Vermont moves toward school consolidation

I write frequently on this blog about the law and politics of school consolidation (the post here links to prior posts on the topic), and that is a topic taken up in today's New York Times in relation to Vermont, which is currently considering a spate of consolidation across the state.  As Jess Bidgood explains, Vermont's situation is somewhat unique because the school districts are already quite small.

Tucked into valleys and isolated by mountains and rural expanse, many of Vermont’s 273 school districts serve just a smattering of children. It is an old system, borne of the state’s agrarian history and knotty geography, and many Vermonters like it that way.

* * * 

Vermont has more school districts than cities and towns, and a valued tradition of small-scale democracy.

Shap Smith (D), speaker of the Vermont House expresses that tradition thusly:  

In a state as small as Vermont, the schools are the heart of most communities and the notion of local control is close to a religion here.  

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 72.3 percent of Vermont residents live in places with a population of 2,500 or fewer.  No population cluster in the state is larger than 50,000, which means 100% of the state is rural if you use that population threshold as the cutoff.   

The push for consolidation is driven by the loss of 20,000 students over the past two decades, a phenomenon that has necessarily driven up costs associated with small schools--and therefore taxes.  The last big overhaul in the state's school governance was more than a century ago.  

Bidgood quotes Governor Pete Shumlin (D):  

If you designed a system from scratch, you would not design what Vermont has right now.  We currently have more superintendents and administration than any state of our size. We need to think of a better way.

Reflecting the effort to find that better way, the state legislature last week passed a measure that would give districts a few years to find ways to consolidate with one another--to voluntarily choose their consolidation partners.

Many lawmakers voting on the bill were in a particularly difficult situation because consolidation is at stake in their own districts.  The law will require consolidation into districts with a minimum of 1000 students each by 2020.   (I note that this is very similar to the consolidation Arkansas undertook a decade ago, but there the minimum district size is 350).

To illustrate the challenge, Bidgood features Rochester, population 1,139, in the center of the state, with a district of just 150 pupils, K-12.  Some students come to Rochester from even smaller towns, and the district represents a familiar challenge in the school consolidation debate:  you can (or should) only bus students so far.  As a member of the Rochester school board expressed it, referring to physical geography,

This valley really needs a K-12 school.  

The option, as Bidgood expresses it, is to bus the children "to schools on the other side of the nearest mountain."  And that physical geography is what could keep schools like Rochester open, even as their administration changes.  As the school's principal stated:

Because it’s so isolated, I think people will really fight for it.

And that fight for rural schools inevitably leads to rural-urban comparisons, as reflected this quote from Paul Keane, a Hartford school board member and former teacher:

I know how decent and how joyful a school run by local residents is compared to the anonymous monstrosities that the rest of the country has.

Pulling out all the stops to save a rural school (Part IV): Could Arkansas's three most remote schools be saved if clustered together?

This spring, I wrote a couple of blog posts here and here about the efforts of the Deer-Mt. Judea School District in the rural Arkansas Ozarks to avoid consolidation. At that point, the District was pursuing legal remedies--or more precisely, a change in the law--that would prevent forced consolidation of the district with the neighboring Jasper District. The reason Deer-Mt. Judea was at risk of forced consolidation is that its student population had fallen below 350, which under Arkansas law is the death knell for a district's independence. The District argued that the state's formula for funding transportation--paying a flat fee of $289/student--is unfair to rural schools like those in Newton County, where transportation per student costs about $900/year.

The legal efforts of the Deer-Mt. Judea District went nowhere with the courts. This is not terribly surprising since no other Arkansas school district has found a successful legal strategy since a major round of forced consolidations in 2004. Also, the trial court hearing the Deer-Mt. Judea case is in Pulaski County, which includes Little Rock; as the home of the state capital, it is apparently the designated venue in which such cases must be filed. Thus, the trial court making the initial determination in such cases is not a local court that is more likely to be familiar with the area--and therefore perhaps more sympathetic to local residents' desire to keep their school. The most recent post about this effort in the courts is here.

That most recent post indicated that Deer-Mt. Judea might make overtures toward the Jasper District about merging, but more recent issues of the Newton County Times indicate that the Deer-Mt. Judea District is now seeking a different partner to avoid consolidation. It is now courting the school at Oark, in Johnson County, to join its District. Oark has about 150 students total (K-12), and the addition of these students into the Deer-Mt. Judea District would save the District, which would presumably keep a campus at Oark. Oark is about 34 miles (more than an hour's drive) from Deer, of which a third are on county roads (which were unpaved when I was growing up and may still be).

The problem facing the Deer-Mt. Judea District as it pursues this new strategy is that the Oark school became part of the Jasper District in 2004, when many schools were "re-aligned" (a/k/a consolidated) after a landmark Arkansas Supreme Court decision regarding K-12 funding and standards. Now, admittedly, this didn't make a lot of sense at the time because Oark is about 20 miles farther from Jasper than it is from Deer. (Nor did the fact that the Kingston school, in neighboring Madison County, also consolidated with Jasper. Kingston is 28 miles/47 minutes from Jasper but just 20 miles on better roads from Huntsville in Madison County). But, perhaps because Oark and Deer were rivals--just as Jasper and Deer were rivals--Oark joined the Jasper District instead of the Deer-Mt. Judea District.

Now, a number of patrons of the Oark school (reports vary on the number, ranging from 75 to 185) have signed a petition indicating they wish to join the Deer-Mt. Judea District. Some of Oark's unhappiness with the Jasper District may be because the Jasper Board of Education recently rejected a grievance by the Oark principal, Anita Cooper, following her dismissal by the district superintendent. According to story in the Oct. 19, 2011 issue of the Newton County Times, many Oark district patrons supported the principal and attended the Jasper Board of Education meeting to advocate for her. The scene highlights the fact that Oark school patrons must find it pretty galling to be governed by a District and Board that is sited 55 miles away, even though the Board has one member from Oark. Moving into the Deer-Mt. Judea District would put Oark residents nearer the governing district's center of gravity, Deer, which probably looks attractive.

In a future post, I'll discuss the Jasper District's response to the Oark petition to join Deer-Mt. Judea. For now, I want to discuss Deer-Mt. Judea's statements regarding what is at stake and what it would take to achieve the move. The superintendent of the Deer-Mt. Judea District, Richard Denniston, told the District's Board of Education at its Oct. 20 meeting, "We're in survival mode" because of the current enrollment figures. He continued:

Eight years ago when we went through the process of choosing a partner (for state mandated consolidation), before Mt. Judea was a player, we were trying to see which direction we were going at public meetings. We had five (Oark) board members and the superintendent attend our public forum, stood up and said, 'we're here to sign with Deer.' At that time, we didn't get a favorable vote. Now, they have a petition by a coalition that they want to come to Deer. They have approximately 185 signatures.

