As I finish my 3rd year as a principal in SE Ohio, it continues to be more and more of a concern about the lack of equity for students across this region. A simple look at the map below shows a void of STEM opportunities for kids in SE Ohio. Our region might mirror your region if you are in a rural area. For decades, rural SE Appalachian schools have received little more than lip service about the need for equity. Due to the geographical setting, the exposure to learning opportunities simply is not there. This has to change. While I am fortunate to have my son attend our district which is a STEM-designated district, how do we increase opportunities for all students in our region? How do you increase opportunities for students in your region? We all have similar challenges in rural America. How do we create access and opportunity for all students regardless of their zip code?
There are so many excuses/barriers for "why" we can't do things:
Location and distance:
My district for example is 289 square miles, yet does not have a single traffic light (Although my tech coordinator has pointed out we now have one in our cafeteria which is a talk light). We have around 1000 kids in grades K-12. You look around the region the majority of our districts are less than 1000 students in grades K-12. I know in some regions of the United States, districts are even smaller in terms of students. We have a career center that focuses on many STEM careers, but students are reluctant to attend due to the distance they have to travel. For our students, they may ride a bus for an hour to get to our district and then ride another bus to the career center. This is a recurring theme across much of rural Ohio and rural America.
Size and Limited Staffing:
Another barrier for STEM is that with the small number of students, you have limited staff. For a high school or middle school like ours where we have approximately 70-80 students at a grade level, that makes it challenging to add additional courses when the cost of a staff member puts a strain on your budget. It makes it a hard sell to offer a program or career pathway when you have to hire an additional staff member and they serve a small number of students interested in that pathway.
Lack of Qualified Teachers
All rural schools face the challenge of recruitment. Oftentimes, trying to fill those already difficult positions such as a course like robotics, IT, etc... becomes a challenge to find someone willing to relocate to take a position or commute closer to an hour.
Need to Focus on Core Subjects
We have to prepare our students by ensuring they are able to master the basic core subject areas. We don't have time to focus on STEM. Many districts are simply chasing scores on a report card. I have mentioned this before, a colleague moved to a new position in a different district and he said it best, "We (their old district) were perceived as great because of our report card; however, our kids were being trained to be good test-takers." This is an easy trap to fall into. I get it. Test scores are what is reported to the public.
I could go on and on about all the reasons that you can't increase STEM whether that is in your district or your region. It is much easier to sit down and make a list of reasons why you can't do something. It is much harder to be creative and come up with ways around these roadblocks which is exactly what they are. They are nothing more than roadblocks and or excuses. We have to stop making excuses and do the real work of creating opportunities for kids. So how do we do that? We start by getting out of our own little world, our own little box, and we think of education like never before.
Collaboration
School districts are sacred and I get it. Growing up, I had cross-county rivals. The idea of consolidation leads to mobs of upset people attending board meetings so that is probably never going to happen and really should not happen. Tradition is tradition and our small schools are the hubs of the community; however, WHAT IF...
What if we were able to sit down at the table from districts across our regions and talk through the programming we need to offer for our kids. If we were able to sit down as a group and discuss shared staffing or even sharing students. Maybe district Y or high school Y is going to offer a program in advanced manufacturing, yet only has 15 kids that want to take it. Why can't district A send 15 kids to that school? In return, District A will offer a medical pathway and serve students from district Y. Rather than again making a list of red tape items that make this impossible, we make it happen. Students who go to district Y from district A still graduate from their hometown school and attend their school for everything else, there is simply a shuttle bus that runs back and forth. This process is repeated across the region. If District Z is too far for a student from District A, why can't we do remote learning except for a couple of face-to-face days a week if it is critical for them to be on the other campus for a lab or hands-on experience? OR what if courses were blocked and we scheduled students like a college schedule where I may only have to be on a different campus 2 times a week.
I know this is not a new idea; however, it is time for the adults in all of these districts to figure it out and make it work in order to give our kids the same opportunities as a larger comprehensive HS could offer. It is the only way we can match the opportunities and put our kids in rural communities on a level playing field.
The biggest issue always becomes with staffing, who is going to pay for it, and how do we grade? How do we give credit for a class taught at another high school or middle school? You know what though, all of these issues are adult issues that we create with statements like, "we can't do that" or "we have never done that and it will not work". We need to stop creating roadblocks and rebuild what school looks like.
