The (Re)making of Place: An Analysis of School Closures in a Rural Southeastern Community

• In Event: Level Matters: Inter- and Intra- District Analyses Exploring Nuances in Racialized Power Across Space and Place Over Time

Abstract

Schools provide students with formal education and serve as crucial community structures such as community centers and historic placeholders. When a school is permanently closed, the building is not the only thing that is lost. School closures can create declines in academic achievement (Kirshner et al., 2010), lost histories (Buras, 2013; Green, 2017), and a loss of job opportunities (Buras, 2013; Grover & van der Velde, 2016). Research on school closures typically relies on urban research to continuously show how Black and Brown students and communities are disproportionately impacted (Arsen et al., 2016; Green, 2017; Finnigan & Lavner, 2012). The driving force behind these disproportionate impacts is systematic and structural racism (Brummet, 2014), an example of how race and space interact to shape opportunities available to Black and Brown communities. However, when we begin to look at the role race and space play in the educational opportunities available to rural Black and Brown students, the research is minimal – especially when these students do not make up the racial majority of the population.
Like urban areas, school closures also impact rural communities (Tieke & Auldridge-Reveles, 2019). Almost 30 percent of school closures take place in rural communities (Gallagher & Gold, 2017). This is problematic because internal community factors, like closures and consolidations, impact students’ access to opportunities and life outcomes (Galster & Killen, 1995). Therefore, this study aims to better understand the implications of race and space on rural communities by analyzing school closures in one rural school district through the lens of critical race theory and the theory of racial space. This paper seeks to answer three questions by drawing on recent school closure research by Tieken and Auldridge-Reveles (2019): 1) How do race and space interact to shape which traditional public schools and communities in a rural southeastern school district are affected by closures? 2) How do Back and Brown students and community members experience rural school closures? 3) How are rural school district leaders and county government (re)using educational spaces in a way that impacts place and educational opportunities for communities of color?
By examining the implications of power and racial and economic inequities on spaces for students and families of color in one rural community, we see over four school closures in less than five years, mainly schools serving students of color. This paper illustrates how traditional school closure decisions within a rural majority White school district reshaped the space of educational opportunities for Black and Brown students by consistently rejecting and contesting the voices of Black and Brown community members. Closed schools were either abandoned or turned into a satellite sheriff’s station. The finding enhances our understanding of rural school closures and the needs of rural Black and Brown stakeholders. Hopefully, this research can influence county and district leaders to consider alternatives to school closures and provide community members with more autonomy over the use of buildings that shape their sense of space.

Author

• Kimberly Clarida, Michigan State University