National Rural Education Association Official Podcast

In today’s episode, we interview one of our listeners and rural high school teachers, Rachael Straughn, from Russell County High School in Seale, Alabama. In this episode, Rachael shares her educational journey and narrative. Rachael talks about her childhood dream of being a broadcast meteorologist and storm chaser. She worked hard to be a chief meteorologist on television within a lake effect snow area and achieved her dream at age 25. While in that role, she hosted school learning opportunities to teach students about meteorology and emergency preparedness. While teaching the evening news, Rachael also served as a substitute teacher to connect with the classroom. After achieving her life goal of being a meteorologist, she shifted her career to be a teacher. We discussed the geographical differences in rural education. Rachael talked about her experiences teaching in rural Alabama and the benefits of this experience. This episode shows the amazing job all our teachers are doing in rural education.

Rachael Straughn is a chemistry teacher at Russell County High School in Seale, Alabama and a doctoral student in education leadership at Valdosta State University. She has her M.S. Ed from Utica University and her Bachelors in Meteorology from Iowa State University. She has taught middle and high school science in upstate NY and Columbus, Georgia. Before becoming a teacher, she was a broadcast meteorologist in Nebraska, South Carolina, California and upstate New York. She is happily married to her husband Corey, who serves in the US Army and they have a one year old son Milo. In her limited free time, she loves to sew, read or listen to audiobooks and she is a Jeopardy superfan!

Twitter- @SchoolhouseRach

TikTok- @mrs.straughn

LinkedIn- Rachael Straughn

Imagine you are in a small town, and several industries have moved out of your community. Many of your citizens have lost their jobs. What do you do now? Meet Jon Chadwell, the Executive Director of the Newport Arkansas Economic Development Commission. Jon’s community rallied together and formalized a plan to revitalize their community. The community worked together to find industries that were previously present in town. The community invested in infrastructure to make the community more marketable to similar industries. They brought in new industries as well. As a manufacturing community, they shifted to invest in other industries, such as technology, by forming a tech depot. Newport shifted to having enough jobs where people from different communities now commute to Newport for their jobs. As a result, Newport has now partnered with the local school system and the local two-year college to provide training for local industry by identifying gaps in the workforce. This is a great episode for those thinking of revitalizing their economic development and employment through partnerships and grant-funded opportunities.

About the guest

Jon Chadwell is the Executive Director of the Newport Economic Development Commission (NEDC). The NEDC manages an economic development fund created by a one-half-cent sales tax in Newport, Arkansas. Jon has worked in local economic development for 30 years, the past 19 years in Newport. Previously, he held economic and community development roles in Blytheville, Camden and Prescott.

Jon has held positions in a number of state and regional economic development groups. He is a member of Arkansas Economic Developers and Chamber Executives and a member of the International Economic Development Council. He was appointed by Governor Asa Hutchinson to the Arkansas Finance Development Authority in 2019. In addition to economic development activities, Jon has been active in facilitating adult leadership programs in Newport, Prescott and Camden.

Jon has a B.A. and an M.Div. from Harding University. He is a graduate of the Community Development Institute and LeadAR. In addition, he is a Business Retention and Expansion Consultant through BRE International. Jon is also recognized by the International Economic Development Council as a Certified Economic Developer (CEcD). In 2022, he was chosen as the Outstanding Economic Developer in the state of Arkansas by the Arkansas Economic Developers and Chamber Executives Association.

Jon is married to Sheridan Chadwell and has two children, Calli Johnson and Jordan Chadwell. Sheridan is the Arkansas Sales Rep for the Daniel Richards Showroom and Coordinator for the Joe and Helen Harris Foundation. Calli is an insurance agent in Newport with M&P Insurance and Investment. Jordan is a computer programmer with Bass Pro in Springfield, Missouri. Jon and Sheridan really enjoy spending time with their granddaughter Olivia.

