This is the first of a series of SEDL issue papers dedicated to discussing ways in which rural communities and schools can work together to guarantee their students receive the best education possible. We will show that by working together, rural schools and communities can not only improve education, but revitalize the entire community. Strong school-community partnerships can renew a sense of unity, enhance the overall quality of life, promote the best use of limited resources, and lead to new possibilities in economic development. As we will learn in this series, there are exponential results when communities link school improvement and community development!

It is afternoon in one of the many small towns in the Southwest. School is still in session for the afternoon, so it is quiet. The lunch rush at the Dairy Queen has slowed down to a couple of old-timers talking about the weather and the price of livestock at last Saturday’s auction. A few businesses cling to life on Main Street. The nearest large grocery store, medical center, or movie rental place is 40 miles away. A brood of wild turkeys struts down Main Street. The turkeys blink at a lone car making its way around the corner.

According to the school principal, “This is a good place to raise kids, but we can’t keep them here; no way to make a living, you know.”

Most of the parents commute to a larger city in the region to work; everyone farms or ranches a little.

Communities like the one described evolved to support the Southwestern region’s thriving agricultural and petroleum businesses. For twenty years, however, these rural schools and communities in Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas have been challenged by corporate farming and ranching, the exodus of industry to Mexico and Asia, and the centralization of retail trade in larger towns and cities. Rural communities have also faced reduced state and federal aid for their schools and pressure to consolidate their school districts. The result for many communities has been a diminished quality of life and limited futures for their young people.

Rural schools and communities need each other if they are to be sustainable and viable. A community’s quality of life cannot be separated from its schools—schools are often the largest employer in the community and the community’s center for social, cultural, and recreation activities.

Rural schools and communities throughout the U.S. are discovering that working together in partnerships not only improves overall quality of life, but makes the best use of scarce resources and improves opportunity for young people. Success stories include student-run companies, environmental projects, arts programs, and tutoring projects (see the following story “What Schools and Communities Have Accomplished Together”). The Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL) is helping to establish such partnerships in its region through the Rural Development Collaborative Action Team project, or RD CAT. With RD CAT, SEDL links school and community development using two strategies to address specific economic, social, and educational conditions facing rural families by:

• building local capacity to work in school/community teams through teaching the Collaborative Action Team (CAT) process; and
  
  
• working with these local teams to plan and carry out activities, such as service learning and entrepreneurial training, that link school instructional programs and community development projects.

Building capacity enhances the potential of local community residents to solve their own problems and work together to efficiently manage resources for school improvement and community revitalization. However, rural communities may not have the resources for effective local capacity building.

	Many rural schools and communities in the Southwest have been challenged by the loss of industry and the centralization of retail trade in larger towns and cities.

Although residents may be enthusiastic about improving their schools and community and may be willing to devote time to making changes, they may lack the technical or organizational skills needed to build a team, make plans and maintain the momentum to carry out the project. This is where SEDL’s staff and Collaborative Action Team (CAT) process can help rural communities.

SEDL assists local teams to develop strong partnerships by teaching training and coaching. Participants in CAT projects indicate that this assistance provides team-building skills to help the partners bond and build a common vision.

A school nurse who participated in a collaborative action team in New Mexico says, “Without this [SEDL training] we would have really been struggling. They gave us the foundation and the building blocks so we can continue growing. And they helped us celebrate our successes.”

Notes a parent from Violet, LA, a fishing community south of New Orleans that participated in the CAT process:

At the beginning some people were saying, “Well, why would we need help?” They were kind of skeptical [about getting involved with CAT], but now looking back they’ve said, “Well we’re glad we did because it’s really helped bring the school together,” through communication and with some ideas they brought to us. That has really helped the students, the community, the parents, and the business people come together.

The CAT process uses a three-dimensional approach: team building, team planning, and momentum generation. These three dimensions help members become a collaborative, cohesive team while developing and implementing a plan for making productive changes within the school and community. Through guided activities, community members experience and practice consensus-building skills, effective communication, and shared leadership and decision-making. SEDL staff members also help the collaborative action teams evaluate their activities and measure their successes.

Team Building. Team building is the process of how teams work together as a unit. The activities of team building allow the group to develop skills for exploring and eventually settling on ways of working together effectively. During the process of building a team, the group will find common ground, initiate networking opportunities, encourage new individual roles and responsibilities, and practice collaborative teamwork.

According to SEDL program manager Catherine Jordan, who oversees the RD CAT projects, “The CAT process gives people some structured opportunities to begin listening to each other, to learn to respect other perspectives, and to build trust. In small rural communities where everybody knows everybody and may have long-standing prejudices about each other, the CAT process can be a valuable tool for establishing trust and respect necessary for communities to grow and change together for the common good.”

Both service learning and entrepreneurialship can increase students' feelings of self-worth and accomplishment.

Team Planning. This is the nuts and bolts of defining and implementing the projects that address the concerns of the school and community identified by the team. This includes agreeing on a vision and a mission, setting goals and objectives, determining roles and responsibilities, and outlining tasks and timelines to accomplish the work.

Momentum Generation. For some communities, this is the most difficult part of the CAT process. Momentum is created when the team carries out tasks and moves forward toward achieving established goals.

According to SEDL program specialist Jerry Elder, who trains members of the CATs to serve as facilitators, “We discovered that in collaborative action teams where all their time was devoted to just action planning—such as developing goals and objectives—and where they saw no results, the team membership dropped. On the other hand, in CAT sites where they developed some intermediate short-term projects, participation remained steady. These early short-term projects generated energy and enthusiasm of members that were needed for the development of on-going efforts.”

It is important to note that some of these short-term projects were fairly simple, such as refurbishing a sign in front of the school to announce activities or holding a family picnic to increase parent involvement. Successfully completing small projects can help build team confidence.

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