Missouri State University’s 2nd Annual Rural Summit - Stories that Drive Change: The Power of Rural Voices

Missouri State University’s Center for Rural Education hosted their 2nd Annual Rural Summit in mid-February on Missouri State University’s Springfield campus. The summit attracted14 rural school district superintendents, principals and teachers from the rural Missouri area to learn, collaborate and interact with future educators. Dr. Rhonda Bishop and Dr. Denise Cunningham of Missouri State University College of Education and Center for Rural Education hosted this event after seeing a real need. “We started the Rural Summit because we wanted to bring rural schools together to collaborate on common themes that rural schools experience,” says Dr. Bishop.

This year, the Rural Summit focused on the theme of Stories that Drive Change: The Power of Rural Voices. Kicking the day off was keynote speaker, Henry Whitehead from Rural Schools Collaborative. Focusing on Place-Based Education (PBE), teachers, students and staff, Henry highlighted that learning cannot happen only in the four walls of the school. When the group was asked what they see as benefits of PBE; ownership, engaged community and student ownership were highlighted.

To keep the momentum going, breakout sessions following the keynote included topics on developing a Storytelling Toolkit, Community Foundation of the Ozarks (CFO) 101, and Engaging with Community Members. Attendees had the opportunity to create their own path and choose two sessions out of the three. Denise noted that they “believe every student has the right to receive high quality education regardless of the geographical location of their school.” These sessions provided administrators and teachers the opportunity to learn about resources that can better help their students and districts take the next step in providing.

The event has grown in its second year, and area administrators are taking note.

“I'm super excited about the networking that we've made. I didn't know about the Community Foundation of the Ozarks. I know it's only the second year of the summit, but I think it's going to take off, because I know we'll talk about it. We are excited about the networking opportunities with other rural schools like us,” said first-year summit participant Michaela Wilson, of Hurley School District in Hurley, MO.

New to the Rural Summit this year was the Student Showcase, which was held in the afternoon. This event served as an opportunity for MSU pre-service teachers and districts to meet with one another, network, and potentially find good fits for job openings. Dr. Cunningham described that “we added the Student Showcase because our rural school partners have shared that when they attend large career fairs with bigger districts, it can be harder for them to connect with teacher candidates. Creating an opportunity specifically for students who are interested in teaching in rural schools allows for more focused and meaningful conversations. When both the district and the candidate are deeply committed to rural communities, the connection is stronger and more likely to lead to a good long-term fit. . . it was exciting to see the positive interactions between rural schools and pre-service teachers.”

Mark Waugh with the Hollister School District in Hollister, MO, attended the summit last year and was happy to be back in attendance. “It's just great to be able to network with individuals who are serving a similar population. Selfishly, for us, we love getting to see prospective employees, and in fact, from the students that came out last year, we were able to hire one of our new teachers for fourth grade coming out of this event.”

Jared Brown, principal at Pleasant Hope High School feels similar to Mark about the event. “I like this kind of event to give me some more tools in the toolbox, especially working in a small school, this allows me to hear other ideas of other small schools and what they're doing, so I can take those back and think, you know, can I do that at my school?” Jared also noted that learning and hearing about opportunities from the CFO was a highlight of attending the summit as it’s another resource he can utilize to strengthen his school.

Drs. Bishop and Cunningham set fostering collaboration amongst rural districts as a key goal of the 2nd Annual Rural Summit, and the conversations throughout the day certainly pointed towards meeting that goal. Principals, superintendents and teachers in attendance voiced their gratitude to the Missouri State Center for Rural Education for creating this space. As the school leaders left the conference, with new ideas and maybe a new hire in place, they were already excited for next year’s summit.

RSC would like to thank Dr. Rhonda Bishop and Dr. Denise Cunningham for their continued partnership with Rural Schools Collaborative and for inviting the RSC team to attend the Rural Summit.