Rural Schools and their Declining Enrollment (Part II)

By: Yewon Lee

Please see Part I before this article for an introduction to the topic.

The question becomes: how do we reverse or mitigate declining rural enrollment?

One exemplary solution was the Rural Community Resource Hub, where students could find open access educational resources that could be accessed at a later time even without the internet and even advice for students and teachers who were concerned with the matter. Additionally, the latest coronavirus updates and changes to communities would be reported on the resource hub with the most accurate data of that time. Especially helpful were COVID conscious health practices specifically targeted for children, such as hand washing tips, and ways to deal with COVID related anxiety. Created by Mara Tieken and the Harvard Education Redesign Lab, the resource hub was founded with direct input from teachers and school administrators from a diverse range of rural areas, which helped to hear from those who had not usually had a prominent voice in the national educational scene.

Other solutions on a more individual, personalized scale include changing everyday classroom practices to suit the needs of a student. With more tailored education fit to students’ backgrounds and home situation, taking into account internet access, travel times, and extracurricular activities, schools may benefit from more flexible deadlines and balanced workloads in order to prevent additional enrollment decline. Some schools have encouraged more interaction between parents and students, as well as siblings to create additional educational environments in the home. Overall, the effects of coronavirus on declining rural student enrollment has been paramount, signaling the critical need for changes to reverse the effects.