Rural Matters

We wanted to know more about the rural school districts that serve high poverty communities so first we statistically rounded up the 7604 districts nationwide that have over half their students in a school that is physically located in a rural community. Then we identified the 800 – about 10 percent -- that have the highest rate of eligibility for the federal Title I program. That is the program providing funds for disadvantaged students. We’ll call these 800 high-poverty rural districts the "rural 800."

Continue reading to find out more about these districts and to see a chart of the 16 states where most Rural 800 districts are located.

Continue reading "The "Rural 800" Districts" »

Posted by Marty Strange at 09:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In an earlier post , we asked a question about how rural schools have addressed housing needs as a way to recruit and retain teachers. Here’s the original question:

Our school has teacher retention problems due to many things, including lack of housing near the school. We are thinking about buying a house that we could rent out to new teachers and are wondering if this has been tried before and if it was successful.

We’ve received several examples of specific ideas that rural schools are using as well as additional ideas for addressing this vexing problem.

We thought these ideas deserved their own post, so we’ve listed them below (some are also in the comment section of the original post).

If you would like to contact the person who sent the idea, please email Rural Matters editor and we will help put you in contact with the person who submitted the idea.

Thanks to everyone who shared their knowledge. Please feel free to add to the discussion by adding a comment below.

SOLUTIONS TO RURAL TEACHER HOUSING DILEMMAS

NEW! September 4, 2007 FROM CALIFORNIA: There are schools that provide teacherages here in northern California. Kashia, a school of 14 students, has a teacherage. I believe the teacher pays a small amount of rent for it each month. There are other examples of this in isolated rural areas. In Zenia, CA there were two houses on the school property; one for the teacher and the other for the bus driver/maintenance person.

FROM MONTANA: In rural Eastern Montana small schools often have a “teacherage”, a small house near the school, or even on school property, that they offer as free housing in order to keep teachers. These rural schools are sometimes 50 miles from the nearest small town, so providing free housing is essential.

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FROM NEW MEXICO: In New Mexico, a rural school (Tatum Municipal Schools) established building construction classes for high school students, bought materials and had them build housing (for teachers, I think) owned by the district. They report good success with this.... Another New Mexico school who has been doing this for some time is Santa Fe High School...although not necessarily a rural school.

Continue reading "Solutions for Rural Teacher Housing Question" »

Posted by Robin Lambert at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This legislative session in West Virginia has been dominated by a debate over teacher pay increases, and teachers in some districts staged a walkout, causing some school cancellations. Teacher organizations had pushed for a 6% raise, but the legislature only approved 3.5%. According to the West Virginia Education Association, West Virginia teacher salaries rank 47th lowest in the nation.

Posted by Robin Lambert at 01:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Mountain State is one of several around the country that will consider raising the compulsory school age to 18 this legislative session. Other bills that will likely be taken up this session including setting a cap of 25 students in classrooms in grades seven through twelve, and providing the state’s PROMISE scholarship to students who live in West Virginia but commute to school in another state. Teachers rallied at the capitol for a 6% pay raise; governor Joe Manchin proposed a 2.5% raise, while the Chair of the Senate Finance Committee and the senate Majority Leader have both made statements supporting the teachers’ request. Another bill would prohibit local (county) Board of Education members from acting on their own behalf as school board members unless authorized by law.

Posted by Robin Lambert at 04:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)