 This meeting is now being recorded. So, again, welcome to today's webinar brought to you by the Appalachia Regional Comprehensive Center or the ARC. Please go ahead and type in the chat window and let us know who you are and where you hail from. We'd love to hear from you. So, very briefly, I'm Caitlin Howley and I'm fortunate enough to serve as the Associate Director of the ARC. ARC is one of 15 regional centers funded by the US Department of Education to provide capacity building technical assistance to state departments of education. ARC serves four states, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. So welcome, y'all. And now I'm really thrilled to introduce you to our presenters for today. Dr. Hover Harman is one of the nation's leading experts on public education in rural America. He's currently an independent consultant and is the co-director of the Rural Math Excel Partnership, which was awarded an I-3 grant from the US Department of Education. It's operated by Virginia Advanced Study Strategies. He's also held numerous state positions. He was Executive Assistant to the Superintendent of West Virginia. He was the Associate Director and Acting Director of the ARC Clearinghouse on Rural Education in Small Schools. His work's been honored by the National Rural Education Association and the Association of Educational Service Agencies. And he's been very widely published in places like the Rural Educator and the Journal of Research in Rural Education. He earned his doctorate from Penn State University. I'd also like to introduce Richard Lehmann, who is an education consultant right now. He's worked at the West Virginia and Virginia Departments of Education for about 23 years. He's been the Director of Secondary Education, the Director of Regional Services, Deputy State Superintendent, Director of the Region 1 and 8 Governor's Best Practice Centers, and Director of Teacher Quality Enhancement, among lots of other stuff I've gone by the night. His experience also includes local education agency leadership. He's served as the Chief Academic Officer for Roanoke City Public Schools and also as the Superintendent of Schools for King and Queen County Schools, which is a rural Virginia division that serves about 850 kids. He's also taught on the secondary level and middle school. He's driven a bus when needed and has taught for the Virginia Community College System and Marshall. And he earned his doctorate from UVA. So we're really delighted to have both of these folks here today to talk with us. They both have real deep experience. Just so you have a sense of where we're going today, these are our webinar objectives. They shouldn't be any surprised to you. It'll look very familiar from the registration page. First is to consider the institutional capacity of rural school districts. Second, to learn about the instructional support capacity of rural districts. Third, to examine some common capacity limitations of rural places. And then finally to lay the groundwork for our second webinar, which is going to focus on how to differentiate support to rural districts to overcome capacity limitations and also to help them better implement state and federal initiatives. So let's get rolling. I'm going to turn things over to Hobart now. Hobart, it's all yours. Thanks, Katelyn. It's a privilege, certainly, to be able to participate in what obviously is an example of how much of technical assistance in the future to public schools in rural America will be through distance learning. And that's good news. I know from experiences with school districts recently in Montana and Pennsylvania and Virginia and other places that people enjoy the face-to-face meetings. And we need that, obviously. But we have a tremendous issue with access to up-to-date information, and so this obviously also illustrates one of the ways that capacity limitation will be addressed in the future. I would like to talk briefly about institutional capacity of rural school districts. Obviously we hear a lot about the weaknesses, or think we do, and each person probably has in their mind what our capacity weaknesses in rural school districts, and we also know that rural school districts or divisions, as they're called in Virginia, have differing capacities depending on where you're located and, of course, the wealth of the state, the capacity of the State Department to give assistance, and other kinds of issues. The work I'm referring to, particularly as the work that Bob Stevens did in 1999 for the rural, especially, that I directed on behalf of the 10 regional laboratories, we've asked Bob to write a document that could help lay out some of the key characteristics of rural school districts from the standpoint of how they can or can't pursue rural school improvement initiatives. And, of course, as we know in the late 90s, and that was a time when there was major education reform, and all of us could quickly agree that the reform wagon hasn't stopped. In fact, there's more and more been thrown onto it. At a time no doubt when there's also terrific stress occurring, not only in urban places, but particularly in rural, from the recession, manufacturing jobs that once were prominent in rural places, of course, have moved overseas, or jobs have been replaced by technology. So the reality is, what was commonly considered capacity limitations pretty much because of the small-scale kinds of institutions that existed in rural America, they now are under particular stress because of the changing in the local economy as it tries to react to the global economy. And some people, obviously, would argue that it's difficult to have viable school systems if we don't have viable communities in rural America. So it's a symbiotic relationship, and in just a minute I'll explain partly why those of us in education deal with those limitations in rural school systems. These, in some part, also are