The reporter does not explain Denniston's comment about the lack of a favorable vote--that is, whether Deer voted not to accept Oark or Oark ultimately decided not to join Deer.

Denniston goes on to explain the steps that lie ahead if Oark is to join the Deer-Mt. Judea district now.

Here is the main issue. When you have small numbers you are an isolated school--and it only impacts isolated schools. If you can't meet standards of accreditation and one of which is how many students in each of the 38 courses--and in the upper end those are your physics, pre-cal, transition math and chemistry, etc.--if you can't fill that slot you have the possibility of Deer not getting $1.1 million in isolated funding. If you're at Jasper, the same scenario, they have the possibility of losing $1.5 million of operating funding.

In order to make this work it's just not Oark coming to us. It's Oark coming to us with us getting the state department [of education] or the legislators to agree to an umbrella that will be a consortium for grades 9-12 under one LEA (local education agency). That way you can use aggregate numbers 9-12.

Denniston continued by reference to "real numbers." Oark has seven seniors, Mt. Judea just nine and Deer, 13. With 30 seniors, Denniston surmised the combined District would have a "good chance" of filling the required 38 course slots. Denniston noted the District's current situation in regard to these upper division courses:

Right now at Mt. Judea, five of those classes have one student in each of them. At the start of the year in Deer there was one student.

Denniston concluded by calling the clustering of "the three most remote schools in Arkansas" a safety net. He said the proposed Deer/Mt. Judea/Oark School District would cover about 664 square miles, which is about the size of the current Jasper School District, with its campuses at Jasper, Oark and Kingston. Denniston speculates that Mt. Judea and Oark are "probably the smallest schools in the state." These schools "are more than isolated, they are remote, a term that state officials are hesitant to use."

The Deer-Mt. Judea Board of Education closed its Oct. 20 meeting by passing a resolution that the Board would petition the state Board of Education to "adjust the boundary lines of the Deer/Mt. Judea School district to include the territory of the former Oark School district that is now part of the Jasper School District, and to rename the district to include Oark."

In future posts, I will discuss additional angles on this effort at re-alignment of these schools, including the relevant Arkansas law and the perspective of the Jasper district--including why it finds the Oark school/campus and territory so attractive.

Pulling out all the stops to save a rural school (Part VIII): Cluster of isolated schools absorbs a fourth small school

The Newton County Times (Arkansas) reported in late December, 2011, that the Ozark Mountain School District had voted 5 to 2 to annex the Lead Hill School District (Boone County). Ozark Mountain is a district formed out of a state mandated, comprehensive round of consolidation in 2003; it includes three campuses: Western Grove (Newton County), St. Joe (Searcy County) and Bruno-Pyatt (Marion County). The Lead Hill Board of Education and the Arkansas Board of Education must now approve the annexation. (The St. Joe school is pictured below, and it is also visible behind the sign pictured above).

All three of the current Ozark Mountain District campuses are "isolated schools" and receive additional state funding as such. Lead Hill does not share this designation and so does not bring that additional state funding stream into the Ozark Mountain District with it. Read more about Arkansas's isolated school designation here.

Lead Hill is a town on 287 in far northeast Boone County, on Bull Shoals Lake. The need for its consolidation became clear in the fall of 2011, when its enrollment came in under 350 students, the threshold at which a school can no longer exist under Arkansas law. According to the news report, the Lead Hill Board of Education approached the Ozark Mountain District about a possible merger; the report does not indicate if Lead Hill also approached other Districts about annexation. However, Lead Hill is much closer to several schools than Lead Hill is to any of the campuses in the Ozark Mountain District. The Bergman School District is just 12 miles from Lead Hill, while the much larger Harrison School District is 20 miles away. In contrast, Western Grove, the closest of the schools in the Ozark Mountain School District, is 33 miles from Lead Hill. Bergman might have seemed a sensible partner for Lead Hill not only because of physical proximity but because Bergman's enrollment is also flagging, meaning it soon may be forced to consolidate or close.

Indeed, these proximity and size factors seemed to influence Lead Hill in what might be seen as a perverse way. As with other consolidation/annexation decisions about which I have written (read more here), "Lead Hill officials looked to partner with neighboring Ozark Mountain School District, since its campuses are so far away that the Lead Hill campus couldn't feasibly be closed, and its students moved to another campus." This suggests that Lead Hill looked to Ozark Mountain rather than to a district that was in closer proximity as a way of warding off future closure of its campus, something Bergman or Harrison might be tempted to do.

The petition by which Ozark Mountain annexed Lead Hill calls for each of the four campuses to retain "its own identity, both in name and in school mascot--Bruno-Pyatt Patriots; Lead Hill Tigers; St. Joe Wildcats" and Western Grove Warriors. The consolidated school board will include the seven current members from the Ozark Mountain School Board, in addition to two from Lead Hill. The interim board will serve until 2013, when all seven board seats will be up for election. The two Ozark Mountain Board members associated with the Western Grove school voted against the consolidation, though the newspaper does not report why.

Pulling out all the stops to save a rural school (Part II): Might new buildings stave off schools' closure?

I wrote a few days ago about the lawsuit brought by the Deer-Mt. Judea School district in Newton County, Arkansas, seeking to prevent being forced to consolidate with the larger, neighboring Jasper district. It appears that the lawsuit will fail, but a recent issue of the Newton County Times (March 30, 2011) reported on a new tack by the school district to save itself from consolidation. The district called a special election to "approve a $1,550,000 refunding and construction bond issue for the purpose of refunding the district's outstanding bonds, dated Sept., 2000 and Sept., 2003, and to provide approximately $1 million for acquiring land, and constructing, refurbishing, remodeling and equipping school facilities." Though the bond issue will result in additional funds for the purposes of improving school facilities, it will not raise the tax rate that the district's property-owners pay to finance the school, which is 33 mills. (The story notes that the state average is 37 mills). This is because of the refinancing of some of the existing bonds. The April 13 issue of the newspaper reports that the bond issue was approved by "qualified electors" in an April 12 election, by a vote of 252 to 193. Thus, the district's residents have committed to taxing their property at the existing rate for a longer period of time in order to enhance their school. This is an unusual move in Newton County, where citizens have historically been very reluctant to levy property taxes above a bare minimum, whatever the cause.

So, what does this move have to do with school consolidation? Well, it appears that part of the motivation for the enhanced physical infrastructure is the hope that it will ward off some possible consequences of consolidation. In particular, the school district seems to anticipate that it will be forced to consolidate with the Jasper School District--probably in the very near future. If it does consolidate, the Mt. Judea and Deer schools seem to think that Jasper will be reluctant to close those schools and bus the Mt. Judea and Deer students to Jasper if it means abandoning nicer and newer buildings.

Here's what the Newton County Times story reports based on comments by Christopher Beardsley, the Deer-Mt Judea School District's "fiscal agent."