Email [email protected]

In this episode of the Rural Voice, we are discussing student data privacy and best practices in technology for protecting student data. We explore the importance of protecting student data, why rural schools particularly should be focused on data protection, and ways that teachers and administrators should be thinking about data protection. We discuss the free resources provided by CoSN that teachers and administrators can use to protect data in rural schools. We also explore some of the common mistakes made by users and how school systems can protect themselves from hacking and phishing attacks. This is a great episode for anyone concerned with protecting student information in their role in education.

About our Guest

Linnette Attai is Project Director for CoSN’s Privacy and Trusted Learning Environment initiatives. As founder of the global privacy consulting firm PlayWell, LLC, Linnette provides strategic advice, training, policy development, and related guidance to a wide range of organizations. She is the author of an FTC-approved COPPA safe harbor program, and serves as virtual chief privacy officer and GDPR data protection officer to select clients. Linnette is a recognized expert in the youth and education sectors and speaks nationally on data privacy. She is a TEDx speaker and author of three books for school districts on protecting student data privacy.

https://www.cosn.org/edtech-topics/student-data-privacy/

Social Media

LinkedIn

Twitter/X:

Linnette Attai: @PlayWell_LLC

CoSN: @CoSN and @CoSNTLE

Privacy Survey Information:

We are excited to announce the launch of our nationwide survey focused on understanding student data privacy needs in U.S. school districts. Insights of K12 district technology leaders are crucial, and we would greatly value your participation!

Why participate?

1. Influence Future Resources: Your feedback will shape the development of new tools and resources.

2. Anonymity Assured: Participation is anonymous, and you can choose whether to share your name and district.

3. Impact: Contribute to a comprehensive report that will benefit school districts nationwide.

Please take a few minutes to complete the survey here. Your perspective will help us make meaningful strides in student data privacy.

Feel free to share this survey far and wide with other districts. You don't need to be a CoSN member to participate.

For this episode, we interview Dr. Brian Noland, the President of East Tennessee State University (ETSU). ETSU is a rural university serving the states of Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky. ETSU is located in a mountainous area of the country and has a strong presence in these states. ETSU has a strong education program for developing Rural Southeast United States teachers. We discussed the future of rural communities and how graduates from ETSU support these communities. Dr Noland believes that relationships are an important part of advocacy for raising awareness of the unique challenges within mountain communities. Dr. Noland believes in making a presence in these rural areas to serve this relationship focus. We discussed the importance of humility in making these relationships and meeting students and teachers where they are. We discuss some of the biggest challenges in education in the rural south. We talk about raising attainment levels. We discussed changing the perception of higher education in rural areas. For example, higher education wastes time and money indoctrinating students, and students will be hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. Dr. Noland discusses the challenges of this narrative in helping students make the right decision for them. With all the available student funding through programs such as Tennessee Promise, students can attend college with little to no debt. One of the biggest challenges is this false narrative about college. Higher education empowers students to have greater earning power in the marketplace. ETSU is an economic driver of innovation and job creation in the rural south. ETSU is a teaching school and a medical science school. Many local residents connect with medical and educational professionals trained at ETSU. In other words, many residents connect with ETSU in many ways. We end the episode by discussing the role of ETSU Elevates, where students build a community partnership with organizations. The goal is to build student/community engagement to solve community challenges and to give back to small towns by working with community partners and meeting needs as identified by those partners. Dr. Noland shared that he and his team want students to dream big and actualize their dreams.

Dr. Noland’s Bio

Since 2012, Dr. Brian Noland has served as the ninth president of East Tennessee State University. Before that, he led the development and implementation of higher education policy in Tennessee and West Virginia.