outgrow of the capacity limitations that exist in rural places. So we're in a time of great change. Public education is under numerous kinds of efforts to improve education and, of course, accountability has increased drastically. Some of the strengths, though, that are natural to rural America, or schools in rural America, and these have changed some. And of course, here we know we're talking about particularly schools in the four state regions of West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia, and they differ a lot, as we all know. But some strengths that typically exist in rural school systems, less bureaucracy is usually common. Now, there again, as we talk about rural school systems, though, there are considerable differences. And so in county-wide school systems, there may be more central office kind of bureaucracy than might be in smaller ones. But the point is generally, there's less bureaucracy compared to urban and suburban schools, and therefore decisions can be made more quickly and involve a large number of people and people in the community or other stakeholders. And that might not be common in some non-rural places. There's a lower per pupil-teacher ratio, which some will argue, obviously, is better for students, particularly those in high-poverty locations that need additional assistance. So people know each other, and you'll commonly hear people argue that, therefore, teachers know students and their families and social capital also in the community can contribute because of this low pupil-teacher ratio concept. A lower dropout rate, typically, although we know the last reform education producer reported a few years ago that said that the dropout in rural America was about 25 percent of the schools with high dropout rates were located in rural America. Generally, however, those dropout rates are lower compared to urban places, and the dropout rate statistic tends to cluster in certain places across the country where there's high poverty. And so anyone in states that have circumstances in certain locations of their state may well be dealing with schools that have dropout rates, but commonly they're lower in rural areas than they are in urban. There's a greater fiscal effort usually among rural schools. There's the arguments of how the wealth is less in rural places, which by necessity then requires greater fiscal effort because of the small population, so that while there may be inadequate dollars, the reality is there's a high fiscal effort usually contributed by the local people to support public education. Greater parent involvement exists in a large number of rural places because communities are so close-knit, and therefore parents can be involved, however, we clearly recognize that in certain places, particularly with high poverty, getting parent involvement can be a serious issue and getting the kinds of involvement that may be needed, but generally there will be greater parent involvement in a small rural school kind of location. And obviously because of the community and its relationship to the school, in fact where the school may be the biggest and most valued asset, it will usually have more community involvement of a variety of stakeholders. So, also though, and these are the issues that become important as we try to deal with the education reform initiatives that are important to improving teaching and learning for students, a host of items exist, and Bob Stevens pointed these out, then I talked with Bob a couple days ago about these. Bob lives in Iowa now, he's retired, and obviously some may be changing in some fashion, but generally the capacity limitations still exist. We see them here in the PowerPoint, the fewer management support systems that exist in rural places to carry out ed reform kind of initiatives. Greater per pupil cost, obviously, because they don't have economies of scale because of the small enrollments. Higher number of teachers typically are teaching outside the major specialty at the secondary level, and this has become more and more important as we look at the requirements for students having education beyond high school, but perhaps less than baccalaureate, particularly if they're pursuing the technician occupations which are a natural transition from the old blue color economy in rural America to a higher scale, higher wage kind of economy. Less breadth and depth in the secondary program, especially in science, math, and languages. There are fewer programs for students with disabilities, although those have improved some. There are still serious issues as the capacity limitations of dollars and personnel limit the kinds of services that we'd all hope that students with disabilities could receive. There's less availability of telecommunications technology and other access to broadband. This has been helped some with the e-rate and other initiatives. There's usually less physical capacity in general and, of course, less specialized space and equipment for science, math, and languages. So the issue of schools that are perhaps in buildings that are obsolete or cannot have the technology or lab space or telecommunications equipment to connect students to the internet and other resources are still prevalent problems. Less availability of planning support services. Typically, it's who can you get to volunteer for something that can squeeze time into putting on another hat to perform a needed service for kids or for the school system. So the availability of planning support services are minimal usually. And, of course, typically there's fewer evaluation support services in these areas. So the programs that are beneficial to rural schools need to already be based on evidence that they are productive because there's few people in the local school system that have the time to pursue finding those kinds of things. So the institutional capacity of rural communities, as I mentioned