Education Page
Rural Community Alliance members believe the safest, most nurturing environment for a child is a small school close to home. Members work for meaningful parent and community involvement, quality of education, good governance, a positive school climate, and interventions for at-risk students.
Local Actions
Rural Community Alliance members run candidates for school board, campaign for millage increases, run tutoring programs, volunteer in classrooms and at school functions, set up school foundations and alumni associations, buy school supplies, organize motivational events for students, and work to keep campuses open in consolidated school districts.
Along with national partner The Rural School and Community Trust, Rural Community Alliance assisted Dermott Elementary School in applying for a Lenore Annenberg School Fund grant to buy supplies and equipment for their science lab, books and literacy materials for the library, and a mobile computer lab to be used in elementary classrooms. The grant also provided for teachers to be trained in place-based education, connecting school and community through project-based learning.
Getting school off on the right foot: Among other activities, Dermott’s Back-to-School Bash featured awatermelon eating contest with cash prizes for the winners and backpacks with school supplies for everyone. The event was put together by Dermott RCA members, Charles Caldwell, and the class of ’78.
Rural Community Alliance members at Fox in Stone County have formed foundation called Rural Education Heritage, Inc., to support education in their community. Here, REH donated $1,200 to the Mtn. View School district to provide new ceiling tiles for Rural Special School. Local youth and community volunteers did the installation. Their ultimate goal is to build a pre-school building that will also house a vocational education and business incubator facility.
State-wide Actions
Statewide, Rural Community Alliance members advocate for policies that benefit rural schools and communities. Education policy priorities include fair treatment for small and rural schools and their students, funding for isolated schools, funding for rural transportation, limits on the length of bus rides, repurposing of closed school buildings, meaningful career and technical education, and a variety of measures to close the achievement gap (see Arkansas Opportunity to Learn Campaign).
During the 2011 legislative session, Bruno-Pyatt members met with Senator Johnny Key and Representative Kelley Linck to discuss issues relating to their small rural school.
Youth members Austin Jones and Austin Wilson served as pages at the Legislature.
National Campaigns
The Formula Fairness Campaign
(www.formulafairness.com) is a national effort led by the Rural School and Community Trust to end discrimination against rural and small schools in the federal formula for distributing Title I funding for students in poverty. Rural Community Alliance has actively participated in the campaign by sponsoring a presentation by RSCT Policy Director Marty Strange at the RCA summer conference and at the Arkansas Rural Education Association summer conference; producing materials for members, educators, and legislators about how the Title I funding formula costs Arkansas school districts nearly five million dollars; encouraging people to sign the Formula Fairness Petition; and contacting each Arkansas Senator and Congressman about formula fairness. See more about RCA involvement in the Formula Fairness Campaign on the Policy Page of this website. RCA’s participation in the Formula Fairness Campaign has been funded by a grant from the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation.
Rural School and Community Trust Policy Director Marty Strange addressed Rural Community Alliance members at the summer conference to explain the Title I Funding inequities and the Formula Fairness Campaign.
The Arkansas Opportunity to Learn Campaign
(www.otlsummit.org) is a part of the national Opportunity to Learn Campaign led by the Schott
Foundation for Education. Rural Community Alliance is one of several partners in Arkansas working on this effort to close opportunity gaps for students in public schools, thus closing achievement gaps and decreasing dropout rates. RCA staff has attended national Opportunity to Learn conferences in Washington, D.C., and Chicago and participated in the Arkansas OTL Steering Committee to help plan and produce the state’s first Opportunity to Learn Summit in November 2011. In conjunction with the Washington, D.C., nonprofit Critical Exposure, Rural Community Alliance has sponsored two youth photography projects in the Dollarway School District and the Ozark Mountain School District to enable students to express their views on the opportunities and opportunity gaps existing in rural schools and communities. The RCA Standing in the Gap Toolkit for Communities helps communities assess their opportunity gaps and provides actions that can be taken to address them. For more information about Rural Community Alliance’s involvement in the Arkansas Opportunity to Learn Campaign, see the Policy Page of this website.
Rural Community Alliance members Penny and Richard Harris with Arkansas Rural Education Association President Don Sharp at the first Arkansas Opportunity to Learn Summit.