Beardsley said another motivator for passing the bond issue is that it would allow the school district to leave its buildings in the best possible shape.

That might encourage the receiving school district to leave the facilities open. But, Beardsley emphasized, "I would never tell a voter that if you vote yes for this that they are going to leave your building open. There's no guarantee that's how its going [to] play out ... We could not make that promise to the voters. We would make that clear."

Responding to another question, Beardsley said that, generally, at first the consolidated school district's tax rate remains the same. Then in its first full year it is voted the larger district's millage.

I was in Newton County last week, and I passed through both Deer and Mt. Judea as I traversed the county to conduct some oral history interviews for the Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History. I had a chance to take these photos of the Mt. Judea School, and also to consider how much change the county's education system has absorbed over the years. Some of the elderly people I interviewed referred to schools in places like Union Grove and Parthenon--schools closed long ago, as they were presumably consolidated into larger districts. Some of those once "larger" districts now face consolidation themselves.

P.S. Another interesting thing about this story is an explanation of why it is beneficial for the school district to issue these bonds now: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) allows "school districts to issue debt with little to no interest cost to the district." Using this Qualified School Construction Bonds aspect of the ARRA potentially saves "the district $1.1 million in interest costs over the life of the issue." This permits the district to borrow the additional funds, while restructuring the old debt, without a tax increase. I note this because the Newton County Times has typically been negative about the ARRA, yet in an editorial in the March 30, 2011 issue, the paper urges voters to approve the bond issue and touts the benefits of the ARRA for these purposes.

School consolidation likely to end long-standing football rivalry, and hasten town's demise

I commented here a few weeks ago on a story linking the well-being of a small town to that of its high school football team. Today's New York Times features another such story, but this time the news is bad--for town and team. Ray Glier writes:

Consolidation, the end chapter for small-town high schools caught in economic strife, has found its way into the coalfields of southwest Virginia. In Appalachia, most of the storefronts in the business district are empty. There is no cellphone service because the town cannot get a cellphone tower built.

In his story, "Appalachian Team Faces Final Generation of Football," Glier explains that Appalachia High School, with 225 students, will likely merge next year with Powell Valley High's 525 students. The latter school is in Big Stone Gap," population 4,856. Appalachia's population is 1,839. Both are in Wise County, Virginia, population 41,123.

Glier writes that the schools and their respective towns are "divided by geography--big coal-bearing hills," but just three miles apart. The towns' essence, he asserts, "is a reliance on coal and Friday night high school football." Between them, the two schools have won 14 Class A State championships since 1970. But residents--especially of Appalachia--are fighting the consolidation. In the words of one Appalachia High School teacher, the county school board will “keep trying to close us down, and we’ll keep fighting. They would kill this community with consolidation.”

Valuing rural schools and their communities

Bob Douchette writes of the value of rural schools--and rural communities--in the Tulsa World.  His essay also addresses how these institutions are on the ballot on Nov. 8.  

If you grew up in a small town, you know how integrated a school and its community can be.

Schools are a gathering place for the community. I remember as much for the sole year I lived in the little burg of Marengo, Illinois, a farm and manufacturing town just south of the Wisconsin border.

Douchette then turns to the illustration of Burbank, a town in Osage County, Oklahoma, that was struggling back in 2001 to keep its doors open, due to population loss. 

Burbank’s 40 or so students would be spread out to nearby schools in Shidler, Fairfax and Ponca City.

As I talked with people there, everyone understood that consolidation was inevitable. The best path forward was a planned death for the school, one last year of classes before Burbank School closed for good.

Underneath that acceptance were fears that with the school’s closure, there wouldn’t be much left to keep the town alive. It had been a boomtown during the great Osage County oil rush of the 1920s, with thousands of residents, thriving businesses and even a couple of movie theaters.

But the Burbank oil field played itself out, and all the money and jobs that came during those gusher days moved on.

By late 2001, Burbank residents worried that all they had left to keep the town together was its post office.

Burbank’s fate is what many small communities fear when the words “school consolidation” arise. For decades now, there has been a tug-of-war between fiscal hawks who decry the high number of Oklahoma public schools — and the administrative overhead that comes with them — and rural Oklahomans who wonder what will become of them if they lose a key anchor of their towns.

The rural pushback is strong, and one of the main reasons why consolidation has been rare. Nobody wants to lose their town, and closing a school is seen by many as a potential death knell for rural communities.

Douchette then goes on to explain how school vouchers are a threat to rural schools, a topic also addressed in Jon Tester's book, Grounded.   

School consolidation hasn’t gone anywhere in Oklahoma for this basic fact: The people in rural Oklahoma see their communities and way of life as something worth protecting. Not everyone wants to live in metro suburbs or larger cities. For many, they’d rather stay where they and their families have put down roots for generations.

I think that’s one of the reasons why there is concern in towns outside of Oklahoma’s metro areas. Folks have seen the voucher legislation proposed and shot down, but there are promises to bring the idea back next year.

And there are political candidates who are, in part, staking their campaigns on it. It makes people wonder how many battles they’ll have to fight to keep their schools intact.

The political reality they face is that you can win these battles repeatedly, but the win-loss record won’t matter if you lose just once.

Don't miss the entire column.  The same issues are playing out in other states, too, including Missouri, where Jess Piper's campaign for the Missouri legislature has repeatedly drawn attention to the peril facing rural schools in the Show-Me State.  

Wal-Mart's rural stranglehold

That provocative phrase is part of the title of a new report released by United Food and Commercial Workers Union. The Daily Yonder discusses the report here, noting that the Departments of Justice and Agriculture held hearings this week on competition in agriculture, including discussions of the growing margins that retail grocers are able to take--in part because of retail consolidation in behemoths--most powerfully Wal-Mart. An excerpt from the executive summary of the UFCW Report follows:

The Department of Justice/Department of Agriculture workshops investigating corporate consolidation in agricultural markets represent an enormous opportunity to rebuild and revitalize rural America by ensuring justice and fairness for working men and women across the food industry. Without a doubt, consolidation and concentration in the agricultural economy has caused decreasing incomes for farmers, ranchers, workers and the rural communities that depend on agriculture.

Our rural communities, our food supply and the fate of a major portion of the American economy depend on us fixing this problem. However, we can’t solve this dilemma unless we are willing to look at the whole picture of the American food chain—from the farm to the grocery store shelf.

Without an adequate investigation into the critical role that consolidation at the retail grocery level—led by the world’s largest retailer, Walmart—we can’t get an accurate or adequate assessment on how to fix our broken agricultural economy. This report provides strong evidence that Walmart exerts unprecedented influence over the meatpacking industry and other agricultural and food sectors. It also shows that Walmart’s relentless quest for lower costs has unfairly squeezed income from meatpacking workers, farmers and ranchers resulting in Walmart receiving a grossly disproportionate share of the retail food dollar at the expense of other stakeholders in the food supply chain.

