Building on a foundation of reporting on the state of rural America, the Institute for Nonprofit News partnered with a handful of its members to examine how rural America would respond to and be affected by the impact of COVID-19 on its schools.
Read stories from the collaboration below.
Nine media organizations — Charlottesville Tomorrow, El Paso Matters, IowaWatch, The Nevada Independent, New Mexico in Depth, Underscore News/Pamplin Media Group and Wisconsin Watch/The Badger Project — worked together to tell the story of the unique struggles rural districts face as they educate students during the pandemic. Lesson Plans stories were also published by 97 outlets in 31 states and six national/niche outlets.
It’s unclear how far the pandemic has set back learning in the past year. But some initial research has not been encouraging…
In Nevada, Schurz Elementary School Principal Lance West is on a mission to improve education for Native students.
As high school students juggle responsibilities of a job or child care, one school district experiments with evening tutoring.
Schools are not the superspreader sites that many feared, but research indicates U.S. students fell behind in math during the pandemic.
Orange County, Virginia school officials are declining to release info comparing this year’s attendance so far to last year’s.
Educators at Texas high schools aren’t sure how much learning loss has occurred among students during the pandemic.
In New Mexico, learning losses caused by the pandemic will likely weaken already low student outcomes.
The staff at Iowa’s South Hamilton Schools spend their days keeping up with the daily reports of sickened students and faculty, making sure…
The district weathered a September coronavirus outbreak that sickened 117 kids who tested positive or were exposed to someone who did.
The success of the pedagogical experiment hinges on one question: Will it work for students?
When the COVID-19 pandemic abruptly closed public schools, rural school districts had to begin planning for an uncertain return.
Programs that help Native students prepare for and succeed in college are declining in the pandemic.
The struggle to balance education with student and teacher safety plays out at many rural school districts on the Texas-Mexico border.
Rural school districts in Oregon have come up with innovative ways to create digital classrooms to keep education going during the pandemic.
Some rural schools in the state are forced to integrate all students into online classrooms.
Virginia’s Orange County Public Schools are still facing its biggest driver shortage in more than a decade.
With the rise of remote learning, the problem of inadequate internet access has fallen suddenly on rural school divisions to solve.
Students spent the last three months of the 2019-20 school year learning remotely. This fall, they’re poised to do the same, despite stress to families.
Professional learning communities helped teachers collaborate and get clear about what individual students needed to learn.
Though graduation rates have improved, parents are worried that distance learning may cause rates to slide once again.
The collaboration partners were Charlottesville Tomorrow, El Paso Matters, Iowa Watch, The Nevada Independent, New Mexico In Depth, Underscore News/Pamplin Media Group and Wisconsin Watch/The Badger Project.
The project was made possible by a grant from the Walton Family Foundation, and support in the Midwest from INN’s Amplify News Project, whose funders include the Joyce Foundation.
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