before, are connected to prevailing local economic conditions. And these have changed. However, traditionally there is lower per capita income and it's commonly understood in rural America people will be income rich, will be property rich and income poor, especially if they're in agricultural areas. So people may have assets, own land, but that land does not generate income that's adequate. And, of course, in places where manufacturing previously existed and people now are laid off or where there's only one person working and now working at a service industry kind of job that pays less, the income per capita is lower. Higher poverty rate in rural America is common compared to urban. Population loss has occurred and many of you may have seen in the news in the last two or three weeks that for the first time in history, the 2012 census data reveals that overall population in rural America decreased. Typically, certain locations in the country lost population. However, the overall population in rural America increased annually. For the first time, it's noted that the population decreased. So this is a serious issue, particularly for states that are in, with populations that are decreasing. And, of course, you notice the population composition is changing. Where there are, where there is an outmigration of youth, consequently an increasing disproportionate share of elderly in the population, and there may be increasing minority representation in the population, Hispanics or others, and that migration may typically relate to the kind of economy that exists there. And the effects of the national economy, of course, restructuring has had significant consequences in counties that the U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service labels as farming dependent. Many of those experienced terrific declines in the 1980s, and there's been some improvement in recent times, but overall the farming dependent counties have faced significant change based on the global competition. The manufacturing dependent counties I've already mentioned in wind in Virginia in the south side area where this project I am co-director of is focused intentionally on preparing high school graduates to have the kind of math fields that enable them to pursue at least a technician level occupation. And in the farming area, of course, where there's been tobacco and it no longer exists, that's a place of considerable stress there. The mining dependent counties in Kentucky and West Virginia and in the southwestern part of Virginia, those are all under considerable stress and being originally from the coal fields in southern West Virginia, I know plenty of relatives and people that understand how that world has changed and what it means for students and for schools. And, of course, persistent poverty in non-metro counties, meaning that over decades, four decades or more, there has been persistent poverty in certain counties of rural America. And for example, forward in the fifth congressional area in Kentucky, we know has some of the poorest counties in America. So the challenges for school systems and those who intend to help them implement ed reforms and so forth have considerable challenges and that's why these capacity issues become so important. And along with those then, of course, are these capacity barriers of rural local governments. Some of the most common ones are geographic isolation and as we look at the four state region that we're talking about today, it varies, of course, in topography but certainly in the mountain areas there's more isolation. Roads are better in some places than others and the people have certain understanding, more ease and relationships that are different and technology is making a difference of exposing the younger generation obviously to the so-called outside world but geographic isolation affects transportation and a whole host of other issues. Low population density, I've already mentioned before, this is an issue of course that local governments with the small scale institutions, defined in part by low population density, have capacity limitations. Mobility of course is an issue of transportation and whether people can get around, they depend more on their own vehicles and by the way this, of course, as we all know, is drastically impacted with high gas prices. So in rural America, people who commute long distances to get to an urban place to have a decent job, meaning a job that gives you a decent lifestyle of an income enough to feed yourself and family, the issue of high gas prices greatly affects the transportation cost. Lack of fiscal resources that exist in these local rural communities and in many cases that relates to the next item of expertise in human resources, burnout is very common among leaders in rural America because it takes considerable effort to get initiative off the ground and consequently the same people tend to be the leaders and they tend to burn out as well. Personal familiarity is an issue of where people know each other and that has some limitations at times when there are issues that need to be addressed, changes that need to be put into place, but some history background or people of a certain characteristic may not be adequately involved and serve well. Resistance to innovation is commonly noted for rural people in that they tend to be more traditional, they need evidence of change, they tend to hang on to the past as some people would argue they're parochial and provincial, all of those of course classified as resistance to innovations. The reality is as the extension service has proven with agriculture they had to provide demonstration plots in communities where farmers were, where they could see the result rather than thinking that because it was done somewhere else it would work there. So that's an issue of course for assistance for local schools as people argue that innovations in New York City