Pulling out all the stops to save a rural school (Part III): Do rural schools prevent agro-terrorism?

In the process of researching the lawsuit that the Deer-Mt. Judea school district recently brought against the state of Arkansas seeking to prevent consolidation, I came across another recent suit brought by a small school district in Arkansas. This 2010 suit against the state of Arkansas was filed by Friends of Weiner School District in federal court. In arguing that the Weiner school in northeast Arkansas should not have been consolidated with the neighboring Harrisburg district, the plaintiffs asserted that consolidation "negatively impacts the agricultural interests of Arkansas in violation of Article 10" of the Arkansas Constitution which requires the General Assembly to pass laws to "foster and aid" agricultural interests." In addition, the plaintiffs argued:

[B]ecause Arkansas is the nation's leading producer of rice, any statute that negatively impacts agriculture also violates the Commerce Clause due to an increased risk of agro-terrorism and food supply issues. Plaintiff contends that if schools close in farming communities, farmers will have to move to other communities which have schools. As a result, farmers will be unable to monitor their crops on a daily basis. Without daily monitoring of the crops, the risk of terrorism is increased. "The negative impact on rural communities then negatively impacts the production of agriculture and interstate commerce and simultaneously increases a security risk for our country."

The Weiner School District was involuntarily consolidated with the Harrisburg School District in 2010, although the Weiner school remains open. Thus Weiner students are not being bussed to Harrisburg, and farmers in the Weiner area have presumably not been compelled to move "to town."

In a November 29, 2010 ruling, Judge James Moody of the Eastern District of Arkansas dismissed the law suit based on lack of standing and on failure to state a claim. He wrote:

At the hearing on this matter, the Court questioned the Plaintiff's witness and attorney as to whether there as been an increased threat of agro-terrorism since consolidation. The answer was no. Likewise, there has been no allegation that the consolidation has caused a negative impact on the production of agriculture or interstate commerce in the Weiner area. ... Absent an injury in fact, the Court does not have subject matter jurisdiction.

Because no evidence was presented in support of this agro-terrorism argument, its persuasiveness was not tested by this suit.

See a recent Daily Yonder post about agro-terrorism here.

More legal wrangling aimed at saving two tiny schools

Recent issues of the Newton County Times discuss the latest efforts by two small schools in the Arkansas Ozarks to prevent their consolidation. I wrote about the schools' legal and fiscal actions this spring, here and here. A related story about how Arkansas funds schools is here.

The August 17, 2011 issue of the newspaper reports that the lawyer for the Deer-Mt. Judea School District has asked the Arkansas Supreme Court to reconsider a circuit court ruling that dismissed the District's suit that protest the state's school funding method. The District is arguing that its concerns arose after a 2007 Arkansas Supreme Court decision in a case called Lake View, which found the state's school funding formula constitutional. The Deer-Mt. Judea District is asserting that inadequate transportation funding by the state forces small school districts that cover a lot of territory to divert funding from other programs to cover transportation costs. The District has asked the state to establish a maximum one-way bus ride of 45 minutes for public school students, and to bar the state education board from closing small, remote schools.

Under Act 57 of 2003, the educational-funding structure law, funding targets districts of 500 students using factors such as transportation and personnel. Per-student funding is based on this calculation. The state deems districts with fewer than 350 students too small to guarantee an adequate education.

The September 14, 2011 issue of the paper reports that the Arkansas Supreme Court has given the state a three-week extension to respond to the Deer-Mt. Judea District filing. It also reports on a meeting of the Deer-Mt. Judea School Board at which district patrons asked the Board what its plan is in the event the lawsuit fails. One patron seemed to suggest that the District should be making overtures to the Jasper District, with whom it may have to consolidate. The Superintendent responded, "Our official stand is to wait until the lawsuit is over."

Other issues of the paper indicate that other area schools are closely monitoring whether they will be able to keep their schools, as indicated in reports of each school district's enrollment. The A front-page story in the August 24, 2011 issue is headlined "Ozark Mountain reports 663." This means that the Ozark Mountain District's three schools have that total enrollment, and the story indicates it is broken down 244 students in Bruno-Pyatt (Pyatt has a population of 373), 238 in Western Grove (population 518), and 181 in St. Joe (population 109). Bear in mind that, prior to consolidation in 2004, each of these schools was its own district, with its own superintendent. Districts like Ozark Mountain that were formed out of the 2004 consolidation have already achieved some economies of scale.

Pulling out all the stops to save a rural school (Part I): Suing the state with a focus on transportation

The Newton County Times, my hometown weekly, reported in December, 2010, that the Deer-Mt. Judea school district had filed suit against the state of Arkansas to prevent the district's consolidation with the neighboring Jasper School District (my own alma mater). The Mt. Judea and Deer schools (Deer is my mother's alma mater)--two of four schools in Newton County--consolidated with one another in 2004, following Act 57 of 2003, which established the state's current educational funding structure and set the target district size at 500, "using factors like transportation and personnel." Under that Act, the Arkansas Board of Education forces consolidation of districts with fewer than 350 students. The enrollment in the Deer-Mt. Judea district is currently 363, so the lawsuit is a preemptive strike. On March 17, 2011, the Pulaski County Circuit Court dismissed the district's suit.

The Deer-Mt. Judea district made some interesting legal and factual arguments in its suit against the governor, the state department of education, and other defendants. However, my impression is that most of the purely legal arguments have failed in recent suits brought by other districts. Suits by schools in Lake View, Two Rivers (Yell County), Elaine, and Paron (Saline County) have all failed in recent years, with those school districts since having been consolidated with others.

According to stories in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, one focus of the suit by Deer-Mt. Judea is the disproportionate cost of transportation borne by rural districts. The state pays a flat rate of $286/student for transportation, regardless of district size. This leaves more densely populated and compact school districts with a windfall, while creating hardship for rural and remote districts whose students are spatially dispersed. For 2008-2009, the state's transportation allotment for Deer-Mt. Judea was just $108,294, representing about a third of its total transport costs. Meanwhile, the state transport allotment for the Fort Smith district was $1.5 million more than the district actually spent on transportation. The Deer-Mt. Judea district sought an injunction against consolidation and a ban on school bus rides longer than 45-minutes each way. It also sought recognition that the state owes the same quality of education to children who are bused as to those who are not.

Other Arkansas schools have also recently made arguments related to the constitutionality of long bus rides in the past few years, but those have not gained much purchase with the Arkansas Supreme Court. In 2006, a trial court judge rued that Paron High School (Saline County) should be kept open to avoid the students having to make four-hour bus rides, but the state Supreme Court soon overruled that decision.

