It Takes a Community: Preparing Teachers for Rural African American Early Childhood Students

• In Event: 75.054 - Understanding Educational Opportunity in Rural School Districts: An Examination of Community, Demography, and Policy

Abstract

Faced with limited candidate pools, rural school leaders have to look inwardly or be creative when it comes to the professional development training of rural teachers and teacher candidates. “Grow your own” or “nurture your own” programs and strategies are designed to encourage and support community-based recruitment and retention of teachers, in order to address current or potential teacher shortages (McCollough & Johnson, 2007; Hammer, Hughes, McClure, Reeves, Salgado, 2005). The challenges in finding or training potential teachers are exacerbated by lack of student access to teacher education or preparation, certification, and professional development opportunities in rural communities. While the intent and purpose of No Child Left Behind’s highly qualified teacher requirements were well intentioned, the legislation imposed a more negative effect and significant impact on rural school districts. Unequal resources, inadequate numbers of teachers, geographical challenges, shifting student demographics, and limited school choice options are several of the issues that are making it difficult for rural schools to keep pace with their suburban and urban counterparts. Therefore, it is up to rural school leaders to examine and define strategies, resources, and initiatives that can meet the challenge of finding, preparing, placing, and retaining highly qualified teachers in rural communities (McCollough & Johnson, 2007).
One of the many positive attributes for recruiting rural teachers through grow- your-own or local recruiting efforts is most rural teachers report that rural communities are good places to live and work (Alliance for Excellent Education, 2010; McCollough & Johnson, 2007; Hammer, et. al., 2005). Additionally, rural teachers report that rural communities are supportive, tight-knit communities with more simplistic lifestyle, and access to natural landscape beauty (Alliance for Excellent Education, 2010). Rural teachers “generally report a high level of job satisfaction, greater autonomy, and more direct influence over school policy.” (Alliance for Excellent Education, p. 26, 2010) . Public school teachers in rural communities also reported fewer serious student behavioral problems compared to public school teachers nationally. Again, the small, close knit nature of a rural community gives the opportunity for teachers to not only know their students, but to know family members as well (Provasnik, et.al, 2007).
Unfortunately, there is limited empirical research available on whether teachers with bachelor’s degrees or specific training in early childhood education or development translate to better-quality preschool programs (Whitebook, 2003). Which means that the research on the impact of how highly qualified teachers effect rural, predominately African American early childhood program is even more negligible. The purpose of this study was two-fold: 1) to examine the unique issues and strategies that were implemented by a predominately African American rural school district in order to meet the NCLB highly qualified teacher, early childhood requirement; and 2) to examine the post-NCLB impact and outcomes of having varying levels of highly qualified pre-school teachers within predominately African American rural classrooms.

Authors

• Janeula M. Burt, Bowie State University

• Daniel Boyd, Lowndes County Public Schools