Leadership and Rural School Boards: Utah Data

Abstract

Introduction School boards have managed the affairs of local American education since 1642. The legacy of these boards is a public school system serving urban and rural youth across the nation, the only system in the world that seeks to provide all of a nation's children with an appropriate education. In this decade the role of school boards in school governance has increasingly been called into question. Critics of the boards and their performance vary in the vindictiveness of their charges. The National School Boards Association (1990) insists that local boards, especially in rural areas are still the natural leaders of education. The Twentieth Century/Danforth Foundation (1990) charges that local school boards have lost the overall vision of their governance role; this group recommends that roles be redefined and that local district governance undergo significant change. Other critics, including Coombs (1985), charge that "existing formal education systems everywhere [are] growing increasingly obsolete and maladjusted in relation to their rapidly changing societies. . . . all these systems require major changes and innovations" (p. 21). Still other critics advocate that school boards be eliminated altogether, and that school governance be conducted by individual schools and their patrons (Chubb & Moe, 1990). Despite the controversy, little empirical data exists as to how school boards actually conduct their business. Hange and Leary (1991) note that while much is written about school boards, most of this literature is limited to suggestions from superintendents and past board members. Little analysis has been made of what boards actually do. This scarcity of information is particularly striking where rural school districts are concerned. Not only is there little empirical data, but even the term rural school district lacks clear definition (Stem, 1994). Purpose of the Study This descriptive study sought to distinguish rural from urban school districts in the State of Utah, then to investigate the nature of voted board decisions to determine to what extent rural Utah school boards engage in building community and discussing state and national reform. Methodology A descriptive study (Gay, 1992) seeks to develop a philosophical and cultural foundation for future research. To develop such a foundation for the roles and perspective of rural school boards in the State of Utah, the researchers identified rural school districts in the state, collected minutes of school board meetings, and categorized the board votes recorded within these minutes. In Utah, school districts located in the densely populated area along the western slope of the Wasatch Mountains have a distinctly urban atmosphere, quite different from districts across me rest of the state. Though more concrete demographics must be used to make consistent distinctions between rural and urban districts, this general atmosphere is pertinent as well. Hite, Zarndt and Schmidt (1992) have developed a format which considers both aspects of the urban-rural distinction, also acknowledging the tendency of Utah districts to follow county lines. This format was selected for the present study. According to Hite, Zarndt and Schmidt's distinction, a district is considered rural if it meets less than four of the following five conditions: 1. The district has at least 10,000 students (Curriculum Information Center, 1991). 2. The district is within a "standard metropolitan area" as defined by the 1990 U.S. Census (U.S. Department of Commerce, 1992). 3. The human population density of the county is at least 150 persons per square mile (Bureau of Economic and Business Research, 1990). 4. At least forty percent (40%) of the population of the county in which the district is located lives in cities of at least 5,000 persons (U.S. Department of commerce, 1992). 5. A four-year degree-granting institution of higher learning is located within the boundaries of the district (The College Blue Book, 1991). …