Apart from the lawsuit, Richard Denniston, superintendent of the Deer-Mt. Judea district, has reportedly tried several tactics to convince legislators to act in the interests of rural schools. One story reports:

A bus tour of the district--complete with a bus breakdown that left legislators stranded on a hillside--was among Denniston's previous attempts to gain legislative support against a merger.

The story does not make clear whether Denniston planned the breakdown--or only the tour.

The Deer-Mt. Judea district has filed notice of appeal. In a subsequent post, I will discuss other efforts by the district to save itself.

A list of Arkansas high schools is available here. I took these photos of buildings at the Deer School on a recent visit to Newton County. Note the USDA Rural Development logos on the sign at the school. I noticed several such signs around the county, all touting the federal money coming into the county to help fund infrastructure projects. Another such sign was at the Jasper sewage treatment plant.

Pulling out all the stops to save a rural school (Part IX): Marketing the school

I have written frequently over the past year about the struggle against consolidation among the schools in my home county and region.  (Read more in the series:  Pulling out all the stops to save a rural school).    Recently, I became aware of yet another aspect of the situation:  the effort by rural schools to attract students away from other schools.  I laughed out loud when I saw over Memorial Day week-end the billboard above, a few miles south of Harrison, Arkansas, and about 17 miles north of Jasper, Arkansas, the county seat of Newton County.  My mom, who works at the school as non certified personnel, told me that schools in Arkansas are now free to enroll students from outside their district's territory.  I am familiar with school choice, of course, but I had never contemplated its application in the highly rural context, in which students are typically riding buses great distances to get to the nearest school.  It seems very unlikely under these circumstances that families would send their children even greater distances to get to a different and presumably better school.  Among other things, how would they get their kids to the more distant schools when buses presumably do not serve areas beyond the district territory?

A May 9, 2012 story in the Newton County Times provides some details about Arkansas's school choice program.  This particular story indicates that the much smaller Deer/Mt. Judea district is also accepting applications for school choice for 2012-2013. Here's an excerpt: 

Before a student may attend a school in a nonresident district, the student's parent or guardian must submit an application on the form approved by and provided by the [Arkansas] Department [of Education] to the nonresident district.  The application must be postmarked no later than July 1, 2012.

Students applying from districts that are in "academic distress" need not meet the July 1, 2012 deadline.

While the Deer/Mt. Judea district is not in academic distress, it is in what might be called numerical distress.  That is, the district's enrollment has for a few years now been hovering at or below the minimum required to prevent consolidation under Arkansas law.  Indeed, recent reports indicate that its consolidation with the Jasper School District is imminent.  (Read more  here).  If, however, Deer/Mt. Judea could attract students from neighboring districts, it might bolster its enrollment above 350 and thus maintain its independence.

While the Mt. Judea school in Sept. 2010 touted a welding certification program (the only one in the state!), its offerings probably cannot compete well with neighboring district, including Jasper.  A school district like Jasper is likely to have more to offer students from neighboring districts like Deer/Mt. Judea, rather than vice versa.  (On the other hand, I would be surprised if students from a larger and more affluent neighboring district like that in Harrison would choose to attend Jasper).  I have written a great deal about the Jasper School District (here, here and here, for example), which includes campuses at Kingston and Oark.  It is a far-flung district.  Lately, however, I've written of the school's efforts to attract grants and partners that enable it to offer special programs.  For example, this post discussed the district's efforts to secure a grant that would permit it to offer a criminal justice course.

More recently, the Newton County Times has been full of news about a $500,000 Coordinated Health School Grant the district is seeking from the Arkansas Dept. of Education.  The funds, to be paid over five years, would be used to establish a school health center.  Here's the lede from the May 16, 2012 story about the "wellness center":

North Arkansas Regional Medical Center [NARMC] in Harrison has agreed to be the medical provider for a proposed wellness center at Jasper School campus. The announcement was made during the regular monthly meeting of the Jasper Board of Education Thursday night, May 10.

***

If the grant is awarded, the hospital will provide a physician and and an advanced practical nurse [APN] at the wellness center.  The center will serve students, staff and the community and will be able to partner with other health care providers for dental, vision and mental health services.  

The Jasper District had been assured it will receive the grant if the school found a provider by May 11.  Subsequent issues of the Newton County Times report that the Arkansas School Based Health Center Team from the State Dept. of Education visited the school on May 18, 2012 to discuss further details of the grant.  About 30 health professionals, school faculty and staff, parents, students and members of the community attended that meeting.

One Deputy Superintendent provided a "statistical view" of the district, which covers 654 square miles:  

We have 897 kids currently, plus 43 pre-school kids, 180 staff members and three communities all combined that have limited access to any health care at all. 

The president of the Newton County Ministerial Association similarly highlighted county demography:

We live in a demographic situation ... that is challenging to the educational system.  Establishing the Center would be an opportunity for the health and welfare of our students because many of them, if you don't come, will not have access to help.  It's just that simple. 

The Jasper elementary school principal explained that the district currently "take[s] kids to Marshall to see a dentist because that is where the nearest dentist is who will accept them.  Children are also taken to Harrison for vision care.  There is a good relationship with the [NARMC] medical clinic in Jasper, but there is a need for better access."  Several parents who spoke at the meeting noted that "it can take up to two hours to get into the doctor or APN at the NARMC clinic in Jasper.  The school nurse at the very remote Oark campus said that parents often "don't have the gas or a vehicle to come get their [sick] kids and [the kids] don't get seen" by a medical professional.  

The Center would be sited in the so-called "Nutter house," on the edge of the Jasper School campus, and an initial $150,000 transfer from the grant would be used to renovate the house and convert it for health care provision.

N.B. The June 13, 2012 issue of the newspaper reports that the Jasper School District has received the grant and will be hiring someone to run the clinic.  

In other news, the "Jasper School District is providing free meals for children in its free feeding program though out the summer."  About 130 children participated in the program during its first week.  What the story does not mention is that the funding for this program is presumably directly from the U.S.D.A.  Read more here.

Also, the May 23, 2012 edition reports that U.S. News and World Report has awarded "bronze medals" to Deer High School and Jasper High School.  The publication reviewed 21,776 public high schools in the U.S., and 81 Arkansas schools made the rankings.  Among other metrics noted, Jasper's student/teacher ration was 10:1, while that for Deer High School was 5:1.  "The magazine also reviewed the composition of the schools' student bodies as well as their test scores."

"Isolated" school funding to follow students in forced consolidations

I've written a bit about the public schools in Arkansas recently, here, here and here, with particular attention to those in Newton County, which are facing the prospect of further consolidation. One concern several folks in Newton County mentioned recently is the prospect that--if further consolidation occurs (specifically, if the Deer-Mt. Judea school district is consolidated into the Jasper district)--the school district will lose its status as an "isolated" school district because it will have more than 1000 students. This "isolated" status is apparently a creation of the state of Arkansas, and it represents additional funding to schools so designated.

