Two Colorado schools occupying different educational landscapes may hold clues on how to solve the state’s teacher shortage and to bridge the technological divide between urban and rural classrooms.

About twice a week, teachers and students from the high-performing, 1,800-student STEM School Highlands Ranch use video and teleconferencing know-how to reach across about 100 miles of prairie to the 100-student Arickaree School District.

Students in both schools then collaborate on subjects including social studies, computer science, middle school math and music. Recently, the schools also took on the heady subjects of world hunger and poverty.

This use of “synchronous online education” gives smaller rural schools access to the most recent technology. To communicate with the STEM SCHOOL, a state-of-the-art video conferencing camera was installed in the Arickaree school, which rests on Colorado’s high prairie east of Denver in a county that has about three to five people per square mile.

High-tech, remote learning also lets one teacher reach students in different classrooms in almost every corner of the state. This could be an important tool for Colorado schools that lack enough instructors to teach key subjects such as math, science or special education, proponents said.

“Synchronous online learning allows teachers anywhere to connect with students everywhere,” STEM’s Gregg Cannady said. Cannady, a music educator who leads the school’s collaboration effort, is an Arickaree High School graduate and set up the effort between the two schools.

“We see the potential in all this,” Cannady added. “It could help in a lot of areas.”

Arickaree Superintendent Shane Walkinshaw still doubts that a video-displayed teacher can outperform the flesh-and-bone variety. “I just don’t think you can replace an actual person in a classroom that a student can relate to face to face,” Walkinshaw said.

But, he added, “if you run into a situation when you do not have a teacher for a certain subject, this (video via teacher) is the next best alternative.”

While other rural districts in the state have gone months, and sometimes years, without full-time teachers in some subjects, Arickaree is fully staffed for now.

But Walkinshaw has encountered problems filling slots.

“A lot of times applicants will call and express interest in coming out here, but then they find out we are not even near the mountains, so they look elsewhere,” he said.

He’s in favor of trying any kind of “out of the box” measure to get more teachers into classrooms. That includes a proposal by state Rep. Dave Williams that would allow a school district board of education to issue a district-authorized teaching license to an applicant who has had at least three years of in- or out-of-state teaching experience within the previous seven years.

Current law requires a teacher applicant to have three consecutive years of teaching experience to be eligible for a Colorado teaching permit. That requirement is particularly tough for many military spouses who are teachers and have recently relocated to Colorado, Williams said.

The proposed legislation, HB1130, cleared the House and is now in the Senate.

As many as 10 bills aimed at easing the state’s teacher shortage were introduced this legislative session, but many have died over budgetary concerns, Matt Cook, director of public policy and advocacy for the Colorado Association of School Boards, said this week.

Those that survive will emphasize flexibility in hiring, Cook said. “Lawmakers like the idea of getting people in the classroom who didn’t have to jump a lot of hoops to get there,” he said.

STEM Highlands Ranch and the Arickaree District piloted a few joint online music, science and social studies lessons last spring. This fall, an infusion of technology got more classes and students involved.

Polycom, a San Jose, Calif., based company that provides video and teleconferencing equipment and services, donated interactive smartboards and 360-degree cameras to the STEM School. The equipment is housed in the SYNK, an asymmetrical, windowless room in in the school overseen by Cannady, who has an almost evangelical zeal for this kind of learning.

“One-on-one learning is so overrated,” Cannady said. “Collaborative learning, where minds get together and work out problems, is when the real innovative learning begins.”

Zoom, a videoconferencing company, also donated accounts to the STEM School to make ongoing collaborations possible and affordable, Cannady said. Arickaree also got a Polycom camera to mount in a classroom.

During a recent interactive learning session, several STEM School students arranged themselves around the center of the SYNK to talk to five Arickaree students about a U.N. plan to end world hunger, pollution and poverty.

The Arickaree students, who were arranged around two desks, were reluctant at first to speak out but soon warmed to the assignment. Some said community service projects such as building roads in high-poverty areas could help. Others suggested that working to address problems closer to home should be the first priority.

Arickaree junior Micah Koostra said the experience was worthwhile.

“We had a more personal connection with everyone,” Koostra said. “It was the best collaborate session we ever had.”

STEM School freshman Maria Prosperi said the video interplay between the suburban Highlands Ranch kids and the deeply country Arickaree students show how differently they lead their lives.

“It’s almost like visiting a different world every day,” Prosperi said. “It’s different. But I think it is a good different.”