State officials are committed to providing new supports to rural school districts with the start of the new year.
The Colorado Department of Higher Education has outlined five initiatives aimed at helping more rural students graduate prepared for college by helping prepare more educators.
Leaders from rural school districts and teacher-preparation programs will participate in upcoming roundtable discussions about ways to develop “the educator pipeline” for rural schools.
“While many rural districts have vacancies for teachers and administrators, many — particularly in the fields of secondary math and science, special education and bilingual education,” the higher education department said in a news release.
The first discussion will be Feb. 11 in Las Animas.
Meanwhile, the department is moving forward on other plans, such as supporting three teaching programs that recently received grants of $211,000 each.
Much of the $3.4 million in grant funds announced this month by Gov. John Hickenlooper and Lt. Gov. Joe Garcia will go to rural education, according to the department.
Through a grant from , the department will train 15 teachers from rural schools to be able to teach college-level courses to high school students in concurrent enrollment.
By participating — sometimes up to an associate degree — by the time they graduate high school.
Last year’s report on concurrent enrollment highlighted that the 10 districts with the highest percentage of students in concurrent enrollment were all rural districts.
In some, the college-level classes can be courses the rural schools would not be able to offer on their own — such as foreign languages or advanced math.
In Colorado, 85 percent of the 178 public school districts are considered rural, with less than 6,500 students enrolled.
Yesenia Robles: 303-954-1372, yrobles@denverpost.com or twitter.com/yeseniarobles