Now, the May 4, 2011 issue of the Newton County Times reports some good news on this topic. Without explaining exactly what benefits or funding supplements and opportunities "isolated" schools receive, the story reports that the Arkansas legislature recently passed Act 996 as part of its 2011 legislative session and that this Act "ensures that isolated school funding follows the student after a consolidation or annexation of school districts." This Act "struck a rule" which would have caused loss of "isolated" school funding if a district's enrollment exceeded 1000 students.

In addition, the legislature put about $500,000 in a "one-time pot" of money from which schools with "tremendous" transportation costs can apply for some type of reimbursement. The Jasper School superintendent is quoted as saying this "money will buy lawmakers time to further study school districts' transportation costs and come up with a more equitable funding bill." He said that "the state is giving all schools around $300 per child to pay for funding expenses," while the Jasper School District spends more than $900 per child for transportation to and from school. The Jasper School had supported a bill with a "special transportation line item," but that bill did not pass.

Pictured above: A bus pulling away from the Jasper School in 2009.

The right to water in the San Joaquin Valley

It has been widely reported by the news and by Governor Newsom that over one million Californians do not have access to clean drinking water in their homes. The good news is that the state has taken serious legislative action to address the issue over the past decade. Beginning in 2012, California became the first state to recognize a human right to safe, clean, affordable, and accessible water. At that time, the state was in the middle of a drought that would ultimately be its driest three consecutive years on record. As everyone in the state was called on to use less water, divisions grew about its proper allocation. Indeed, the San Joaquin Valley remains starkly divided on the issue: potable water is primarily diverted to agricultural use while many of its residents and labor force still lack safe drinking water. Within the Valley, those living in unincorporated communities are the most vulnerable to this public health crisis.

A recent article from the Hastings Environmental Law Journal notes:

The majority of those [one million] Californians [lacking safe drinking water] are Latinx and live in disadvantaged unincorporated communities (DUCs) throughout the state’s rural agricultural belts. The greatest number of noncompliant public water systems is located in the San Joaquin Valley, where approximately forty percent of DUCs with noncompliant systems are located within a mile of a city’s borders, while one-third are too far from a city’s borders to extend drinking water service. These dire spatial and racial inequalities suggest that California must explore new strategies to augment current efforts to implement the human right to water.

Unincorporated communities are residences located outside any municipality. They can be directly adjacent to one or miles away, as stated in the quote above.  Unincorporated in the rural context has been discussed before in this blog here. Their proximity to towns aside, these communities are often disconnected from public water systems that could provide safe drinking water, and they are left to their own devices to figure out their water needs. Historically, these communities have relied on groundwater basins, which have become polluted after decades of chemicals from pesticides and fertilizer seeping into the ground, as discussed here.

To address this issue, the California legislature enacted a plan to consolidate these communities with compliant water districts. The protocol calls for the State to identify noncompliant systems in unincorporated areas for consolidation, encourage the nearby compliant water system to consolidate voluntarily, and if unsuccessful, make consolidation mandatory. According to the state, nineteen systems have received notices asking to consolidate voluntarily. Two actions have ceased because they did not involve disadvantaged communities. Eight resolved to voluntarily consolidate; one is completed. Four mandatory orders have been issued; one is completed.

At this rate, the problem likely will not be fixed any time soon for the thousands of San Joaquin Valley residents in unincorporated communities. Furthermore, the Hastings article points out that the plan is targeting communities in close proximity to existing water systems. There has not been any progress for remote unincorporated communities in the Valley.

This short documentary follows the community of Tooleville’s effort to join the town of Exeter’s water system. Being unincorporated, Tooleville’s 80 homes do not have clean water, and the community has suffered because of it. Despite residents pleading with Exeter city council, and the state offering them $10 million interest-free loan as an incentive, Exeter refuses to consolidate voluntarily.

A lack of trust between the parties appears to flow upstream: Tooleville does not trust Exeter to extend their services willingly, and Exeter does not trust the state to fulfill their promises to subsidize and maintain the expansion. There is also an underlying racial tension in the meetings between Tooleville’s Latinx, Spanish-speaking residents and the white council. One Tooleville resident read a prepared statement in Spanish, but nobody translated her message to the city. Then, a man from the city took the Tooleville residents outside and made empty promises to their representative. Between the meeting not having a translator and a man making off-the-record statements, there was ultimately no reason to hold the meeting in the first place.

Although the state’s plan is fairly new, it’s become clear that it is not effectively fulfilling the promise that people have a right to safe drinking water. After five years, only two systems have consolidated, and they were bordering. More funding or a new strategy will be needed to expedite the process, especially for the remote communities that remain a blindspot to the state.

 

NYS Agricultural Resiliency Against Tariffs Program: Is it enough to support the dairy and specialty crop sectors in New York?

On January 13, 2026, New York Governor Kathy Hochul proposed the Agricultural Resiliency Against Tariffs Program, a $30 million initiative aimed at supporting farmers and agricultural businesses in New York hit by the ongoing effects of federal tariffs. The program is designed to provide direct payments to specialty crop growers, livestock producers, and dairy farmers—sectors that have often been left out of federal assistance programs.

According to the press release, these payments are intended to provide financial support that the USDA’s national relief programs fail to deliver, especially for specialty crops and dairy farms, which the announcement notes receive “no meaningful support.”

This statement likely references the Farmer Bridge Assistance (FBA) Program, a one-time federal relief program announced on December 8, 2025. While the FBA provides $12 billion in one-time direct payments to farmers nationwide, assistance is not available to dairy farms and merely $1 billion is available to specialty crops and sugar nationwide. Additionally, the FBA payments are capped at $155,000 per producer, limiting assistance for mid-size and large farms. With this context, Governor Hochul’s program attempts to fill a noticeable gap for New York farmers…but is $30 million enough to make a meaningful difference?

In New York, the dairy industry is the largest single segment of the agriculture industry. The nearly 3,000 dairy farms in New York produce the largest quantity of yogurt and cottage cheese in the United States and New York is the fifth largest dairy state. The dairy industry has seen significant change in New York over the past ten years, with the number of dairy farmers dropping from 4,955 in 2014 to 2,864 in 2024. However, over the same 10-year span, the average number of cows in the state has increased from 615,000 to 630,000. These statistics indicate that small farms are closing, and larger farms are increasing in capacity. This trend, known as farm consolidation, reflects broader pressures on family farms that are struggling to survive in a rapidly changing agricultural economy.

According to the New York State Tariff Disruptions Report, over 20% of a farmer’s income typically depends on exports. The report also highlights that more than 80% of agrochemical imports and 70% of farm machinery are imported from countries subject to the administration’s tariffs. Farmers income reliance on exports may lead to heightened revenue volatility and retaliatory tariffs may raise production costs through raising the price of importing machinery, seeds, fertilizer, and other necessary equipment. Smaller farms that operate on thin margins often with less access to capital are left particularly vulnerable. If tariffs persist, these pressures could accelerate consolidation even further, leaving fewer, larger farms controlling even more of the state’s dairy sector.

