Each week, NREA and the I Am A Rural Teacher Campaign share how vast rural America is. Check out our 50 States highlight on Facebook: facebook.com/iaartcampaign

We now have a public-facing spreadsheet showing every state featured so far, where to see it, and a story from the state! Check it out: https://bit.ly/50s50w

We'd love to hear from you! Submit today at http://bit.ly/iaartsubmit. We are also still taking COVID-19 submissions: bit.ly/iaartcovid And we recently began accepting perspective for the Black Rural Teachers Matter Project: bit.ly/iaartbrtm

Feel free to contact Hailey Winkleman, the NREA Advocacy Liaison for this campaign, at iaartcampaign@gmail.com with any questions about submitting your story.

The common lament is that principals have extraordinarily demanding and near impossible jobs.

Setting class schedules. Evaluating teachers. Drafting school budgets. Overseeing school bus drop-off and pick-up.

But Dana McCauley, a principal in the Garrett County school system in western Maryland, does all of that—and more.

As the White House faces criticism for a push to return to in-person instruction and a reopening debate splits the nation, some rural schools remain poised to welcome students back to brick-and-mortar settings this month.

“Some places have not many cases at all and they’re questioning, ‘Why should we hold off if we’re OK?’” said Allen Pratt, executive director of the National Rural Education Association, adding there are “large parts of the population that want to reopen.”

But rural schools face persistent challenges that the coronavirus has only exacerbated. Many school buildings are old and in need of replacement or repair and don’t have adequate air filtration systems. Plus, many rural districts have scant resources to successfully implement hybrid or fully remote learning if their schools need to close again.

EDUCATION COALITION

The COVID-19 Education Coalition is a community of nonprofit organizations convened by ISTE and EdSurge to support the education field as learning moves online. The coalition is creating resources focused on these areas: policy & advocacy; centering equity; connectivity; international engagement; personalized learning; social emotional learning; safety, privacy and digital citizenship; and higher education.

Three-tenths of a mile. That’s how far the Harless family is from reliable broadband in northern Roanoke County.

“Comcast runs, I think, the first 10 or 15 houses down the road,” Bobby Harless said. “And then after that, it’s nothing.”

Harless lives near Hanging Rock, one of the pockets in Roanoke County where portions of residents report poor broadband access. Harless counts himself lucky to have access through provider All Points Broadband, but it’s expensive and slow, he said.

K–12 leaders nationwide are grappling with tough decisions around remote, in-person, and hybrid learning. That’s why we are proud to introduce a special offer, HMH Anywhere™. It’s a digital subscription at one low price, designed to support both online and in-person learning through ONE easy-to-use platform for all grades, all students, and all teachers.

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I'd like to invite the NREA superintendent network to join our next Virtual Roundtable "How to Lead Your District Through Crisis" on Friday, Aug 21 at 10 am EDT.

Our lead speaker is Patrick Fletcher, superintendent of River Dell Schools in New Jersey. He'll lead a discussion on how superintendents can manage stakeholders and empower their people to lead through difficulty.

Previous roundtable participants have said this was a great forum to connect with peers from around the country and share ideas to brainstorm their shared challenges.

Register here: https://bit.ly/2XyGbod.

Best,

Thomas Cheng

LeadersAtlas (co-host of "American Reinventors" Virtual Roundtable program)