Ohio Students Tell Challenge West Virginia that "Kids Can." -- Rural Policy Matters, Volume 1, Number 9 (November 1999)

Kids can learn, they can serve their community, they can hire their teachers, and they can manage their time, if the experience of Federal Hocking School near Athens, Ohio means anything. That is what Principal George Wood and five students reported to participants at Challenge West Virginia's conference in October on Our Communities, Our Schools. The conference celebrates Challenge West Virginia's first year of successful work to develop a grassroots base for rural school improvement and positive policy reforms.

The kids from Federal Hocking stole the show. Can you imagine a rural school where students have an equal place at the table when faculty hiring decisions are made, where students work in the community for as much as two hours every day, where interdisciplinary practice is so routine that kids expect their work in math and history to be graded for grammar?

You don't have to imagine it at Federal Hocking, where the official mission is to help kids prepare for flexible career choices, active democratic citizenship, and lifelong learning. But listening to these kids talk about their school and their education made it clear that there is another mission, too. This school makes these kids responsible for their own education. They understand what they are trying to accomplish in school, and they are making real choices about how to get it done.

It could only be possible in a socio-economically blessed school with lots of resources and a big enough enrollment to generate support for these special programs, right? Nope. Federal Hocking serves an area of Appalachian Ohio where income ranks in the bottom 5% of the state, and 30% of the households don't have phones.

Not all the changes at Federal Hocking have been popular among everyone in the community. Disgruntled patrons who like more conventional forms of order pressured the school board into terminating Wood's contract a few years ago. But the kids protested with a walkout and over 1200 local people signed a petition asking for his reinstatement. When the legal and political dust settled, Wood was back at the helm and there were some new school board members. Then the kids drafted up a school constitution enumerating and solidifying their role in shaping their education and it was eventually accepted by the school board. Turns out, kids can govern, too.