To provide context for the Agricultural Resiliency Against Tariffs Program, currently approximately 2,800 dairy farms operate in New York state, excluding specialty crop growers. When the proposed $30 million in direct payments is divided amongst just the dairy farms, each operation would receive roughly $10,000. Once specialty crop growers are factored in, the assistance will be significantly lower per farm. While the assistance will likely be welcomed by farmers, will it be enough to make a meaningful impact? It may provide temporary relief in the industry, but any long-term benefits seem unlikely, especially with no end in sight of the tariff war.

 

Beyond immediate financial relief, the Agricultural Resiliency Against Tariffs Program demonstrates tension between state-level intervention and federal trade policy. Negative impacts from tariffs, such as increased input costs, are often disproportionately felt on individual producer or small producer levels. While direct payments from the government can temporarily offset losses caused by retaliatory tariffs or increased import costs, they do not address underlying structural pressures. Smaller farms continue to face rising input costs, labor shortages, and operational challenges that may not be alleviated by one-time or short-term payments.

The central policy question is not merely whether $30 million is sufficient in the short term to bolster the dairy, livestock, and specialty crops sectors in New York, but also whether state-level relief can bolster industry resilience without broad reforms. Ultimately, state-level measures to support farms can mitigate, but not fully counteract, the effects of federal trade decisions.

Small towns and counties on NPR

Yesterday, NPR ran two stories back to back on Morning Edition about small towns and rural places.

The first was about the pros and cons of city and county governments consolidating services, and among the cons was the loss of identity for local government units that consolidate.  Amy Kiley reports from Waukesha County, Wisconsin under the headline, "Communities Debate Whether Sharing Services Saves Money." But near the end of her story, where she is focused on what is lost in consolidation--acknowledging it can be something quite "nebulous:  civic identity," Kiley references a rural place and provides a poignant quote from Mike Nolles, who formed Class Ones United eight years ago to resist a wave of school consolidation in Nebraska that ultimately closed more than 200 small school districts.  Nolles says:

When you lose a school like this, it's the exact same feeling you have when your home burns down with all of your family photographs. It's the exact same feeling, because I've experienced both.

The second story--really a little radio vignette--is also about education.  It is out of Dickenson County, Virginia, population 15,690, and billed by NPR as "one of the poorest in Virginia."  The poverty rate there is 21.3%, and its population is 98.8% white. Dickenson County is in Appalachia, and its coal-dependent economy was in decline even before the Great Recession.  The story focuses on Tammy Smith, retiring after 32 years as speech therapist in the Dickenson County Schools.  The story quotes her regarding how she held onto hope even as she watched her community decline:

Well, they're basically everything that the county's got to look forward to, because it is a struggling town population-wise, economically, and their children really need all the encouragement and education we can give them to promote the future.

She cites Seth Baker as a Dickenson County native who has come home--after getting a law degree.  Smith says:

And he didn't have to come there. He could have gone, you know, to a larger city, but he's come back home.

As for Baker, he explains his motivation:

I guess you can be a small fish in a big pond, or you can be a big fish in a small pond. But I just like the people around here. The roots are strong. 

I know my education that I received here, and when I got to college and elsewhere, I was able to keep up with everybody else. I did talk a little bit funny. I guess you can tell. But I felt like I had the tools to compete and survive anywhere, with what I got here.

Left to burn: how federal cuts are abandoning rural America's wildfire defenses

My memory of leaving Sonoma County for San Francisco includes a period of about four years where California wildfires progressively escalated in severity, oftentimes blanketing the city in smoke. In 2017, that included ducking inside to avoid breathing in the ashes of the town where I went to high school. It culminated in 2020 with the North Complex Fire causing the orange, alien sky that enveloped San Francisco. That fire was caused by a freak "lightning siege" attributable to climate change.  

My friend took this photo outside her apartment in September, 2020.
(c) Rose Barry, 2020

The Palisades Fire early last year should have emphasized the apocalyptic urgency of addressing wildfire dangers in California and beyond. But in the name of limiting "waste and abuse" the Trump administration ignored this urgency and instead proceeded to cut federal funding to fight fires in rural America. 

The Cuts 

Like the rest of the Trump administration's 2025 efforts, these cuts are as chaotic as they are dramatic, attacking wildfire prevention and response from multiple angles. 

First, the administration cut 10% of workers at the Forest Service. The Forest Service manages Federal land, and many of their responsibilities include fire prevention and firefighting. Fewer workers means fewer people clearing the brush and fewer people trained to fight fires. This puts California in a precarious position, with the Federal government managing 57% of forests in the state. Nevada is arguably in even worse shape, with 86% of their land being federally managed. 

Critics of the policy include members of the previous Trump administration. Former Forest Service chief Vickie Christiansen posits that the policies amount to "$40 million saved now for $4 billion in wildfire expense" later. Ryan Zinke, Trump's former Secretary of the Interior, says that the cuts shift the question of hiring from "'are we paying them enough” (to) “are we even going to have the bodies?'"

Firefighters from Stockton, CA putting out a fire off Hidden Valley Road. 
Source: Creative Commons, 2013.

The administration has also merged disparate firefighting groups from the Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Interior into a single U.S. Wildlife Fire Service. While there have been proposals to this effect in the past, they were previously rejected due to a 2008 Congressional report finding this consolidation had significant drawbacks. The consolidation shifts the focus away from fire prevention and towards suppression. The Forest Service ideally fights fire through its land management duties, and separating the two functions increases the risk of catastrophic fires that cannot be adequately suppressed. 

Despite some of the most high stakes firefighting occurring in rural spaces (especially in California), rural firefighters are often volunteers. As a previous post on this blog puts it, "volunteer firefighting is a rural issue." California has 200 volunteer fire departments, with many rural spaces completely lacking professional firefighters. Communities often fund these departments partially through local fundraisers. As people leave these communities, staffing these departments becomes even more difficult. Willow Creek in Humboldt County finds their department shrinking as calls increase.  Cuts to the Forest Service means these towns already lacking in resources have even less ability to serve their community even as the fire season grows ever larger. 

Volunteer Fire Station in Occidental, CA. 
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2025.

 States and localities have also suffered from the suspension of FEMA Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) grants in 2025, with a lawsuit forcing the resumption of grants only last year. A massive backlog has resulted, with two years worth of applicants applying for one year of grant funding. This affects infrastructure for fire prevention as well as other disasters. 

This backlog disproportionately affects rural towns. Larger municipalities frequently have full-time grant-writers, where small towns often rely on a thin secretarial support staff, if that. These towns have no ability to fund their own improvements, with necessary infrastructure often costing several times the town's budget. 

