After traveling around the state this fall holding over a dozen forums with rural school officials “from Fredonia to Montauk,” David Little, executive director of the Rural Schools Association of New York (RSA), told Capital Tonight that rural school districts are at a critical moment. Depending on how Albany responds to their needs this coming legislative session, they will either remain vibrant economic and social incubators that properly prepare children to rebuild the state’s rural culture or those same children could end up with lives of diminished opportunity.
“New York state used to have two and half times the amount of agriculture that it does now. It used to have to have a very vibrant upstate rural economy,” Little said. “Now, between the pandemic and the Great Recession that immediately preceded it, we’ve had the largest outward migration of people in U.S. history, except for the Dust Bowl during the Depression.”
According to Little, state and federal emergency aid investments have allowed rural schools to begin restoring needed programs and services, but without some key changes, that restoration will be stunted.
