Rural Schools Update

by Jeremiah Jacks, CMEA

I am thrilled to fill the position of Rural Schools Representative. I’ve been teaching in rural areas for most of my 24 years in music education. I’m looking forward to exploring how I can best serve our students and music educators in California. It was wonderful to connect with some Rural School Educators at CASMEC recently. There are amazing people doing awesome work in our rural areas.

I have begun some research into some of our remote rural areas in mid-California (south of Gardnerville, heading down and past Coleville), River Delta Unified School District where their one school district serves students in three counties, and El Dorado, Amador and Calaveras Counties. In reaching out to these districts, I’ve further confirmed things we already know. One thing we have in common in rural schools is often, the lack of accountability. Where in suburban or urban schools you have neighboring schools to keep up the standard, to help educate the community, and even VAPA coordinators and veteran educators in the larger districts to encourage a high quality education in music, rural areas often lack these supports. Of course Urban and Suburban schools face their own challenges. I think this is an area where we in the rural areas of California find need.

Often in rural schools, a successful music program is most reflected in the strength of the music educator. This is true of any music program, of course, but with large parent booster groups and larger music teams like you find in many larger school districts, there’s still added support. In rural schools, you are often alone. From time to time, you find a small team that is doing amazing things, like the fine folks in Parlier, just south of Fresno. There is a group of four music educators making a HUGE difference for that community. They are pretty lucky. It’s not often a rural school district attracts enough qualified music educators to form such a fantastic team. Indeed, positions often go unfilled because it is difficult to get folks out to more remote areas of California. More about the wonderful things happening in Parlier and other rural areas of our state in my next article.

I am also reflecting on what makes our community unique, and how diverse a “rural area” can be. I currently serve the Loomis Union School District community as a TK-8 music educator at two of our six schools. The vast majority of students attending the two schools I serve come from high-income households, with mostly large ranch homes with 1+ acre parcels. Another school in our district enrolls far more students from low-income households than the rest in our district. Another is up the hill, even smaller and has a deaf/hard-of-hearing program imbedded in their curriculum where students are bused in from all over Placer County. In other words, communities, rural or otherwise, can still look very different, just over the hill. Urban, Suburban and Rural schools are incredibly diverse, and it would be a mistake to place assumptions on any school based on whether they are in the sticks, in the “burbs” or in the shadow of tall buildings. However, in finding common ground we can build a larger community while learning from our differences.

One thing most of us struggle with in rural areas is that sense of isolation from the rest of our music educator community. I hope to soon schedule a Zoom meeting for our Rural Music Educators, probably in April. It would be a great time to connect, share and build our larger community.

I’m learning a lot, and there’s a LOT more of California left to start looking into. I’ll be reaching out for help from key leaders in CMEA. Another need we have is that accountability piece, and support for small schools that may not have the pathway toward a quality education in music for their students. When talking with one of the office staff in Coleville, she said they’d talked about interest in providing music for their students, but they didn’t know how to schedule it They already have a culinary program they are very proud of that works well for their community. How do they fit in music, and where do they find an educator willing to move to the other side of the Sierras away from any city or even large town? Knowing the story and the struggle is important if we are going to reach kids beyond the hills, or far between them. I won’t be able to do this on my own, so I hope to work with some amazing people to build a grassroots movement, researching and advocating, supporting and designing.

Here’s what I’d love to get from all of you rural folks out there (and friends of all of us rural folks): share your story with me! Let me know what’s going on in your neck of the woods. I’ve taught in the rural areas of farmland in the central valley, small valleys beyond the Golden Gate Bridge, on up into some remote areas in the mountains. I’ve seen some amazing things and some crazy things. Share your amazing and crazy things with me. What are your successes? What are you struggling with? How can CMEA best serve you?