Strong Relationships, Bright Futures: Humansville (MO) a Natural Fit for GRAD Partnership Rural Cohort

As storms lashed across the farms and forests of southern Missouri, all was tranquil inside the historic Humansville K-12 school building. Alongside representatives of Missouri State University and the Community Foundation of the Ozarks, the RSC team escaped the rain inside the halls of Humansville to learn more about how they hope to increase attendance and connectedness in their small school. Dr. Tammy Erwin, the district’s longtime superintendent, met the team of visitors at the front door for a tour and conversation about what makes Humansville special.

Humansville is one of ten Missouri schools who joined the GRAD Partnership Rural Cohort in 2024, and they are just wrapping up their first year with the project. Drs. Rhonda Bishop and Denise Cunningham, co-directors of the Missouri State University (MSU) Center for Rural Education, and Russ Brock, MSU GRAD Partnership liaison, have been working with these ten schools on developing student success systems and enhancing their efforts to increase student agency, belonging, and connectedness as part of the national GRAD Partnership for Advancing Student Success Systems.

Leading these efforts at Humansville is Dr. Erwin and her two principals, Ryan Campbell (secondary) and Holly Deckard (Elementary). Speaking with pride, Dr. Erwin describes Humansville’s familial atmosphere as essential to their students’ well-being: “We're a big family. Our goal, why we're here, is that we're taking care of each other first and foremost. . . We started that with our staff, and that's just [spread] throughout. So I feel like everybody here feels like they have a voice, which is very important.”

Another source of pride is the school’s new gymnasium, recently completed and already a hub for the community to attend sporting events, school celebrations, and more. Although the area faces economic struggles, the community passed a bond for the new gym, showing their support and backing of the school district. Having this new facility helped Humansville be available to host events they could not before due to seating capacity.

Utilizing the financial support and technical assistance as part of the GRAD Partnership, Humansville hopes to hone and further develop their efforts towards utilizing feelings of student belonging to boost attendance. One building block to grow upon is their strong offering of clubs, which provide students with a non-academic connection to their peers, staff, and school. By linking attendance to club participation, secondary principal Ryan Campbell hopes to see better daily participation in classes: “We have an art club, and we've started a foods club this year. It gives kids something else, something that brings in their interests. It's ‘hey, to get to go to clubs, I've got to make sure that I show up.”

Similarly, Humansville teachers work with students outside of traditional school hours to make up missed work, catch up on subjects, and get back on track for course completion. “We run attendance data about every week, and we try to get in contact with the kids. We let them know how much tutoring time they need. [Tutoring is] every other Friday after school for three hours and Saturday morning, which is another four hours that they can come in” shared Ryan. Moreover, due to a close connection with the school’s evening janitor, several students choose to stay after school any day they can and help out with cleaning.

Elementary principal Holly Deckard echoes similar sentiments, noting that the school places a paramount importance on relationships with every student. Describing her teachers, she shares that “they know their kids so well. Every one of us pays attention each morning, when that child enters this door, we're taking their temperature. We're checking ‘Are they okay today? Are they upset?’ And if we notice anything off, someone is reaching out to that child immediately. . . That is something that I absolutely love. The kids know us and I do feel our kids trust us very much. We trust them.”

To honor their students’ achievements in attendance, the Humansville team has been utilizing GRAD Partnership support to enhance their Bag Rewards program, a monthly prize drawing for students with good attendance and behavior. Holly doles out much sought-after squishy toys, while Ryan builds local connections by giving his middle and high school students gift cards to area businesses. Dr. Erwin highlights how small gestures like those can make a difference for students: “I wouldn't have ever budgeted money for squishy things for the elementary, but it kind of gives you a different set of eyes to look at something and say, ‘hey, if this is an incentive for a third grader to get up that morning and come to school when no one else at the house wants to get up,’ that is worth whatever it needs to be.”

Dr. Erwin also notes the value of deepening their partnership with Missouri State as a reason for joining the GRAD Partnership school, where demystifying college could make a big difference for graduates. “Any kind of partnership you can form with a university like MSU, which has so many strong ties to education, that's important for our kids, for getting our seniors on the right track. And you know, [if they said they] want to be a teacher, [we can say] that ‘we know people at MSU. It's not just you going up from 20 kids in your class to, yeah, the 1000s of people there. We know people there, and you've seen that person before.’ If there's something out there that's going to help our kids, we go for it.”

As the visiting delegation from MSU and RSC exited, well after the final bell had rung, the skies had cleared over the departing buses. Several students still buzzed about the halls, not in any rush to vacate the premises. Teachers filed into cars to head home, retiring from another day of serving their students. Reflecting on the role the school plays in those students’ lives, Dr. Erwin shares that the school isn’t only a place for classes, but also where community events are held, and even the area’s tornado shelter in stormy weeks like this one. “This is their place of consistency.”

Rural Schools Collaborative would like to thank Missouri State University Center for Rural Education co-directors Drs. Rhonda Bishop and Denise Cunningham, as well as GRAD Partnership liaison Russ Brock, for facilitating our visit to southwestern Missouri and for their tireless efforts to support rural education throughout the Missouri State University service area. We would like to extend additional gratitude to Beth Hughes and her team at the Community Foundation of the Ozarks for supporting the GRAD Partnership schools and rural education in the greater Springfield (MO) area.