Recording plays, rehearsing online, canceling entire seasons. Theaters in rural America adapt to a surging pandemic. In a community theater in Athens, Tennessee, a cast filmed itself performing Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” without masks, and immediately donned them once more when the director said “cut.” On a 105-acre dairy farm in Ashfield, […]
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While the Trump administration threatens to cut funding for school districts that don’t reopen in the fall, rural schools try to find the best way to move forward in the era of COVID-19 education. When Meigs Middle School in Decatur, Tennessee, closed its doors for the spring break on March […]
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Rural schools have a backlog of infrastructure needs that will make reopening riskier for students and staff. Funds from the Moving Forward Act should be earmarked to make those improvements. Classrooms with poor ventilation, busted light bulbs and limited space for social distancing. Broken pipes, bad internet connections and teachers […]
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A bill passed by the House of Representatives would help address some of the deficiencies in school infrastructure. Poorly maintained or out-of-date ventilation systems in rural and urban schools could complicate districts’ plans to return students to traditional classrooms this fall. An estimated four out of every 10 public school […]
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