and Chicago and LA and other places that have certain understandings of capacity needs, they don't play out well in rural places where the capacity limitations exist as we describe here. And then lastly a lack of ancillary services really means there are not the government programs and other support services in rural places. Typically it is the family, the church or other kinds of entities that are based on local community kinds of involvement rather than specific formal kinds of programs that are available in other places. So the institutional capacity of rural places have obviously a bearing on the school systems what students have access to and the kinds of assistance they might need. Let's pause to see if there are any questions. I'm going to unmute the phone line. All guests have been unmuted. So please feel free to speak up if you want to ask a question or make a comment. Alternatively you know please feel free to continue to use the chat box. Are there any questions at this point? Caitlin this is Kimberly. Just kind of building off of Susan's comment in the chat box about sequestration. So beyond what Susan is noticing, do the two presenters have they been hearing anything about how rural districts are going to be impacted? This is Richard. I think from what I've heard the big impact could be the loss or reduction of federal funding for different federal programs. Nobody's really sure yet exactly how that's going to impact rural divisions but I think it could have a significant impact on any of programs that are funded through the U.S. Department of Education or the U.S. That's especially true with school improvement kind of funds. Those that we have traditionally designated in Kentucky to go straight to the schools for improvement projects, etc. We know those are hit by 9%. And so it has to do with where states assign the funds, you know, where where we distributed them. It just hit hard in Kentucky because that's been a focus to try to get good leadership development, that kind of thing going on and particularly professional development around math instruction. We have severe issues in those areas. So that's why my comment about this proportion. It may not, it just depends on where the states have directed the monies to begin with. This might be a good time to also mention when cuts come to rural areas they typically have a disproportionate impact. That is usually rural school systems are more dependent on state funding than local and of course federal dollars are used in specific ways. The reason this becomes an issue is because as a state tries to provide technical assistance to build capacity in a district using federal funds, you can just almost be assured if those funds are eliminated the sustainability of that capacity building ceases. Right. And unless the look because it's very unlikely locals will pick it up. And of course the state was using the federal funds for the purpose of technical assistance to start with. So it obviously presents a state with a problem. So the issue of building capacity in leadership is a wise idea. It also needs to be in place long enough to get people prepared. But when those cuts occur the issue of sustainability in an improvement is very much at risk. Of course, if those cuts cause cuts by the state in funds as well, then particularly there will be disproportionate impacts as typically rural school districts have less margin for cuts in their budget because they are more reliable or more However, we have a question from the chat box from Laura. As we prepare for the impact of sequestration, what strategies can be used to help ease that impact, if anything? And that's a huge question. No pressure. Well, and I think part of it, though, is in the answers we just heard. Depending on how a state, in this case, I think talking about state departments, depending on how they have used flexibility and targeted their funds, and also integrated those in with state initiatives for which there is state dollars, then the impact can be different. I guess what I was pointing out is in particular, where a state uses federal dollars and that's the largest share of the the technical assistance is being given, then of course, the credit is going to have a much more devastating kind of effect. Most states that I'm aware of, therefore, try as much as possible integrate their support system of technical assistance and dollar use if they can in a way such that if federal funds and hopefully we're talking about the source of federal funds not being totally eliminated, but being cut. So the integration of state and federal funds in some way try to offset a devastating kind of impact, but it's going to depend on how the state arranges their funds. But there's some strategic things that states could do. Okay, that's helpful. All right, well, next up is Richard. I'm going to go ahead and mute the lines again. We'll have another chance to have some discussion in a little bit. So one second here. All guests have been muted. So Richard's up next. He's going to talk some about the instructional support capacity needs for all districts. So Richard, take it away. Good afternoon. I'm really happy to join the group this afternoon and pass along some information regarding the instructional support capacity. I'm only looking at this from two perspectives, one, from having served as a rural superintendent and also having worked in two state departments education, providing instructional support. So it's kind of a joint effort here in terms of looking what what the issues are. I was lucky enough to be involved in the governor's best practice centers when they are being created in Virginia. And one of the things that was needed was identifying what were those specific instructional needs that were important and valued in local school divisions. And so what I did was design a dissertation study in 2000 that focused on a survey