Since 2003, Portland based nonprofit The Children’s Institute has been working to level the playing field for children who face institutional or systemic barriers to opportunity. The organization has fought to increase investment in early childhood learning programs, improve health access, and runs the Early School Success Academy, an educator training program meant to improve outcomes for students in pre-kindergarten through third grade.
The Institute recognizes that due to funding and distance, rural areas often can’t give their students the opportunities they deserve. Children in rural Oregon sometimes get left behind. In 2019, statistics showed that only 35% of boys from rural areas went to college and 50% of girls, figures that were even lower among low-income rural students or students of color.
Erin Lolich, Director of School Based Initiatives at the Children’s Institute, was on a visit to The Roundhouse Foundation when Executive Director Erin Borla suggested Lolich might want to get in touch with Teach Rural Oregon at Eastern Oregon University and discuss a potential collaboration. “I went in with no expectations other than excited to meet these folks and they were so open to partnership,” Lolich said.
It can be difficult to get participation in places that are more isolated, said Dave Dallas, faculty member in the College of Education at Eastern Oregon University, who runs the Rural Teacher Corps. “Sometimes with our smaller school districts, they don’t realize that this opportunity is available to them. And many times, they may either not have enough individuals to form a cohort for training or the financial resources in order to participate in this training.” The Early School Success Academy is opening this door for many, and the collaboration with Rural Teacher Corps is helping to spread awareness and access across the state. Eastern Oregon University will help cover costs for interested participants, funding up to three teachers per rural district.
Rural communities, similar to other marginalized communities, have often been victim to the best intentions of larger organizations and systems that don’t have the full understanding of community dynamics. Often that can lead to short term projects with limited sustainability. “Rural communities in Oregon have a reason to be skeptical of a Portland based nonprofit,” Lolich said, “to wonder, ‘are you really serving our communities?’” Having a bridge between The Children’s Institute and rural schools through Teach Rural Oregon will hopefully ease that mistrust.
Early Success Academy’s program will meet on four days throughout the school year, bringing educators from across Oregon together virtually to learn together and talk about best practices for early childhood education. “The intention is to bring people together from across the state to solve problems or build systems in early learning,” said Lolich. “Then we provide five coaching sessions with each team throughout the year.” This team-based, comprehensive professional learning program is an important tool for rural educators in particular who can be left out of other opportunities.
These early discussions between Lolich and Dallas’ teams have led to a new collaboration between the organizations with the hopes of allowing more rural schools to take part in the Early School Success Academy.
