The Region 15 Comprehensive Center, part of the federally-funded Comprehensive Center Network, is facilitating ongoing Community of Practice meetings that focus on rural education issues. State education agency staff, district and school leadership, and education associations from Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah have been meeting to share experiences from their states and ideas for meeting schooling challenges.

WestEd’s Senior Professional Learning Specialist Barbara Jones has been developing newsletters to share highlights and insights from these meetings. The following text is from Jones’ July 17, 2020 newsletter, following a conversation on the topic of reopening schools.

Rural Community of Practice: Focus on Reopening Schools

During the last Rural CoP meeting on July 17th, the news was full of reports of rising COVID-19 cases across the country, especially in states in the South and West United States. While many rural communities in these states have seen few cases, others have been heavily impacted. Issues range from transportation and internet connectivity to socioemotional learning and meeting the unique needs of students with disabilities. During this CoP meeting, we focused our conversations on the evolving scenarios for reopening schools in the fall and what they can realistically look like. At the beginning of the meeting, participants added one word to the chat that came to mind as they thought about reopening schools. The words people added demonstrate their resiliency and humor:

Exciting, Flexibility, Kids!, Crazy, Innovation, Different, Opportunity, Doable, Interesting, Individualized, and Nothing PG comes to mind!

We took a minute to understand our own geography, including where our most remote schools are located. This grounded our conversation and gave a helpful visual of the real challenges educators face in meeting student needs in these areas.

Most remote school locations in Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah.

Julie Duffield from Region 15 Comprehensive Center shared about the difference between technical problems and adaptive challenges, and asked the group to consider how they impact leaders’ decision making processes during this time. She characterized technical problems as those that have straightforward solutions, require shifts in only a few things at a time, and don’t challenge values and belief systems. Adaptive challenges, on the other hand,  are difficult to identify, require systemic change, and often necessitate experimentation to arrive at a solution. Participants used this framework to consider what types of issues they face in reopening schools and how to characterize the type of work they need to do to meet them.

Sean Rickert, Superintendent of Pima Unified School District in Arizona shared his own story of thinking outside of the box as he searched for a solution to an adaptive challenge. In contemplating how to fill the large internet connectivity gaps in his district, he reached out to district IT support to get input on an idea of his – to use a combination of point-to-point internet antennas and internet access points to provide connectivity for a greater number of students in his district. He was told that while the technology exists to do this, it is against eRate restrictions to use the technology in this way. He didn’t give up though, and continued in his efforts to learn more. He spoke with an attorney who revealed that the FCC had recently waived the restrictions, recognizing the current need. Sean has since been reaching out to a variety of entities to gain a better understanding of where the local energy co-op has their power poles, with the goal to determine whether they have extra capacity. He is hoping that he can make arrangements for them to send surplus broadband out into the community.

Next on the agenda, three CoP participants shared about their experiences, available resources, and lessons learned as they work with others to prepare for the start of the fall semester. Presenters included:

• Rindy DeVoll, Director of the California Rural Education Network from the Butte County Office of Education
• Kimberly Born, Patricia Ramirez, and Marquia Anderson, staff at the Rural Education and Student Support Office (RESSO) in the California Department of Education Rural Schools Division
• Mellissa Sadorf, Superintendent of the Stanfield Elementary School District in Stanfield, Arizona

Rindy DeVoll focused her presentation on the California Rural Education Network. This organization was founded in 2018 with the mission to raise the voices of rural educators. It is housed in the Butte County Office of Education and includes a listserv of 169 members. It is open for all Rural CoP participants to join. From April to June, it held weekly check-ins on relevant topics such as MTSS, racial consciousness, and reopening schools. It includes a steering committee for different CA offices of education and a resource bank for rural districts with resources vetted and selected by education researchers. The network is in the process of shifting its focus to serve primarily as a one-stop-shop of reliable resources for rural districts.

Kimberly Born, Patricia Ramirez, and Marquia Anderson shared next about the Rural Education and Student Support Office (RESSO) in the CDE Rural Schools Division. This is a new office, opened on July 1, 2020. It provides technical support for over 300 rural communities in California on Title IV, Part A and Title V, Part B. It ensures that all eligible LEAs apply and receive REAP funds, supports reporting of yearly data collection, and will begin monitoring use of funds to determine if there is more CDE support needed for specific LEAs. RESSO also aligns federal legislation and policies to support local implementation.

To conclude the presentations, Dr. Mellissa Sadorf, Superintendent of the Stanfield Elementary School District in Stanfield, Arizona spoke about the importance of stories and controlling the narrative during these confusing times.

