'The challenges are staggering at times': NC rural schools in dire situation, report says

North Carolina teaches more rural students than any other state but Texas. Over a third of the state’s school-aged children live in rural areas, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, including much of the mountainous western counties.

These rural areas are, almost by definition, less visible than their urban and suburban counterparts. A recent report on rural education highlights a growing need to pay attention to them.

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The latest “Why Rural Matters” study by The Rural School and Family Trust ranks North Carolina as the second most high-priority state for rural education, based on educational outcomes, policies, demographics and college readiness. The last “Why Rural Matters” report, released three years ago, ranked North Carolina 11th.

According to national assessments, North Carolina rural students rank 34th in math and reading. The state’s rural districts also spend over $1,000 less per student than the average rural district in the United States.

With 525,000 students, the report called North Carolina’s rural education “a dire situation that needs urgent attention at the state and community levels.”

Uneven playing field

Toby Burrell has seen the realities of rural education during his 32 years in Swain County Schools.

“The challenges are staggering at times,” said Burrell, the district’s public information officer.

Set along the Tennessee border in the far western part of the state, Swain County Schools educates around 2,000 students across a 528-square-mile region. This breaks down to fewer than four students per square mile.

In rural regions, funding, job opportunities and high-speed internet access lag behind the rest of the state. “It makes it hard to be on a level playing field with many of the counties that have access to those things,” Burrell said. “It puts a strain on us.”

Public schools generally receive funding from three sources: federal, state and local.

In 2016-17, Swain County Schools had $424-per-student from local funding, far below North Carolina’s local funding average of $1,652 according to the Public School Forum of North Carolina. No district statewide received less local funding than Swain. Orange County, near Raleigh, spent 11 times more per-student than Swain.

The state supplements local funding to better balance disparities, but support from the state level may not be enough.

“The state is looking be able to push funding as much back to local,” Burrell said.

Like Swain, several districts in Western North Carolina are comprised of large swaths of federal parkland which cannot be taxed.

The shuttering of industries has further diminished the local tax base, and therefore, local school funding. “It used to be rural and industrial didn’t mean separate,” said Kevin Smith, Schools-Community Relations coordinator for Transylvania County Schools.

Smith listed companies that have left: American Thread, DuPont. and the Ecusta paper mill.

“They had a huge role to play in schools,” Smith said of the departed companies that once provided uniforms and other materials to local schools. “Self-reliance has become much more the norm in rural education.”