Abstract

This case study focuses on a four-district collaborative that shared services for more than 15 years in an effort to retain rural schools and thereby to preserve community identity. With population losses in the four districts and suburbanization in the largest, the collaborative made extensive use of distance education in addition to itinerant teachers and shared administrators. Data concerning dynamics in the collaborative came from interviews with administrators, teachers, students, and parents. Qualitative data analysis surfaced two themes relating to shared services: tenacity in the face of decline, and strategies with limited sustainability. Findings also pointed to a disjuncture between the way administrators and parents, on the one hand and teachers and students, on the other viewed the success of shared services and the probable future of the collaborative. A review of changes in the written plans of the collaborative over a several-year period revealed that sharing of buildings through school consolidation was the inevitable next step. This finding fits with research showing that shared services in rural locales"a strategy initially used to forestall reorganization"often leads to consolidation.

How to Cite:

Howley, A., Howley, M., Hendrickson, K., Belcher, J. & Howley, C., (2012) “Stretching to Survive: District Autonomy in an Age of Dwindling Resources”, Journal of Research in Rural Education 27(3), 1–18.

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