| dc.description.abstract | This research study was a qualitative study involving eight current or former
school board members of a recently annexed, rural, impoverished, Latino school
district in South Texas. The purpose of this intrinsic case study was to highlight the
plight of rural education, specifically the plight of a poor school district by examining
the perceptions of the school board members. This study was organized around the
following sensitizing concerns (Blumer, 1969; Patton, 2002; Schwandt, 2001): What
were the school board members’ perceptions about the school district prior to the
annexation? What were the school board members’ perceptions of the factors that
contributed to the annexation? What were the school board members’ perceptions of
the effect of the annexation on the community?
The method of inquiry was conversational information interviews (Patton, 2002),
two unstructured interviews with each school board member, going where the
interviews took me (Fontana & Frey, 2005). The themes revealed in the research
included (1) power dynamics, with three sub-themes, (a) trusting those in power, (b) deferring to those in power, and (c) becoming those in power; (2) denial of the
obvious, and (3) unspoken paternalism—the Anglo patron system.
This study offers implications for policy, practice, and additional research in the
areas of rural communities and rural school districts, but most importantly, it provides
evidence that rural colonias located along the U.S.-Mexico border have unique
educational needs. Rural school districts located along this border need strong school
leaders with “a critical leadership of place that support community as a context for
learning, understand that schools and their local communities are inextricably linked
and that the ability of each to thrive is dependent upon the other” (Budge, 2006, p.8). | en |