that went to local school superintendents and asked them to identify those specific instructional needs they felt that they really could help and assist them in implementing the new state standards which were being put in place at that time. The study used some of Dr. Stevens 1979 framework for the National Survey he conducted across a number of states, as well as Danielson's four domains professional practice to determine the local instructional needs. Survey was sent to 133 school vision superintendents. There was about a 72% return rate. The findings of the survey were consistent across school districts that were rated in terms of poverty levels, size and location. I think it's important to state that in Virginia in 1995, the state Board of Education adopted the new SOLs. And then in 1997, 98 adopted state testing in grade 358 and in high school. And then cut scores were established. And they were field tested in 1997. This first test were administered in 1998, 97. And then the accreditation standards were revised so that all schools had to achieve a specific benchmark on those state tests in order to remain accredited by 2006. So there was a real strong focus on how do we improve instruction to maintain our state accreditation. The four areas that came out consistently across the survey were the following. First, assisting with curriculum development process. They were really interested in planning and writing customized standard based lesson plans for classroom implementation to meet the local needs. Very important to meet the local needs. They really didn't want a cookie cutter lesson plan. Teachers knew how to develop lessons plans. But the standard based approach for lesson plans hurt many divisions in that they just felt like they weren't ready to do that. This approach really involved four components. One was addressing the scope of the standards. Anytime you look at a specific standard, it usually has anywhere from 10 to 12 enhancing components or enhancing skills that are covered by that standard. So you just can't take a standard and say, well, I'm going to create a lesson plan by that standard. Second, there was a certain sequence to the standards. And when a teacher is developing that lesson plan, they need to be aware of are there enabling skills that need to occur prior to this standard? Or are there enabling steps to the standard that need to be part of an instructional strategy? Third was articulation. How do these standards link together with other standards? How are they hooked together between grade levels and twink schools and courses? And then finally, alignment. This was one of the hardest things I think for many teachers was what's the domain level, the level of learning that the standard is written at? And how can I make sure that my instructional strategies and curriculum is written at the corresponding level so that I'm teaching by teaching a knowledge level, I'm actually using strategies that relate to knowledge. Second aspect of the curriculum and development process that superintendents were wrestling with was identifying web-based instructional resources. At this time, more and more websites were available, a variety of them at different levels of expertise and different levels of use. And many superintendents felt that teachers simply did not have time to research, review, suggested sites, as well as identify appropriate alignment with those sites in terms of what they were trying to teach. So this was a time issue. And they just felt they did not have the staff, or in many instances, the expertise to go in and do the searches across the four content areas that could assist teachers in the curriculum development process. Second was exploring models of best practice for teaching and learning. This dealt with identifying and implementing best practices for standards aligned teaching strategies. You know, the best practice term came from the legal and medicine profession. It's been around for some time. But what it really was, what are the proven practices that will have the highest success rate for the most children or people that are being served? Many teachers knew how to teach certain concepts, but they weren't aware of what is the best strategy, what can be the most successful strategy? The other aspect of this is a strategy that may work in an urban or suburban area, where you have additional resources, where you have children who were well prepared to learn that strategy may fall flat in the space in a rural area. Superintendents wanted strategies that would address the needs of their students. Don't talk to me about what happens in a school division that has 184,000 students when I only have 850, and I might only have less than 300 in elementary school. I want to know what's going to work in my school so that I can be the most successful with my students. The third component was programs for at-risk children. And here we're identifying proven practices to serve at-risk children in a rural school division to meet and exceed state expectations. The focus is on children not on a schedule to graduate from high school or to the next grade level. A lot of research suggestions associated with low SES, attendance issues, behavior problems, a large number of children living in poverty and rural issues. I can tell you firsthand, when you have a free and reduced lunch rate of over 65%, it has an impact on the number of children who are in an at-risk situation. The number of children that are failing to be on grade level by third grade can impact their success. And then you get to the upper grades, the number of children that need additional services in the rural setting to make sure they graduate on time can be an unbelievable task and an additional cost to the local school division. And finally, enhancing instruction, content specific techniques and materials. Many superintendents were looking for specific