Kimberly Born, Patricia Ramirez, and Marquia Anderson shared next about the Rural Education and Student Support Office (RESSO) in the CDE Rural Schools Division. This is a new office, opened on July 1, 2020. It provides technical support for over 300 rural communities in California on Title IV, Part A and Title V, Part B. It ensures that all eligible LEAs apply and receive REAP funds, supports reporting of yearly data collection, and will begin monitoring use of funds to determine if there is more CDE support needed for specific LEAs. RESSO also aligns federal legislation and policies to support local implementation.

To conclude the presentations, Dr. Mellissa Sadorf, Superintendent of the Stanfield Elementary School District in Stanfield, Arizona spoke about the importance of stories and controlling the narrative during these confusing times.

She told the story of her districts’ work to respond to the pandemic and best meet student and educator needs. Stanfield is a Title I district and is 65% Hispanic, 20% Native American, 10% White, and 5% Black. While it is a 1:1 district with devices for every student, 85% of students do not have internet access at home.

To gauge community opinion about how to start the fall semester, the district surveyed the teachers and parents, and then followed-up with phone calls to all the parents to ensure input from everyone. From this effort, the district created an initial two-tiered reopening plan – one brick and mortar, the other a staggered reopening. In their planning, the district considered safety, resources, services, and PD, while always keeping in mind that the plans may continue to change. After taking into consideration that at least 15% of parents want a remote option, and to meet the needs of students who may eventually test positive for COVID-19, the district developed a remote plan as well.

For full transparency, the district also put the plan for both students and educators in one document to share with the community. Dr. Sadorf also shared about holding virtual office hours and having a robust social media presence. She and her team host Q & A sessions and public service announcements on facebook where they publicly discuss pertinent topics. Their plan is to also describe what a day in a socially distanced school will look like for students. Ultimately their overarching framework for moving forward is to be nimble and flexible, knowing that they may need to move in and out of the different plans depending on the status of COVID-19 and mandates from the governor’s office. A large role of the district at this point is to continue to push information out to their community and to support efforts to increase internet connectivity for all students. Some positive outcomes that have resulted from the pandemic in Stanfield include the increased capacity for teachers to provide instruction remotely, including getting better at using technology tools, and the community building that has occurred over the last several months.

For the last section of the CoP meeting, participants separated into breakout groups, where they shared their thoughts on the following questions:

1. What’s one thing you can share that’s going well?
2. What are one or two of your biggest challenges?
3. What support would you like from others in the system?
4. What questions are rural LEAs wanting to know?
5. What types of support do your rural LEAs need?

Participants shared that they were able to gain a lot from one another through these conversations, where they swapped strategies and shared their common experiences. Below are some of the ideas captured in the notes from one of the small group discussions that highlight both continuing concerns and innovative solutions supporting rural districts right now.

1. What’s one thing you can share that’s going well?

Speaker 1: Given only 10 COVID cases since the pandemic started, we’re planning to have all students in the building, with a few exceptions of students at home. A huge issue is teachers teaching all day and then supporting students online in addition. Teachers will need to have set office hours during the day so they aren’t working in the evenings.

Speaker 2: Similar issues as John; some parents want students to stay home. Every classroom has a Cleartouch interactive board with webcam w/ capability to record classroom instruction. We’ll record Tier 1 instruction and post assignments and resources on CANVAS for students who cannot attend in person; they can access in real time or at a later time. Have been using CANVAS for 5 years; 40% of teachers used it in depth but now all teachers are using it well.

2. What are one or two of your biggest challenges?

Speaker 3: transportation has been a challenge; on a bus we can’t socially distance students. Now figuring out which families can consistently transport students and how to address students showing up at a bus stop. We can’t run a split schedule given the one hour trips required.

Speaker 2: We have students one to 1.5 hours away; we’re suggesting assigned seats, sitting with siblings if possible, or families need to provide transportation. Another challenge is taking temperatures, washing hands multiple times a day.

Speaker 1: We’ll use sanitizer, teachers will incorporate hand-washing into their centers so it doesn’t take time away from instruction. In upper grades, we’ll have students take turns during whole group instruction.

Speaker 4: negotiating with our unions so adults are willing to come back; we’ve spent many hours discussing safety issues and with today’s announcement in CA, we’ll be back at the table. Having to tell parents we have to do distance learning again will add to their frustration and anxiety.

Speaker 3: What do I do with teachers who are not comfortable coming back and the need for teachers?

Speaker 5: When we have substitutes or can’t get substitutes, we’ll need new solutions other than combining classrooms.

Speaker 6: Majority of teachers want to return; distance learning was very challenging. We have very few substitutes and there will be a larger liability with new routines; someone new would need more training. We’ve only had one COVID case locally; we expect we’ll have more cases but it’s a ticking time bomb – we don’t know when it will go off. I hope we can pull off having in-person learning so we can refine CANVAS learning before going to distance learning again.

Barbara Jones is a Senior Professional Learning Expert at WestEd. For more information about her work, please contact her at [email protected].