UMaine helps state’s rural educators thrive by supporting them at key points in their careers
For rural schools across the nation, teacher shortages and other workforce issues are a pressing concern. While all schools deal with these problems on some level, they are magnified in rural areas, where the pool of potential teachers is smaller, and especially in places where the economy and pay for public school educators have lagged behind other parts of the country.
In Maine, where more than two-thirds of the population is rural, a new program led by the University of Maine College of Education and Human Development seeks innovative solutions to these rural education workforce challenges by directly engaging teachers and school leaders, as well as the communities that they serve.
Rural Thrive: The Rural Educator Resilience Project launched this school year with a $3.3 million Congressionally Directed Spending award secured in Fiscal Year 2024 by U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and U.S. Sen. Angus King. In addition to UMaine’s College of Education and Human Development, the project includes educator preparation programs at other public universities across the state, as well Thomas College and Colby College.
“Rural schools and communities have unique workforce issues. Rather than take a deficit-minded approach that asks ‘What’s wrong with rural schools?’ We wanted to look at the many benefits to teaching in rural environments, such as access to nature and smaller class sizes,” said Catharine Biddle, associate professor of educational leadership at UMaine and the Rural Thrive project lead.
Biddle also leads the New England Rural Education Hub, a collaboration between UMaine and the Rural Schools Collaborative, and co-authored the most recent research agenda of the National Rural Education Association. She said that mentoring and support networks have been shown to enhance educator resilience and job satisfaction. The Rural Thrive project aims to facilitate effective mentorship and support at three key moments in an educator’s career: Early-career (years one to three), mid-career teacher-leaders and those in building or district leadership positions.
“Supporting educators at each of these three points is critical because of the role they play in supporting student learning, school improvement and change and fostering conditions that create educator success and prevent people from leaving the profession,” Biddle said.
At the heart of the project are regular virtual and in-person community of practice gatherings among teachers at varying stages of their careers, which at times involves mid-career teachers mentoring early-career educators. There is also one-on-one guidance between early-career and mid-career rural teachers.
There’s also an educator preparation component, the Rural Substitute Teaching and Innovation Corps (RuSTIC), which connects education majors from any of the teacher preparation programs involved in the project to hands-on experience as substitute teachers in rural schools. A recent study by the Maine Education Policy Research Institute found that only 30% of pre-service teachers in the state indicated that they would consider teaching in a rural area. So the goal of RuSTIC is to build interest in and pathways to jobs in local districts among those studying education at the state’s colleges and universities.
In March, when 20 mid-career educators gathered for a Rural Thrive Teacher-Leader Summit at East Grand School in Danforth, Maine, RuSTIC substitute teachers fanned across the state to fill in for the teachers who participated in the daylong retreat. Marx Kennedy, a double major in Secondary Education and Spanish at UMaine, subbed for a classroom at Leonard Middle School in Old Town.
“I wasn’t sure that teaching was the right path for me, but after that day I called my mom and told her, ‘This is what I want to do,’” said Kennedy, who grew up in Glenburn and Orono and has since worked as a substitute at schools in those districts as well.
East Grand School was chosen for the Rural Thrive summit in March in large part because of the success the school has had in terms of creating place-based opportunities for students and teachers. That includes taking advantage of its remote location and proximity to nature in Washington County to create unique outdoor learning programs across grade levels. East Grand Principal Mike Muir says the educators who attended the summit only got a taste of what the school has to offer.
“By the end of the day, everyone was talking about ‘East Grand Magic,’” Muir said. “So it was very affirming for our teachers to hear that from some of their peers at other schools.”
Muir said East Grand’s success grew out of talk several years ago of closing the school as Danforth’s population growth stalled and enrollment declined. The community rallied around the school and supported initiatives aimed at keeping students, families and educators engaged. At the same time, Muir says what works for East Grand might not work for another rural school.
“Fortunately, I think you have more of an ability to be flexible, to experiment and adapt to change at rural schools. You’re so remote and small, you just kind of figure it out,” Muir said. “One of the great things about this project is that teachers from different schools can come together and exchange ideas, and use whatever works and don’t use what doesn’t.”
Rachel Meehan, who attended the Rural Teacher-Leader Summit in March, is a seventh grade social studies teacher at Mt. View Middle School in Thorndike, Maine, two-and-half-hours by car from Danforth. Mt. View is in Regional School Unit 3, which serves 11 towns and is the second-largest district by geographic size in the state.
Meehan says smaller, rural schools have teachers with unique job titles unlike larger schools where multiple individuals hold the same position, which can present challenges when it comes to on-boarding and mentoring new staff.
“I began my career at a larger school with two other seventh grade social studies teachers and now work in a school where I am the only seventh grade social studies teacher,” Meehan said. “I’m fortunate that my role is very streamlined, whereas in many smaller rural schools, there are teachers who teach multiple grade levels and subjects, making supporting them even more challenging.”
Meehan says she got involved with Rural Thrive in part because she wanted to mentor and provide guidance to other rural teachers just beginning their careers.
“We often lump rural communities together, but I’m really intrigued by the differences between rural communities and how that impacts us as teachers,” she said. “So just having the time and space to sit and have these conversations is invaluable. It wouldn’t be the same if it were part of professional development run by our individual districts.”
Gert Nesin, who serves as Rural Thrive’s teacher-leader in residence, says the goal is to have one in-person retreat for classroom teachers at a different rural school quarterly. That’s in addition to more frequent virtual meetings and mentoring opportunities.
“One of the unique aspects of this project is the focus on classroom teachers,” said Nesin. “A teacher-leader is, by definition, an educator who is full-time in the classroom and influences their school, district or the profession in a positive way.”
While support networks are fairly common for early-career teachers and administrators, Nesin says they’re less common for teachers in the middle of their career. Rural Thrive is also unique in that it aims to bring together networks across different points of educators’ careers to facilitate discussions about how to create positive change in schools and effective collaboration between teachers, between teacher and administrators, and between teachers and students.
“These teachers are committed to doing great things for kids, they’re connected to their communities in real ways. They see the need to create the conditions that will allow their schools to thrive, and they’re stepping up to fill that need,” Nesin said.
Rural Thrive will host an in-person meeting of its Rural Teacher-Leader Support Network during the 2025 UMaine Summer Educators Institute, June 25-27 in Orono. Teacher-leaders who join the network can attend the conference for free. The project is also recruiting mentors and mentees for the Thrive Foundations, its early-career induction program. Early-career mentees and experienced mentor teachers who join the program are eligible for stipends and reimbursement for travel costs. More information is available online.
Contact: Casey Kelly, casey.kelly@maine.edu.