Thrive Where You Teach: How This Rural Teacher Summit is Uplifting Educators

In early August, the Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque (CFGD) hosted its fourth annual Rural Teacher Summit, the flagship event of CFGD’s Rural Teacher Corps program. Led by CFGD Program Officer and RSC Iowa Regional Hub lead Josie Manternach, the one-day event offered rural teachers from across northeastern Iowa the opportunity to come together in community, receive professional development, and come together to get back into the upcoming school year. This year’s summit was hosted at Camp Little Cloud, on a scenic wooded property near Epworth, Iowa. 

To begin the day, teachers worked with their tablemates to identify what they love, are concerned about, and hope for the future within the vocation of rural education. Common themes were a deep love for their students, communities and colleagues; frequent areas of concern were the rise of AI, student motivation and behavior, and high workloads. When looking into the future, teachers wished to see more support and funding for rural education and the teaching profession, resilience, and education acting as a binding force within communities. 

After the warmup activity, teachers took in a rousing keynote speech from Josh Varner, a native of rural Iowa, who specializes in consulting and speaking to schools and teachers. His talk, Thrive: Building a Life You Don't Need to Escape From, met a need for teachers who look to the summit as a place to build skills around resilience and sustainability. One newcomer to the event, Macey Sheppard of the Maquoketa Valley Community School District, shared that his talk was the highlight of the event for her: “I really enjoyed Josh. I felt like that was it. [His talk] got me ready to go for this school year. I feel like it made me reflect on things I've done in the past and how I can be better in the future.”

Following the keynote, attendees entered targeted breakout sessions, which were designed to meet the topics requested after the 2025 summit. With rural schools facing rising numbers of English Language Learners, one session focused on accessible frameworks and in-house technology solutions to meet the needs of all students. Genesys Trujillo, an Interpreter with the Western Dubuque Community School District, showed educators how to view translation through pedagogical contexts, and spotlighted tools in existing systems like Word and Canva that easily allow teachers to make appropriate adjustments for their students. 

In another session, Dr. Mark McDermott, Associate Dean, University of Iowa, dove deeper into AI’s use in education contexts. In a fast-paced, quick-hitting session, he demystified the wide expanse of uses of AI and focused on easy-to-implement tools that teachers could try this upcoming school year. The third session, also led by Josh Varner, explored trauma-informed care. Informed by his own life and experience as an educator, he detailed how trauma impacts the brain and what educators can do to support students facing significant challenges outside of the classroom. 

For Josie, it was important that all sessions left educators with valuable takeaways that they could implement straightaway into their teaching practice. Josie shared that “Across all three sessions, my ask was: give teachers something they can walk away and actually use, not just inspiration.” Macey, like many teachers in attendance, felt empowered to translate what was learned into her classroom: “It was very relaxing, but I feel like I did learn a lot, and also I think it's a great way for me to get back into the school year. I feel ready to go now… I like being able to take things that I learned and apply that to my next school year, and get better as far as that goes.”

The day’s final session centered around empowering teachers to research and write grants. Angela Ventris, Community Grant Writer for CFGD, outlined the processes behind successful grant proposals, which was complemented by Matthew Beatty, a 2025-26 Grants in Place Award awardee, sharing his own experience writing and receiving grants. “Teachers leave the day with ideas, but without grant-writing skills, a lot of those ideas never get funded because they don't know how to make the ask. Angela's session gave them the tools to translate a classroom need into a compelling pitch, and pointing them straight at the Thomas Determan Grant meant they could apply what they just learned immediately, with a real deadline in front of them. It's a skill that pays off well beyond this one grant cycle,” shares Josie. 

The final big change to this year’s summit came in the form of recognition for the professional development that took place during the event. CFGD offered ISEA Renewal Credits (Iowa State Education Association license renewal credits), an acknowledgement of the time and effort that goes into taking time from their summer to improve their practice. Josie notes that “Offering this allows teachers to use the summit for something they already have to do for licensure, rather than being one more ask on top of their to-do list.” 

Many first-time attendees noted that the renewal credits were the carrot that brought them to the summit, but the content and energy around the event will keep them coming in future years. Macey reflected that the renewal credits were “the main reason why I did it. And then, I actually enjoyed it! I thought it was just going to be more like PD, like when we sit in the classroom and just listen. But I actually feel like I learned a lot… I can definitely see myself coming back and honestly telling coworkers: this is worth the day of going. So yeah, I really liked it!” 

Rural Schools Collaborative is deeply grateful to Josie Manternach for her partnership as RSC Iowa Hub Lead, and to CFGD CEO Nancy Van Milligan for her leadership on RSC’s Board of Directors. We offer additional thanks to Angela Ventris and Jason Neises of CFGD for their support of RSC programing.