Developing collaborative partnerships is one way to reduce educational isolation for rural teachers and school leaders. TeachUNITED recently reached out to Heidi Beatty, PreK-12 Principal of Northeast Nodaway R-V School in Ravenwood, Missouri to understand her perspective on the situation facing her rural school and how data-driven solutions are paramount in today’s rural education climate.
Due to limited funding, professional development opportunities are scarce in Beatty’s rural school. The TeachUNITED program brings quality, professional development right to their door, and she is thrilled to collaborate with specialists and educators in other districts on strategies for teachers.
The challenges.
While a small, rural school is a wonderful utopia, we face many challenges. Recruiting and retaining high quality teachers is always a struggle for rural schools as funding is limited, and our small towns do not offer the job opportunities a larger town can provide.
The State of Missouri is ranked almost last in teacher pay. And this translates to even less pay for the small, rural districts. Our town, Ravenwood, is about 30 minutes from Iowa, a state which offers much more to teachers in the area of monetary compensation. It’s very tough to compete with pay–when we do hire a teacher, our ability to fund opportunities for that teacher, as well as students, is limited. Even though school closure doesn’t appear to be on the horizon, it’s always a fear of ours. In our county, there are nine schools, so we feel we must work even harder to keep our doors open. Finding the financial resources for our teachers to receive quality professional development and then creating opportunities for our students is one of our biggest challenges. We owe it to our kids, and we owe it to our community. We are the lifeblood of our two small towns!
Preparing Our Students.
We constantly strive to cultivate a positive climate and culture. We look for ways to help our students stay up-to-date by implementing instructional strategies, updating curriculum & resources, shoring up teachers’ content knowledge, structuring social & emotional learning for both staff and students, and educating students so they are able to take on future challenges.
Putting Data to Work.
Our teachers and administrators need access to data to make the best decisions for our students. This is a major focus for us starting next semester. We are learning how to gain and secure data, analyze it, use it to help students make goals and create interventions to best assist our students.
What Does Success Look Like?
Our kids are much more than a number, however we have to look at State numbers as one part of our evaluation of a student. More importantly, to us, success for our District means both students and teachers are excited to come to school each day.
Whether you are a subscriber to our blog or this is your first time to our site (welcome!), we assume you are interested in the work we do. Our mission is to equip rural and underserved educators with the skills needed to ensure their students are learning critical math, literacy, and life skills. Help us spread the word, and please take a moment to share our blog with a colleague. Visit TeachUNITED to learn more about our mission or contact us. Let’s meet!
Heidi Beatty attended college at Northwest Missouri State University as a public relations major. After a Freshman Seminar teacher recommended taking a teaching observation course, she was hooked! She soon realized that her love of talking, married with a passion for building relationships and sharing information could be used to educate our youth and soon become her chosen profession. After fifteen years of teaching elementary and middle school, Beatty became an Assistant Principal and is now the Head Principal of a PreK-12th grade building.
It comes as no surprise that the same love she had to build relationships while educating youth has extended to adults. She loves teaching teachers and helping them become the best teachers they can for the students.
