"School closures and consolidations are a familiar story in
cash-strapped, rural corners of the country — places where schools are
integral to a sense of identity and belonging," Debbie Truong reports for The Washington Post from Southwest Virginia, where coal's troubles have forced school closures.
Residents migrate to urban areas as the industry declines, fewer young people want to farm, and manufacturers downsize, says Allen Pratt, executive director of the National Rural Education Association, which advocates for rural schools. Those changes mean school districts collect less in property taxes and have fewer students; state funding is partly determined by enrollment.
In Virginia, the Tazewell County School Board had to cut spending more than $1 million this year, and in June abruptly closed two elementary schools, including Raven Elementary School. The school has functioned not just as a school, but as a community gathering place since it opened in the 1950s. And in Wise County, the school system has lost about 100 students each year for the past decade, according to the school superintendent. Pound High School had about 250 students by the time it shuttered in 2014. It and five other schools were consolidated into three that year, Truong reports.
The schools' closure pays a heavy toll on their towns. "When you have these communities . . . where everything seems to be leaving, typically the school’s one of the last big things that remains," Greg Deskins, a high school science teacher and president of teacher union the Tazewell Education Association, told Truong. "It’s like once your school closes, that seems like the end of your community, in some ways."
Residents migrate to urban areas as the industry declines, fewer young people want to farm, and manufacturers downsize, says Allen Pratt, executive director of the National Rural Education Association, which advocates for rural schools. Those changes mean school districts collect less in property taxes and have fewer students; state funding is partly determined by enrollment.
In Virginia, the Tazewell County School Board had to cut spending more than $1 million this year, and in June abruptly closed two elementary schools, including Raven Elementary School. The school has functioned not just as a school, but as a community gathering place since it opened in the 1950s. And in Wise County, the school system has lost about 100 students each year for the past decade, according to the school superintendent. Pound High School had about 250 students by the time it shuttered in 2014. It and five other schools were consolidated into three that year, Truong reports.
The schools' closure pays a heavy toll on their towns. "When you have these communities . . . where everything seems to be leaving, typically the school’s one of the last big things that remains," Greg Deskins, a high school science teacher and president of teacher union the Tazewell Education Association, told Truong. "It’s like once your school closes, that seems like the end of your community, in some ways."
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