So if I attend district Y and I take 3 courses or a program at District Z, I still attend my home school and I graduate and get my grades from my home district. If we can have kids move into our district and we accept grades, why can't we simply accept credit like a student who transfers? We can make this happen if we just get out of our own way and collaborate. We could probably take some of our high school students and give them a day or two to plan and they would have a working solution. We just need to throw away the box and do what is necessary for our kids.
Business and Parent Advisory
Not just small rural districts, but all districts need to leverage their communities in the educational process beyond requesting new dollars when it comes around to levy campaign season. Go to your local businesses and find out what they need in future employees. What can we offer as a district to prepare our students to walk out of high school with the necessary skills to help our local businesses? Again pull in all of your local districts and work together. At Noble Local, we have an award-winning business advisory council that has driven many of the changes to our district and our approach to what we offer to students. When it comes to adding programs, you have to make sure you add the right programs. Second, by creating strong partnerships between your local businesses and your families, you are able to explain your "why". When you begin asking business partners how you can help them rather than simply asking them to write a check for this program or that, you develop collaborative relationships that support one another. From a parent perspective, the parent advisory allows for input from families. My current parent advisory team consists of business owners, engineers, social workers, medical personnel, and other fields. So not only do they provide a parent perspective, but their backgrounds are diverse. When we meet, I can share current challenges and seek input; however, I also share our "why". At the most recent meeting, I started with a video about SMART manufacturing and how programs such as coding and robotics are critical to the careers of tomorrow. So while I am gaining input on issues, I also create a "tribe" that gets an in-depth look at our "why" who can then hopefully explain it at the ball fields or in the bleachers if they are asked about a program. When your community understands the why and that school has to look different than when they were in school, your message ripples through the community. Support for new programs grows because your why becomes their why: preparing their kids for their future regardless of what that might be.
Empowering Your Team
When I look at our current middle school course offerings, I would say it rivals some small high schools by the number of opportunities that our students have to explore various career pathways. It all started though by going to our team and asking them to think of a course that they would like to share with our students. What is a passion they have that we could build a course around? From there, we developed multiple electives for our students that range from advanced PE, Green Jobs, Creative Arts courses, Intro to Outdoors, Food and Nutrition and many more. Teachers have a voice in the creation of courses and they are able to share their passion with students. It has been very well received by everyone. The other option to look at is how you look at your current staff and utilize them to increase course offerings. One of the most unique staffing adjustments we have made is how we utilize our school nurse. Our school nurse was approached and asked to teach some courses that are part of our medical pathway and lead to an STNA certification. Her transcripts were reviewed by our local partner university and they approved her to teach the necessary courses. This has been a win-win for everyone. We increase opportunities for our kids while we also support our local partners and that is not to even mention that our kids now have increased courses they can take for college credit with little to no expense to the students. Then add in our business partners and our students in the medical pathway can be employed by one of our local hospitals and work on their nursing license that will be paid for by the hospital. Now, not only are we creating employable students, we are opening up a career for them where they can better themselves and do so with little to no cost to them.
STEM for All
The bottom line is STEM has to be more than a fancy elective. It has to be a cultural shift in our schools in order to prepare our current students for their futures...and we can't wait. We can not have a 5-year plan to have STEM courses in year 4. What do we do for our current high school students when the data suggests that 90% of future jobs are STEM-related? What do we tell our current high school students...do we tell them we are sorry? We have to remove the barriers. We have to rethink education in general and in most cases that means a complete overhaul of what we consider "traditional" schools. If we looked at scheduling like a college, we could have 2-3 days of core content and 2-3 days of career pathway work. Our middle schools become career exploration centers where students get a taste of each pathway available. Think if I am a small rural school and offer 5 career pathways...now think if I partner with a neighbor school and they offer 5 different pathways. Now our kids have more options based on their interests. Our schools move to a block schedule and students are transported for their career pathway/STEM courses 2-3 days a week. Maybe it is 2 days of core academics, 2 days of career-based education, and 1 day of off-site externship or a day that is a WIN (what I need) day. We just have to rethink what "school" looks like and our purpose. If we do that, these changes become easy.
We can do this, we just have to collaborate, work with our partners, and not be afraid to disrupt the status quo while maintaining our small schools found around the United States. We can have the best of both worlds and our kids deserve it.
Thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings. STEM and career-based education are my passion. If you would like to discuss further, maybe bounce ideas off of each other, you can reach out to me on twitter @PrincipalCMill or by email at principalcmill@gmail.com.
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