Dr. Noland’s Socials

X (formally Twitter): https://x.com/ETSUPrez

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/etsuprez/

-LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-noland-etsu/

ETSU is part of Four the Future, a statewide initiative to showcase the value of a four-year degree for Tennesseans. Learn more at fourthefuturetn.com.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FourTheFutureTN/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/four-the-future-tn/

ETSU’s Socials

X (formally Twitter): https://x.com/etsu

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/etsu/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/school/east-tennessee-state-university

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/easttennesseestateuniversity/

This episode is sponsored by My Credential at https://www.mycredential.com/

We interviewed Dr. Casey Jakubowski about teacher retention, policy, and practice. Dr. Jakubowski shared that Appalachia extends into New York State, and we reflected on how New York has large rural communities. Much of Dr. Jakubowski's work has focused on these communities and beyond (including West Virginia). We discuss the changing trends of job availability to applicants. We discuss burnout of new rural teachers and pay disparities between urban versus suburban teaching. The revolving door of teachers causes students not to have a permeance of personalities and connections with teachers. Interpersonal relationships between teachers and students are important to student success. We discussed some common issues facing rural education, including internet access and lack of amenities such as Starbucks as a cultural expectation of new teachers. One solution noted by Dr. Jakubowski is for rural districts to partner to address the unique challenges in rural education. We shift to discuss the rural funding in New York State. Dr. Jakubowski shares that given this perceived decrease in the number of kids in rural education states, such as New York, are starting to cut budgets for rural education. This has a direct impact on programs and teachers in these schools. We discuss how teachers hold significant responsibility for the welfare of their communities, families, and students to help students succeed. Finally, Dr. Jakubowski discusses place-based teaching as a solution to give resources to rural teaching. This helps facilitate partnerships between the teachers and the community to help students see how their education is connected to their community. These can be connected to science, history, math, and other topics. Further, he suggests we should celebrate other educational programs such as the Scouts of America, 4-H, and other programs that assist in preparing students for leadership and the workforce.

Check out Dr. Jakubowski's book Getting to the Hearts of Teaching, as some of the topics discussed come from this book.

Casey Jakubowski Phd founder of Dragontamer.us is the author of books on Rural Education and the teacher retention crisis. Thinking about Teaching, A cog in the machine, ang Getting to the Hearts of Teaching(EduMatch Publishing) are rural inspired and rural focused. He is the co author of Crush it from the start: 50 tips for new teachers (SchoolRubric) designed to help the educator retention crisis. A historian,,Casey wrote Rural Education history: state policy meets local implementation (Lexington) that delves into the failed school consolidation policies. His book, Minerva Conflict in the hills (Lexington) examines the history of the Post World War II centralization policy towards education.

My Credential sponsors this episode at https://www.mycredential.com/

In this episode, we discuss rural initiatives to train students in computer science. We interviewed Ms. Karen Mix, the co-director of CS4NorCal, a five-year research grant. This program creates K-12 computer science training. CS4NorCal was funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Education Innovation and Research (EIR) Program and sponsored by SSDA to support Computer Science (CS) professional learning and instruction in rural Northern California. The project is currently building a model for computer science in rural schools. Ms. Mix discusses the role of partnerships within the six counties in Northern California with professional development for teachers and generating access for teachers to attend. We discussed how the various ways this program has supported computer science programs in rural schools. We discuss how schools can find funding for these programs and how partnerships can aid resources and education. We discuss how the curriculum can be implemented at various levels and programs.

Links of interest

CS4NorCal Main Website - https://www.cs4norcal.org/

CS4NorCal Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/CS4NorCal/

CS4NorCal Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/company/cs4norcal/

Code.org - http://code.org

CSforCA - https://csforca.org/

CS for All - https://www.csforall.org/

Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) - https://csteachers.org/

CS4NorCal Presentation - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1zvybwzYf4RiIGsfeu3R8J-T8bvcLgE4ssn_x5PWtMT0/edit#slide=id.g2b9a718b659_0_1733

Implementation Dashboard - https://lookerstudio.google.com/reporting/90b34553-bb57-4969-84fe-7af0d3a9c6e4/page/5iGTD