curriculum, instructional strategies and math, English, science and history to meet the specific needs of their students. And additional resources can enhance and extend and reinforce the learning, online websites, virtual field trips, online tutorial classes, community college classes. Whole list of different strategies can be used to assist in that reinforcement, enhancing learning. And they were looking for some assistance and guidance and how to best do that and build that in their curriculum process so that teachers didn't have to go looking for it, that they actually had those resources within their curriculum document. So those were the findings from the study. And like I said, they were consistent across the school divisions that returned the survey. Great, thanks so much, Richard. Why don't we pause again before we move on to exploring some specific examples of rural capacity limitations. So I'll unmute your phones and then you'll be able to speak up with any questions or observations that you have. So one moment here. All guests have been unmuted. Okay, feel free to ask a question or make an observation or comment. Okay, well, we can go ahead and move on. There'll be another opportunity for discussion later. So at this point, I'm going to turn things back over to Richard and Hobart who are going to examine more closely some concrete capacity issues, first focusing on rural constraints in terms of implementing new federal and state initiatives. I'm going to mute lines and turn things over to Richard and Hobart. All guests have been muted. All guests have been muted. Are we back? Sorry, my bad. I'm on it now. We are now officially on slide 15. I'm going to kick this off and then Hobart and I are going to go back and forth on different issues. First, some of the examples of the capacity limitations are related to implementing federal and state curriculum standards. This is an ongoing, as we all know, an ongoing issue. The standards are constantly being updated, revised, and so whether we're talking about common core standards or state standards, there's a sense that this never ends. And so there's always a challenge at the local level to be able to update and implement the new standards in time lines in a timely way so that you have enough time for teachers to be trained and students to be assessed. There's a low capacity to develop instructional classroom materials, trained teachers, mentor, implementation, or evaluate results. A good example in my school division, my director of teaching and learning and also served as my director of assessment was a part-time person. I could not afford to pay a full-time director of instruction, so that person was there only part of the time. That was the only person. He was a generalist. He would dealt with K-12 education. I had to not have any other content specialist in my central office. So there was nobody else to turn to to assist teachers in developing specific curriculum locally. Now, I could go and participate in regional programs from the state or regional programs from higher education, but in terms of having somebody local, we were on our own. That was a major issue. We didn't have a reading specialist to turn to or a history or language arts specialist to turn to to help lead the curriculum revision and update. That was an ongoing problem at a local division. Like I said, we were limited access to content specialist in a division. It really hurt your ability to make the changes you need to make to make sure that you're not only changing the curriculum, but you're monitoring the implementation and you're preparing for the assessment all along. And then adequate time and resources for principals and teachers to develop necessary materials. In most instances, my teachers were stretched to the limit. They were not only teaching, some of them were serving as lead teachers. They were assisting with other programs. I did not have assistant principals. I only had one principal in each school. So the principals were fully consumed as well. So there just really wasn't additional time. I had to end up extending the day sometimes, providing evening meals for teachers. Sometimes we use our work days as part of the writing process. And then at other times teachers simply volunteered. They took homework. They did it on their own time. And then we used a web-based application to pull it all back together. So there were some real difficult issues that simply haven't gone away as curriculum standards continue to change. Well, and Richard, we might add, of course, this is a good example as the National Common Core comes on board. It will be an obvious challenge for school divisions and districts as they have circumstances like yours. The whole issue of it's not enough to hand teachers' curriculum. It is much more the issue of what will be the specific supports of instructional materials and those kinds of things that teachers need to perform the role successfully as a teacher. And, of course, that may be more challenging in high-poverty kind of places. So a second item that Richard and I thought we ought to mention as an example of rural capacity limitation is this issue of enhancing teacher quality. And I was involved initially in a study when Richard became superintendent of that district and another couple of people and I, former superintendents in rural places, looked at the capacity of the central office. And part of that was about asking teachers what they thought about the central office in terms of its help. And I know there isn't anybody in this conference call that doesn't know in this country the concept of central office is becoming a support system more than a compliant office location is an important transition to building capacity for teachers doing better instruction. So the notion of teacher quality in a place where most of the principals and teachers lived in a neighboring county