At the beginning of February, a small group of school officials from Humboldt, Del Norte and Trinity counties traveled to Washington, D.C., with the aim of educating members of Congress about the unique challenges facing rural districts and the communities they serve.
Leading the charge was Jamie Green, who grew up in Humboldt County and is now superintendent of the nearly 700-student Trinity Alps Unified School District in Weaverville. Faced with the prospect of losing federal funding, he rallied fellow superintendents from his neck of the woods to travel thousands of miles to talk face-to-face with elected officials who hold in their hands the power to decide his ability to expand school programs and the need to lay off staff.
That effort included a call to Northern Humboldt Union School District Superintendent Roger Macdonald, who represents the far northern reaches of California — Humboldt, Del Norte, Trinity, Siskiyou, Modoc, Shasta, Tehama and Lassen counties — as this year’s Association of California School Administrators’ Region 1 president.
Specifically on the agenda was the need for Congress to reauthorize the Secure Rural Schools program, which has provided payments to school districts located in regions with national forests from Alabama to Alaska since 1908 but is on track to expire in October.
How much a district receives is based on a variety of factors, according to the U.S. Forest Service, which oversees the payments, including historic revenue levels, the amount of federal land within a county and “an income adjustment based on the per capita personal income for each county.”
While Northern Humboldt’s share of the $335,000 distributed to Humboldt County schools was $12,000 in 2021, for others — like Trinity Alps, which received upward of $500,000 that same year — the funding makes a huge difference, Macdonald said, using a district in Modoc County as an example.
“If they lose the funding, they lose four teachers,” he said. “The impact on some schools is greater than others.”
Originally funded using 25 percent of revenue from federal lands, including timber sales, mineral leases and cattle ranching, the program’s grants began declining in the 1990s, mostly due to slowing timber sales. That prompted Congress to pass the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000 to bolster the program’s fundings.
But those payments were never made permanent and need to be reauthorized every few years by being attached to other bills, most recently the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which can leave the program vulnerable to partisan politics.
While the SRSA was the impetus for the trip, Macdonald said he saw an opportunity to not only support his colleagues and districts that are more dependent on those dollars, but to also talk bigger picture about rural schools’ needs and the obstacles facing some of their students.
That includes making sure there’s a plan in place for the 2024-2025 school year, when short-term COVID monies will be gone but many of the issues — including the stress and anxiety levels being reported by students in the wake of the pandemic and the academic gap it left — will still need to be addressed.
“It was advocating in general for our rural schools,” Macdonald said. “The Secure Rural Schools Act was not the only reason I went. It’s important that, coming out of COVID, funding for our schools remains strong.”
The group met with North Coast Rep. Jared Huffman and his Butte County counterpart Doug LaMalfa, who were both co-sponsors of the last SRSA authorization bill, among others.
“I appreciate my candid and thoughtful meetings with the North Coast superintendents,” Huffman said in an email to the Journal. “They lead the charge to look out for students in rural areas in this congressional district and across the country. Schools in rural communities need more sustainable and regular sources of funding. It is past time for Secure Rural Schools and other similar programs to move beyond being a prop for partisan agendas, like rolling back environmental protections and mandating logging quotas in all national forests. The federal government should embrace reliable funding for rural schools as an ongoing financial responsibility, and I will continue to push for this.”
Not everyone in Congress was as familiar with the SRS program or the realities on the ground for the rural districts and their students, Macdonald said.
The sessions, depending on who they were talking to and how long they had, included a rundown on how school funding works differently in different areas and why some districts surrounded by federal forest lands are limited in their ability to raise money through school bonds due to a lack of tax base, he said.
The visit to Capitol Hill also meant explaining to elected officials how some of their students still lack access to broadband, limiting their ability to complete homework assignments at home. Or the overwhelming transportation costs that rural districts shoulder to make sure children living in the far-flung reaches of their boundaries can make it to school each day.
There was also the opportunity to highlight the growing role schools play in bridging mental health support gaps in the wake of the pandemic, which Macdonald said is something “we are increasingly trying to do through our schools,” especially in places where finding a doctor or dentist — let alone a counselor — can be difficult and often mean traveling out of the area or waiting months for an appointment.
“The longer I’m in this job, the more I realize the importance of making sure that we advocate for our schools,” Macdonald said.
Overall, the Northern Humboldt superintendent said he believes that the superintendents sitting down face-to-face with lawmakers, telling their stories, helped get the ball rolling on a new bill to keep the Secure Rural School program going.
“By being there, we actually had a couple folks who said they were willing to work even across party lines a little,” Macdonald said. “Getting to spend some time in a congressmember’s office and their listening, sometimes this can be really effective. … I feel like I was heard.”
Kimberly Wear (she/her) is the Journal’s digital editor. Reach her at (707) 442-1300, extension 323, or kim@northcoastjournal.com.
This article appears in Snow Much Fun.