This episode is sponsored by My Credential at https://www.mycredential.com/

In the first episode of the new season of the Rural Voice, we talk about the research of place and process of rural education from a data-informed perspective. We discuss the role of Ground Truthing and connecting data within the domains of politics, culture, and fear of consolidation. Dr. Mitchell talks about somewhere (rural) and anywhere (urban and suburban). The politics of these are what many would expect. Somewhere, lean more conservative, and anywhere is more liberal. However, these trends in the data are not uniform. In some rural areas, some voters lean liberal, particularly for those people of color. More rural suburban locations vote more conservatively. These spaces include many small business owners. More diverse suburbs lean more liberal as well. Similarly, we are seeing a shift toward skills-based education in high schools, such as trade education (e.g., Information Technology). Thus, educational pathways should be more connected to local needs. We discussed the role of emotion and between-group conflict, such as city and rural tension, the reemergence of populism, women's rights, diversity, and others. These trends have a trickle-down influence on education. We discuss psychology's role in explaining the American shift toward being "groupy" and how it insulates us from perceived threats to our values and groups. We talk about access to resources such as money, natural resources, services, etc. This directly connects to educational offerings and how policy influences local schools, particularly concerning policy and law. From the cultural perspective, it relates to migration and the changing rural demographics. At the same time, we see a change in Hispanic populations in rural America, but African Americans also move to rural areas, including the Southeast United States. This can place a financial strain on these small communities as, in some cases, these communities are seeing an increase in migration, particularly for public schools. This will create new challenges for educators in rural education to meet the needs of these populations (e.g., ESL services). The final domain concerns the fear of consolidating small communities to merge services where rural communities may lose their identity. Dr. Mitchell suggests that these issues will play a role in rural education in the future. Much of the curriculum and policy will be related to places, resources, and job markets and how rural education changes to meet these challenges through the somewhere versus anywhere paradigm.

Dr. Valerie Rutledge, Dean of the College of Health, Education, and Professional Studies at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, discussed the large, diverse mix of accredited and licensure programs her college oversees. With an extensive background as an educator and administrator, Rutledge highlighted impressions from the record-setting National Forum to Advance Rural Education conference. She noted the hundreds of attendees from 48 states and abroad, representing the importance of understanding widespread rural needs despite regional differences. If Rutledge had a "magic wand," she would increase rural schools' visibility and confidence while expanding opportunities and resources for rural students to unleash their potential. Dr. Rutledge can be reached at [email protected].

Michael Crosa helps people across the US to create, distribute, and monetize their podcasts. Learn more at Chattanooga Podcast Studios dot com. He is also the head of the PodNooga Network which can be found on Instagram and Facebook at PodNooga.

Mike Hines, representing business and industry, discussed new federal infrastructure funding for rural schools at the National Forum to Advance Rural Education conference. The Inflation Reduction Act's $369 billion tax credits allow non-taxable entities like schools to access cash to upgrade aging systems for energy efficiency. Hines explained how schools can leverage these funds as a down payment and use future energy savings to pay for complete infrastructure modernization without further straining budgets. The act also emphasizes job training so future workers can operate and maintain new technology. Hines invites listeners to contact the TRAIN organization to connect with him about the 48C ITC federal program supporting rural schools with major facility

Michael Crosa helps people across the US to create, distribute, and monetize their podcasts. Learn more at Chattanooga Podcast Studios dot com. He is also the head of the PodNooga Network which can be found on Instagram and Facebook at PodNooga.

Dr. Melissa Seidorf, superintendent of a small, rural Arizona district, was interviewed at the National Forum to Advance Rural Education conference. Seidorf co-hosts the Rural Scoop podcast highlighting rural education issues. At the conference, she presented on overcoming leadership challenges, drawing from her upcoming book "The Resilient Rural Leader." Seidorf discussed the tight-knit, supportive nature of rural communities that actively engage with their schools. If she had a "magic wand," Seidorf would amplify rural voices at all levels to raise awareness that rural student needs differ from urban ones. She defines the "rural advantage" as an intimate community and family connectedness where schools are central hubs. Seidorf can be reached on Twitter @Dr_Sadorf and will retire after 13 years leading her district this summer.

Michael Crosa helps people across the US to create, distribute, and monetize their podcasts. Learn more at Chattanooga Podcast Studios dot com. He is also the head of the PodNooga Network which can be found on Instagram and Facebook at PodNooga.