like Richard's created some very immediate kind of issues when you start talking about school improvement initiatives and sustaining anything because it was obvious that teachers were hired away in many cases after they were upgraded including projects that are funded by the federal government and they're intended to create capacity in places. Some of the very people that they're improving are people who leave and it's pretty well known someone who comes from someplace else to be a teacher in a rural community will usually leave that place unless they have connections or become connected with more than just the school. They have to maintain or require some connection to the community. So part of this feature out of classroom to receive training presented issues from the very basic limitation of there's a limited pool of qualified subs available to start with and then when the teachers upgraded they leave in Richard's case in about three years and the result of course was the division had to start over and so there's a constant churning of turnover and school improvement initiatives of any kind fail to gain traction and be sustained and of course the other note here if a teacher is not living in the county it means the teacher can take another job and likely not have to move particularly live in the neighboring county so the issue of reducing commuting time which is real especially in times of high gas prices and the fact that they might receive higher pay and not have to leave their current residence is a particular challenge in terms of recruitment and retaining teachers and a lot of other issues around this topic I know here we're giving examples to expose some practical realities of the limitations we've talked about the institutional limitations that I mentioned in communities and in school systems and Richard's limitations around instructional limitations let me build on that just a little bit hope it my experience was none of my principles and about 80% of my teachers lived outside the county they lived some place else and commuted in and that's a sheer nature of the fact that there was no grocery store in the county there was no drug store there was no department store there were mom and pop gas stations and that was about it and the school division was 70 miles long and 12 miles wide so you had people commuting in at least an hour or more every day and an hour or more out every day and when they could travel through another school division or lived in a school vision it was awful tantalizing for them to pick up a salary increase and commute a much smaller distance so as we said soon as I had teachers trained at a university or through a university in state program to enhance their skills they were they're gone there you know I started back over at scratch this is a real concern how to maintain that there's quality at teacher quality which is such a key component to improving student construction in the school guys I wanted to jump in and let you know that we have about 10 minutes left okay we'll get we'll get rolling supporting technology initiatives is limited capacity in terms of technology infrastructure in most school divisions and limited staff not only to put it in place but to maintain it in my case people who wanted internet had to get satellite the school divisions had a T one or T two lines but the county refused to pay for we had to take them out of our money in order to maintain those lines and so there was an increasing need to expand our capability in using technology but it was not available any place else unless you had a satellite this over okay if our slide will go back to the previous one the increasing data use capacity of course all of us know that the world today of the public education is demanding evidence of results and that being driven by the use of data all the way from what teachers receive as professional development to what they implement and how it drives student assessments and the other issues associated with teaching and learning so in many of these places there's nobody funded as a position in the district to do data analysis so therefore to say data is going to be used means somebody has to crunch the data and present it in an understandable way and so whether principles are doing that or they've signed it to counselors or there's a volunteer teacher all these become a capacity issue in these schools and the past must be performed at the school level usually because other persons are not available to district office there again though capacity is going to differ among some school districts in rural places particularly in countywide school systems usually it's the most capable volunteer in a lot of school places school rural school places that end up getting these assignments a limited ability to warehouse data on numerous state initiatives implemented in the school division over several years in other words what works under the conditions of that school context means everything is partly about what this means to be discussing rural what is the context under which school improvement is to occur what's the population of students what capacity you have among teachers to perform necessary teaching roles but the continuous starting over and not having any access to previous success creates a certain issue of using data and then of course how do you give value to proceed compliance reports so so often where there's very few people the notion of what may be a well-intended state initiative that requires a report is seen as nothing more than compliance rather than an effort of a document produced to help people use it for the purpose of recognizing data points out improvements that could be done if discussed too often it's just perceived as a compliance report with no value so giving value to those reports becomes an issue finally providing leadership for school improvement many in many cases there's