Reporting From the Rural Schools Association Conference: Leveraging Strengths and Sharing Promising Practices
By, Kristen C. Wilcox
“Great moments are made of great opportunity” – Herb Brooks
With the theme “The Miracle of Rural Education”, inspired by the famous 1980 Olympic Hockey Team gold medal victory, rural educators and stakeholders converged in Lake Placid, NY on Sunday July 14th for the Rural Schools Association (RSA) conference.
Setting the tone and inspiration for the conference was Mike Eruzione – the 1980 Olympic Hockey team captain who channeled Herb Brooks’ (team coach’s) inspiration about how to make great moments happen. Eruzione said…
“The message of our team is still important today… it wasn’t a miracle. It was about hard work. It was about determination. It was about believing. “
This theme of working hard as a team resonated with what we have seen time and again among positive outlier school and district leaders and stated succinctly by the Crown Point superintendent “…We all work together for the common good of our kids. And if we’re not doing that, why are we here?”
NYKids’ Rural Positive Outlier Research
In NYKids session, we highlighted research from the 2023-24 study of New York’s persistent and emergent positive outlier schools. Like in other states across the nation, educators in rural positive outlier schools in New York state have experienced numerous challenges over the past several years.
These include rising and deepening levels of poverty that often correlates to declines in student engagement and performance in school and increasing youth and parent/caregiver mental and physical health challenges.
In this presentation, we shared promising practices in addressing these and other challenges, culled from research in positive outlier schools. They include:
- Stabilize and grow leadership
- Build and rebuild trust with families and communities
- Harness resources and supports in the community and region
- Infuse choice in curriculum and programming
NYKids Partner District HFM BOCES Take-Aways
“We’ve become intentional about our core beliefs” – Dave Ziskin (Superintendent – HFM BOCES).
We were delighted to connect with our NYKids partner district HFM BOCES (and another NYKids advisory board member) that reported out on their compelling core beliefs, enduring goals, and related work.
Workforce development
One of HFM’s enduring goals is: Offer effective and efficient programs that respond to emerging needs in education and the workforce
A related initiative the HFM team highlighted in their presentation was efforts to close core instructional gaps. To this end, they developed a teacher apprenticeship program that offset the cost of teacher preparation programs. “What incentivizes teachers to stay?“ (Aaron Bochniak) queried the audience, and answered that a five year employment agreement is part of the contract.
Early childhood education
Another initiative HFM highlighted was “The Basics” program targeting parents of newborn children. The research on the long-term impacts of focusing attention on these elements is compelling. HFM has been focused on getting this research and associated materials distributed out to component schools and is looking forward to measuring impacts over the next few years.
Positive Relationships
Another two of HFM’s enduring goals (create welcoming, supportive schools where all students feel they belong”; foster positive relationships through active communication and strong collaboration”) are addressed through a framework that includes relationships, respect, relevancy, rigor, recognition, and response.
As always, NYKids welcomes all your questions or feedback at nykids@albany.edu. Please follow us on Facebook, X, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
