Anmarie Swanstrom had driven four hours along twisting mountain roads, through the fire-scarred Shasta-Trinity National Forest, to Sacramento to catch a red-eye flight. Now, here she was—a school superintendent from impoverished Hayfork, Calif.—clutching a pair of black high heels, power-walking in bare feet across Capitol Hill.
She had come to plead for money for the 340 students of the Mountain Valley Unified School District, where she also is a principal.
Swanstrom’s district will lose a significant chunk of its budget if Congress does not renew the Secure Rural Schools Act, a longstanding program for schools in forested counties, by this fall. She would have to lay people off.
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