How does the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) define a rural school district?
A Colorado school district is determined to be rural giving consideration to the size of the district, the distance from the nearest large urban/urbanized area, and having a student enrollment of approximately 6,050 students or less. Small rural districts are those districts meeting these same criteria and having a student population of less than 1,000 students.
Rural schools and communities have very different needs than large, urbanized school districts, including funding disparities; transportation needs over long distances; access to technology; teacher recruitment; migrant families; and more. Some of the CDE resources available from our library that discuss the unique challenges and opportunities found in rural school districts include:
- A Rural Needs Study: Improving CDE Services to Rural School Districts (2011)
- Blended Learning in Rural Colorado: Status and Strategies for Expansion (2012)
- Colorado Migrant Identification & Recruitment Guidebook (2012)
- Exploring the Potential Impact of the “Colorado Healthy Human Capital Self-Assessment” in Rural Districts (2012)
- Flexibility for Rural Schools and Districts on Unified Improvement Planning and READ Act (2014)
- Gifted Education in Rural and Small Districts (2009)
- Rural Education Achievement Program (REAP) (webpage)
- Rural Education Council Purpose and Agreements (2017)
- Small Rural District Funding (2015)
You can find a current list of Colorado’s rural and small rural districts here.
Search our library’s online catalog for more resources, including historical reports on rural schools.