The Response 

California moved relatively swiftly to counter the Forest Service cuts, deploying $72 million in Cal FIRE grants to "rake the forest" and fast track critical fire prevention projects. While certainly helpful, the State can only work with the 3% of forest land it manages directly and must work with private landowners who own the other 40% of the land. With a majority of the land in California under Federal management, this effort is limited. 

Utah also increased their wildfire funding by $150 million and joined the Great Plains Interstate Fire Compact. The compact enables coordination and resource sharing with other western states to fight wildfires and prevent wildfires. While this likely won't make up for the gap left by the federal government, this more coordinated local effort is cause for optimism. 

The Department of the Interior also announced a $20 million grant to equip "small, remote emergency response agencies with practical, deployable tools," i.e. modern water tanker trucks. While not unwelcome, this targeted funding does not make up for the larger structural damage done by the Trump administration. 

Notably, none of these responses make efforts to alleviate the specific burdens on rural communities. They simply attempt to fill in the gaps left by the federal government's retreat, failing to address the prior inequities. 

Conclusion  

On our current trajectory I find it difficult to be optimistic about anything involving climate change. As a Californian, there are few things that seem more immediately pressing than addressing the increasing severity of wildfires. The current administration's efforts harm everyone by failing to address these systemic issues, and rural communities will bear the brunt of the impact. 

Law and Order in the Ozarks (Part CI): Former coach pleads guilty to drug charges

A former basketball coach at Deer High School, Jake Thompson, pleaded guilty to possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver (hydrocodone) in Johnson County Circuit Court in late March.  He will serve 36 months probation.  Thompson was "post adjudicated" to the drug court treatment program and will pay a fee of $600, in addition to having his driver's license suspended for six months.  He was arrested in October, 2011, by the 5th Judicial Drug Task Force and the Clarksville Police Department and tendered his resignation to the Deer/Mt. Judea Board of Education shortly after the arrest.   Read an earlier post about the matter here.

The manager of the Arkansas Sex Offender Registry (SOR), Paula Stitz, visited the county at the invitation of Sheriff Keith Slape and presented a program to explain to the public how the SOR works and its responsibilities.  April, when Stitz visited, was National Sexual Assault Awareness month.  Sex offenders are required to register in Arkansas under the Sex Offender Registration Act of 1997.  Under this law,  law enforcement agencies release to the public information on the names and locations of registered sex offenders.  Information about victims is never released.

In other news:

• A three-day spay and neuter clinic at the Newton County fairgrounds by Newton County Animal Services, a non-profit organization that provides low-cost clinics several times a year, highlighted the need for a building in which to conduct the clinics.  Joanna McManus, DVM from Arkansans for Animals in Mabelvale, conducted the surgeries in a mobile operating suite set up next to one of the fairground's exhibit buildings, with that building doubling as a recovery room.   The animals were also vaccinated for rabies, as necessary. 
• The Deer/Mt Judea Board of Education considered a rise in its property tax rate, with the matter being put to voters in the fall, 2012 election.  The Superintendent, Richard Denniston, is proposing 3.8 new debt mills, which would put the district's tax rate on par with the Jasper School District.  Certified personnel are hoping for a $2,000 annual raise.  Regarding possible consolidation, Denniston stated, "I think everybody knows it's inevitable that if the legislators don't  make some kind of legislative adjustment that it's inevitable there is one place for us to go and that place will be Jasper.  What I [look to do] is bring our millage to the same identical millage rate as Jasper's because if we do go with Jasper is inevitable that the people from Deer/Mt. Judea will end up being identical to Jasper.  There's no way around that." Construction has begun on a multipurpose building on the campus, construction financed by the last millage increase.  Some recent posts about the possible consolidation of the Deer/Mt. Judea School are here, here and here.  
• One Mt. Judea school patron suggested the Board of Education consider implementing a 4-day week for students.  she said she researched the plan and spoke to a superintendent of a school district in South Dakota where the plan is apparently working  She said the cost savings for that district had been 2-4%
• The Mt. Sherman Historical Community Board received a $16,000 grant from the Arkansas Department of Rural Services; the funds will be sued to provide water to the building and to install heating equipment.    
• May 5-13 was proclaimed Travel and Tourism Week in Newton County.  "Travel is a catalyst that moves the Newton County economy forward and contributes greatly to the excellent quality of life enjoyed but he county's residents," according to the proclamation signed by the Jasper Mayor and the Newton County Judge.  
• The County Health Rankings and Roadmaps program shows Newton County ranked 16th among Arkansas's 75 counties in health outcomes.  This favorable ranking is in spite of the county falling in the middle or lower clusters on such metrics as clinical environment, physical environment and health behaviors.  In the state rankings, Newton County ranked 15th in mortality (length of life); 10th in morbidity (quality of life); 46th in health behaviors; 46th in clinical care; 40th in overall health factors; 32d in physical environment and 22d in social and economic factors.   

Big NYT Magazine feature on rural schools: out of sight, out of mind

Casey Parks, who has just joined the Washington Post, gets credit for this deeply reported story out of the Mississippi Delta.  The story appears in the Education issue of the magazine, and its headline is "The Tragedy of America's Rural Schools."  Many may see the word "tragedy" as an overstatement, but I'd argue it is not hyperbole with respect to many rural schools, including those in high-poverty and persistent poverty counties like Holmes County, Mississippi, where this story is set.  Holmes County's poverty rate is 33.8%.

The story centers Harvey Ellington, a high school senior in Holmes County, but the following excerpt focuses not on that compelling personal narrative, but rather on the funding schemes that undermine rural schools--and therefore rural students:  

Mississippi’s Department of Education doesn’t have any staff members dedicated to rural issues, and its most recent strategic plan doesn’t even include the word rural. But in 2016, when Ellington was in middle school, Republican lawmakers concluded that the best way to bolster Holmes was to consolidate it with Durant Public Schools, an even smaller and equally poor district 12 miles east, so that the districts could pool their resources.

Leaders from Holmes and Durant begged state lawmakers to consider alternatives. Several states have tried consolidation, and studies have consistently found that forced mergers rarely save much money and often don’t boost student achievement. What Holmes and Durant needed, their leaders said, was more money from the state.

Mississippi lawmakers have long known that rural districts can’t compete with wealthier suburban schools. In 1994, legislators even rolled out a new funding model designed to increase rural districts’ budgets. But the state has only fully funded the law three times in the last three decades, and leaders from Durant and Holmes argued that the shortfall had left both districts in a bind.

The story is worth a read in its entirety, not least because of the compelling cast of characters, including Ellington.  

I have written a great deal over the years about rural school consolidation (a lot of it based on events in my home county in the Arkansas Ozarks), and a bit about school funding.  

My recent academic work about rural school deficits, with Diana Flores, analyzes the situation, through the dual lenses of race/ethnicity and socioeconomic class, in New Mexico.