election Day.

“Voters don’t get enough credit for making good decisions at the ballot box,” she said. “If we’re able to run a race in Oklahoma on the issue of protecting public schools, that’s a game changer for our friends across the country.”

Working in a region of rural Arkansas long plagued by teacher shortages, Eveon Rivers seems like the perfect candidate to lead a classroom. With 18 years of pre-K teaching experience, she knows how to work with young people. And a self-described “Greek mythology person,” she has a passion for high school history — the subject she wants to teach.

She’s missing just one qualification: a bachelor’s degree. 

Now, a program that aims to combat rural teacher shortages by upskilling qualified school staff is helping her actualize her dreams — at a bargain price. Rivers pays $75 per month and has only three more semesters left before she graduates and can get her teaching certification.

“Who can beat a BA for $1,800?” said the veteran educator. “That’s a no-brainer.”

Across large swaths of Arkansas, the problem of persistent teacher shortages predated the pandemic, but has “become more apparent” over the last few years, said Karli Saracini, the state’s assistant commissioner of educator effectiveness. In many districts, especially in the southeast Delta region, over 10% of teaching roles are now held by unlicensed educators, according to state data. 

Joe Ross, president of California-based Reach University, believes the solution lies close at hand. Nationwide, over a million paraprofessionals work side-by-side with lead teachers, he points out, and many have the know-how to step into greater responsibility. His school’s model, he said, helps eliminate financial and geographic barriers for those educators so they can gain the credentials necessary to lead a classroom.

“The degree is fully job-embedded from the very first day to the very last day,” Ross explained, meaning candidates continue earning a salary in their existing jobs all the way through the program. Thanks to Pell grants and funding the school receives as an apprenticeship provider, no student pays more than $900 per year, he said, and the program is free for participating districts.

To be eligible, candidates must be employed in a partner school system. They complete half of their degree through on-the-job work, including workplace-based assignments, such as observing and reflecting on the techniques of a veteran teacher, and practicum-style courses that award credit directly for their efforts in the classroom. The other half of the degree comes through online seminars held after work hours and on weekends designed to help the future teachers apply theory to what they’re learning on the ground.

Reach University already serves over 250 learners in Arkansas and roughly 1,000 nationwide.  Now, the program is poised to grow even further. In September, the U.S. Department of Education granted Reach University more than to place some 650 fully certified teachers into high-needs Arkansas classrooms over the next five years. And in late September, Reach received another from the education department to grow its teacher training efforts in Louisiana and is a partner in a separate in that state received by Tulane University. Outside Arkansas and Louisiana, Reach also serves educators in Alabama and California.

In Arkansas, at least . In 2020-21, more than in the state did not employ a single Black, Indigenous, Hispanic or Asian teacher of record, despite some 40% of students holding those racial identities.

“It can change the teacher force by truly opening doors that are currently shut for way too many people,” said David Donaldson, managing partner for the National Center for Grow Your Own educator pipeline programs. There’s recently been a “massive increase” in school officials’ interest in such programs nationwide, he said. But Reach, founded in 2006, is one of the organizations with the most effective and accessible models, he believes.

“To see them spread across the country, they’re really doing good work.”

Some 90% of Reach graduates in Arkansas will be re-hired in the same district after they complete the program, according to the . It’s a boon in the eyes of Carolyn Theard-Griggs, dean of the National College of Education at Chicago-based National Louis University.

“People have a tendency to stay in schools longer if they’re near their home base,” she observed. 

The expansion is much needed, said Saracini, of the Arkansas state education department. Too many otherwise-qualified staff get boxed into lower-paying positions like classroom aides because they can’t afford to go back and study for a degree.

“The people who would make some of our best teachers are some of those paraprofessionals, but they just can’t break that employment and lose those benefits,” she explained. When they do land full-time teaching gigs, however, their pay can more than double.

Furthermore, the training model, Ross argues, mints educators with stronger teaching skills than traditional programs that often graduate and certify candidates after just a semester of student teaching. Reach educators have at least two years working in the classroom under their belts by the time they complete their degrees.

“That will create better teachers,” said the university president. “It will create a rank of graduates who are respected for having this degree.”

Rivers, who will graduate at the end of 2023, agrees.

“I have all this experience. I feel like I’ll be a seasoned teacher,” she said. Her district outside Little Rock, she added, has a job awaiting her when she becomes licensed.

“I want to be a cool history teacher. I want to make it fun for the kids. … I want to dress up, do the props.” 

For now, on her paraprofessional salary, Rivers has to deliver UberEats and Grubhub in the evenings to make ends meet. On nights her delivery work and course schedule overlap, she sometimes uses a phone stand in her car to join class.

“I like the leeway where I can tune in on my phone,” she said. “It’s so accessible.”

Many of the Arkansas school systems facing the most dire need for licensed teachers, Saracini explained, are also areas where higher education is the least accessible, with no nearby options for four-year degrees. Reach fills in the gap, expanding “in some of our most-needed areas,” she said, by offering a model where candidates can build on their community college credits without needing to commute.

Years ago, Rivers was able to complete her associate’s degree while working pre-K, but lacks her bachelor’s. She had previously worked toward a BA, but was forced to stop when her financial aid dried up. 

When she found out about Reach, it was her “saving grace,” she said. “It’s affordable, it’s flexible and the professors are good.”

Now, she talks about the program to anyone who will listen.

“I tell a lot of people about it,” she said. “A lot of people have been in the school system a long time and a lot of people are just starting. So, if you’re going to be there, why not further your education?”

Disclosure: Walton Family Foundation and the Stand Together Trust provide financial support to Reach University and ����Ӱ��.