Doing the Most With What They Have

Every highly productive rural school system has found its own way to success

In interviews the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University conducted with leaders of outlier rural districts — those where student outcomes exceeded predictions — we found each rural district had its own story. What was clear was that every highly productive rural school system has found its own way to success, rooted in its own unique local context, with its own mix of variables that may contribute to its secret productivity sauce. Here are excerpts of what we heard from three representative superintendents.

Bret Miles, Superintendent in Holyoke, Colo., 2009-2015

Located 13 miles from the Nebraska border in Colorado’s far northeast corner, Holyoke is a predominantly agricultural community with about 600 students in K-12. The community is home to Seaboard Farms, a large hog production corporation.

“I grew up in Holyoke and graduated from the local high school. … When I came in as superintendent, the school board had identified two main problems … low levels of teacher buy-in and declining community support.

“Within the district, we built a Standard of Excellence Team comprised of teachers, parents and business leaders to analyze student achievement, set goals and get community buy-in. … It’s this kind of genuine accountability that comes in a small rural district that isn’t understood in the bigger picture of the accountability movement. …“With our budget crunch we had to reduce personnel, fortunately mostly through attrition. We don’t have teacher aides for extra classroom support anymore. … Our base salary hadn’t changed in 10 years. That’s not good, but it’s our reality. We’ve just asked teachers to take on more. But our leadership team is a teacher team. Teachers feel valued. Some 90 percent of our teachers say they feel the district is moving in the right direction and they feel supported. …

“Maintaining that positive climate is an important part of every decision. We go to the teachers to make sure they can get on board with every strategy we implement. … We’ve changed our curriculum, grading policies and technology expectations. We’ve been recognized for closing our socio-economic achievement gap. Some 44 percent of students are Latino and about a quarter are English language learners, some 50 percent are eligible for free or reduced-price meals. This was possible only because of the high staff buy-in. With just 50 teachers, we can really make sure we communicate with and hear from everyone.”

Pam Kruse, Superintendent in Mason, Texas, 2009-present

On the western side of Hill Country by the scenic Llano River, Mason (population 2,200) sits in one of the state’s most rural counties, where farms and ranches dominate. About 700 students are enrolled in the district.

“I’ve worked in Mason schools for 28 years. … Our teachers are very involved in individual students’ learning so they know what each of them needs. And we’ve really set up our district so that no student can just fall through the cracks.

“On Fridays, we have ‘prime time’ that provides remediation in each subject for the elementary grades. … In January, we give our benchmark for the tests in the spring. If we see kids who have trouble, we put them into a tutorial group. In junior high and high school, at every level we have remediation built into the schedule. …

“We spend at least 90 percent of our budget on staff. Of the federal money we receive, approximately 98 percent of that goes to salaries. Our philosophy is the more staff we have, the better off the kids are. …

“We’re trying to upgrade all of our facilities, but mostly that’s an area where we’ve done without because we wanted to focus on instruction. We have a 1952 school building for preK-8 and a 1976 building for our high school. … There’s not a lot of money here and not a lot of ways to make money here.

“But my teachers go the extra mile … I have teachers who come up here at 7 in the morning and who are here at 6 at night to tutor the kids. … I’ve had teachers from other districts say to me that there’s just no place like Mason where everyone cares so very much about the kids. I can’t take credit for that. That has always been a part of Mason.”

Mark Platt, Superintendent in Hart, Mich., 2013-present

About six miles inland from Lake Michigan, Hart sits in an agricultural zone with several fruit and vegetable processing operations. One of the county’s top employers is the world’s largest maraschino cherry producer. Tourists come for beaches and looming sand dunes. The district enrolls about 1,300.

“Before I became superintendent, our district had purposely closed outlying schools and created a central campus. … The first thing we did when I took over … was start to better manage the things we had control over. We have one campus with four buildings, an early childhood center plus elementary, middle and high school. We have one bus run, with everyone on it from K-12. We’ve saved a lot of money.

“Those savings let us invest in a consistent, quality elementary school literacy program and every teacher gets trained in it. ... And we’ve invested heavily in leadership. It’s very important to me that the principals and I be the educational leaders. I don’t spend a ton of time on finances; I have a finance director. …

“Of course, there’s value in sending teachers to training, but the staff members I have the greatest return on are my principals. … Because they are educational leaders, they can create great PD in their own building that’s responsive to their school’s specific needs. … We’re the only district in our state where all of our principals have gone through a 10-month Leadership Matters specialty endorsement program. It focuses on coaching, collaboration, reflection, courage, intentionality and technology.

“We don’t have a lot of discretionary money, but when we do have extra dollars to spend, it’s almost always on instruction. We just used general fund dollars for a one-to-one Chromebook program in our secondary school. … We wanted to give kids greater access to broader course offerings through the Internet.”