Self Reliance in Rural Colorado

What would you do if your school's 60-year-old coal-fired furnace quite working, and you couldn't transport students to other schools because of often snowed-out mountain passes? If you're from Silverton, Colorado you have to rely on yourselves, something rural people know a lot about.

Ellie Gober, 7, keeps her hat on during class at the Silverton School. After the school's boiler gave out in November, students donned snowpants, gloves and layers in the thick of winter, soldiering on with the help of space heaters. (Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post )

The Denver Post's Nancy Lofholm reports,

When the coal-fired boiler in the 98-year-old school ruptured and wheezed out its final burst of heat in November, the reaction in this San Juan Mountain town of roof-high snows and deep-freeze cold was unusual, to say the least. The 55 hardy K-12 students and their eight teachers layered up and kept at their studies — for an entire winter.

Parents and community member brought in space heaters, which were replaced after Christmas by garage-strength heaters situated in hallways and new space heaters in classrooms. The school's electrical system had a tough time keeping up and teacher sometimes had to choose between heat or using computers and audio visual devices.

In an editorial the next day, the Post reported:

The [Colorado] Department of Education and the Governor's Energy Office are helping Silverton install a new, $1 million heating system the district hopes will be more environmentally friendly than that old coal boiler.

Well done to the good people of Silverton, the Colorado Department of Education, and the Governor's Energy Office. Nice job to Nancy Lofholm, Hyoung Chang, and the editors at the Denver Post.

Contracting Services

When school finances get tight contracting services invariably comes up as a way of saving money. While contracting makes sense for short-term services, school boards should be wary of contracting for regular operations.

For example, a school board wouldn't hire a company to supply their superintendent because the superintendent's loyalty would lie with the board of the company rather than with the district. The interests of the business trump that of the school.

By all means contract with a consultant to help you develop and implement a comprehensive teacher recruitment and retention strategy. But hiring someone to run your organization who doesn't work for you could turn out to be disastrous and not be any cheaper.

Creating Positive Perceptions

A key component of recruiting effective teachers is creating positive perceptions about your district. What are teacher educators saying about your district? What are teachers and administrators from other districts saying about you? What are your own teachers saying?

Creating positive perceptions is a three step process. First, make sure you have something positive to communicate. You don't have to be perfect, but there has to be something that people can cite as evidence of your success.

Second, tell people about that success. Have a 30 second commercial about your district that you can give when someone asks, how are things in your district?

Repeat the commercial to people in your district regularly. That way they have something positive to say when they're asked, how's it going?