unrealistic expectations and demands on principles to accomplish all of the initiative with without an assistant principal to share the load they have everything they have to do and implemented initiative and make all the meetings and supervised all the implementation and so there's there's just no way it can be done in a satisfactory manner and therefore we wonder why did the implementation go so badly well many times it's all on one person to try and make that work there's a limited capacity support school leaders principals and lead teachers during early stages of implementation in a new initiative you they really need help they really need guidance it's easy for them to get off on the wrong track in the wrong direction and therefore you lose time and resources that with a little assistance a little help can make all the difference in the world and by help I mean help I don't mean telling I mean being able there to hold their hand initially and help them do what they have to do important difference and finally limited capacity recruit retain principals for high poverty rural schools especially if they choose to live outside the district because of undesirable housing and other amenities we didn't have any suburbs we didn't have any groups of houses it was a low density population and so there was simply no place for them to live where they could have a grocery store they could have a drugstore or any other evening life but so those were major issues in terms of recruitment we're on a time issue Taylor so why don't you go ahead and do your summary and we'll we want to get the questions I know from people with what time we have left sure absolutely as we kind of prepare to close out today's conversation I just want to summarize some of the key things that we've heard first it's lower in complete implementation is very probably associated with the institutional and instructional support capacity limitations that rural districts confront people systems and resources are often at a premium in rural places in rural districts just by virtue of what the context is it's isolated often it's persistently poor you know there's low population density all those things have an eventual impact on the district people are especially important and when girl when rural district service farm team recruiting and retaining local capacity in the form of great teachers and leaders is an ongoing challenge as they get trained and then recruited elsewhere fortunately assistance with specific needs some of what we've talked about today support from intermediate units and strategies to help build capacity can help rural implementation and that's going to be the focus of our second webinar which will announce in a little bit here but I just want to make sure that everybody had a chance to ask any final questions or make any last comment so I'm going to go ahead and unmute the phone line all guests have been unmuted so please feel free to speak up if you have a question or want to make a comment or an observation Caitlin this is Maureen I thought this was a very interesting presentation and and I personally would like to thank the speakers thank you so much that's very kind I know here by the way we're talking about rural school district limitations and capacity Richard and I both have been at the top of state departments and we're well aware that state departments themselves have certain capacity limitations and I know that the next webinar Caitlin will flavor that in a way to recognize those issues we'd be particularly interested in people from the state pointing out the realities of their rural schools in terms of these capacity issues have they tried initiatives and seen these kinds of limitations surface are there's some more prominent than others we'd be particularly interested in that question being answered I believe that's a great question over at night you know I think as I've been looking at some of the chat that's been going on in the chat box Susan already from Kentucky for example has mentioned a number of things so we may want to review that later as well okay well I'm going to go ahead and close this out and unless you have our question that you just have to get on the table please feel free to jump in I do want to announce that our next webinar is scheduled for Tuesday July 30th at 3 o'clock eastern time our presenters will be hoping again and Dr. John Hill who is currently the executive director of the National Rural Education Association this webinar is going to kind of bounce off of this one and it'll focus on how states can differentiate their support to rural districts to both address capacity limitations and improve the likelihood of successful local implementation of state and federal initiatives so we'll be sending you an email invitation to that shortly and it will also be posted on our website at this point I would like to ask you to quickly fill out a very brief evaluation survey it's just three questions I put the link here in the chat box you're welcome to just that point and click I won't take any time at all it's entirely anonymous we'll also send you an email later with a request for some additional feedback so we can make these kinds of presentations as useful to you as possible I'd like to thank our presenters very much for their insights today and invite you to connect with us whenever you can see us on the web on our website you can follow us on Twitter we have a YouTube channel where we provide access to all of our archives webinars and our Pena County television show and you feel you know use old-fashioned methods you should give us a call as well we provide a wide array of services you know your goals are our goals in lots of ways and we have a big array of strategies that we can provide to you so any final thoughts okay we'll be in touch soon with an invitation to our follow-up webinar thanks very much folks have a great day