I Am A Rural Teacher

Nicole Cooper is teaching at Waynesville East Elementary, the same school that she attended as a child. Her goal: to help her kindergartners find their way through this complicated world with love and compassion.

Veronica Ulloa spent most of her life in rural Tehama County, California. She is now studying at California State University - Chico so she can return to her rural roots as a teacher. 

Hello, and welcome to the I Am A Rural Teacher Podcast, a project of Rural Schools Collaborative and the National Rural Education Association. Rural teachers know that their students deserve the very best, often continuing their own education so they can better serve their learners. Dr. Brandon Renfroe completed an EdD in Rural Education at the University of West Alabama, a first-of-its-kind progr...

Supporting place-based learning in rural communities is core to the missions of RSC and the NREA, as evidenced by our shared grant work, the National Signature Project Award. Kim McCully-Mobley is a high school teacher in Aurora, Missouri, who won the 2023-2024 award to support her work creating murals with her students representing the history of her hometown. Thank you for listening to this epis...

One angle for tackling the nationwide teacher shortage is the funding and implementation of teacher corps programs, which train educators in supportive cohorts to transition into teaching. Freda Calloway is one such graduate from the Arkansas Teacher Corps, which prioritizes placements in rural areas. Freda now teaches English and Journalism in a rural high school in McGehee, Arkansas. We'd like t...

Rural teachers are the heartbeats of their community, encouraging students to do their best and supporting programs in their schools. Brian Skinner is a high school special education teacher from Newton, Kansas, who was named a 2023 Kansas Teacher of the Year for his outstanding work with his students. This story is especially near-and-dear to Rural Schools Collaborative Executive Director, Taylor...

Many imagine rural communities as homogenous, non-diverse places, but in recent years especially quite the opposite is true . With rural populations diversifying in a variety of ways , it is critical now more than ever for teachers to be representatives and role models for the students they serve. Shawntasia Butler is a third-year educator in Morehead, Kentucky, who believes that her identities as...

Education is an invaluable force for the health and strength of rural communities. Osbaldo (Ozzie) Gonzalez, a first-year, Dual Language elementary teacher in Nyssa, Oregon, knows this first-hand. Ozzie is passionate about building a sense of hope, empowerment, and determination in his students, a lifelong mindset that he worked hard to cultivate within himself.  We'd like to thank our partners at...

Max Frommelt, a digital media teacher in Wisconsin and a member of RSC's Young Educators' Advisory Council, is only in his second year of teaching at Dodgeville High School, but he has hit the ground running by building an innovative, new program from scratch. In this episode, we talked with Max about his own experiences in school and how they led him to become the teacher he is today.

Content Warning: This episode contains mentions of the Holocaust. The bonds forged among people in rural places are often driven by how community members can relate to each other, and how they share something in common. However, rural schools can also create a fantastic environment for learning about other cultures in a real, one-on-one way. Taylor Kilgore and Linda Hooper collaboratively run the...

Rural schools around the world have more in common than one might expect, regardless of their latitude and longitude. In particular, teacher shortages continue to heavily impact rural communities, and several organizations have made the decision to act and find and retain exemplary talent for rural schools. In this episode, we spoke with Lola Rubio Alberca about her experiences in a rural-focused...

Working in the public school system presents a unique set of challenges, especially in rural places, and certainly when it comes to special education. In this episode, we visited veteran educators Barbara (Barb) McArthy and Suzy Tomm on-site in their classrooms in Carmi, Illinois, to discuss how teaching in a rural place impacts their ability to meet the needs of their students.

Place-based projects inspire students to engage with their surroundings and assume leadership in their educational explorations. Haley Lancaster, a high school English teacher from Vincennes, Indiana, lives and breathes the history of her place. Hoping to motivate her students to become good stewards of the town, Haley applied for, and was awarded, the  2021 National Signature Project Award . Hale...

The dedication of a teacher to their students is one of the enduring qualities of the profession. Aquenetta (Netta) Davis, an outstanding rural teacher in Mississippi, has traveled around the country, putting down roots in numerous states through her time in the military and later in education. Yet at each stop along the way, her belief that "all students can learn" has driven her work to educate...

Special thanks to  Jason Neises , our Iowa Hub contact at  Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque , for connecting us with Bellevue Schools, and to Tom Meyer, superintendent of Bellevue School District, for partnering with Rural Schools Collaborative on this story. Read more  about Bellevue Schools and CFGD here. When faced with adversity, rural schools often turn to innovation as a way of not ju...

In a rural setting, the impact of even one teacher can shape the human ecosystem of an entire community for generations. This is why teaching students academic skills is only one aspect of a teacher's profession. Along with lessons on language arts and science, teachers shepherd students along their journey of becoming a person as well. Jan Mathews, a middle school science teacher in Gridley, Cali...

More than just a good story, teacher narratives possess a power to invite us to reflect and act. When we look to teachers from around the world, we're not only given an opportunity to appreciate our unique differences, but also to recognize what we share in common. That moment of recognition can be transformative in the effort to strengthen our rural schools and towns. This month's episode of the...

In this episode of the I Am A Rural Teacher Podcast, we visit with  Emma Rage  and  Nick Foertsch  from North Dakota, who are both members of Rural Schools Collaborative's  Young Educators Advisory Council . In addition to sharing their stories about being young educators in two different rural districts in Milnor and Kensel, North Dakota, Nick and Emma delve into the importance of relationship-bu...

In our last episode, we are off to Wyoming. Mark Roy wasn't always a rural teacher, but being remote is comfortable to him. He likes to be out in the backcountry. He now teaches 7th and 8th grade science at the Fort Washakie School, on the Wind River Reservation. He tells us about his transition to teaching, being a teacher on a Native American reservation, and integrating nature and wilderness id...

This year has been strange for even the most experienced teachers. But this is only Sharon Laredo Christie's 3rd year of teaching - and she has been at a different school for each one. Sharon teaches in Douglas, Arizona, it's a town right on the US Mexico border in the southeast corner of the state. It's not always easy to live here, she says, but it's home. Before she moved back, she said the bor...

In this episode, we are going about as rural as rural gets in the United States. To the North Slope of Alaska. While stories of 24-hour darkness, 10 dollar gallons of milk and towns with no roads out are always popular when talking about far northern Alaska, there is so much more to these places. Patti and Rod Lloyd have been teaching in Northern Alaska for 24 years, and in this episode they discu...

Michael Melton has been teaching for over 20 years, and has held so many roles. Not only inside the walls of a public school building but in the community of Whitesburg Kentucky as well. For Michael, being a teacher in a place like this is much more than the curriculum he talks about in a typical school day. He knows that being in a small town, you're never really off the clock as a teacher. Micha...