• What does self-reliance have to do with education?
• Are we hardwired to work, and what does that have to do with the poverty trap?
• What can you do to impact positive educational change in Aboriginal Canada?
• How can indigenous ways of learning contribute to sustainable educational reform in public schools?
• How can we use culturally responsive pedagogies in our classrooms to improve student learning?
• What are deficit thinking and pathologizing practices?
• How do they limit the performance of our students?

Both keynote messages resonated with the conference participants and had them on their feet to express their appreciation at the end of their presentations. The keynotes and the plenary sessions were designed to stretch our thinking, challenge our bias and engage all of us in a deeper exploration of teaching and learning in rural classrooms.

The Rural Conference is unique because it is not a stand alone professional development event. It was organized as the starting point for year long conversations that are designed to build the necessary capacity to support our rural students. The Ministry provided the opportunity for rural districts to send teams of educators to learn together and to connect with other educators who are also focused on improving the schooling experience for rural students.

One of the underlying concepts of our conference is networking. The conference provided an opportunity for all participants to engage with their colleagues in a purposeful way: to learn together and to share what’s working and to consider our challenges. This conference also addressed the need for rural communities to forge new partnerships between Band/Independent Schools and the Public School system in order to explore the idea of working more closely together to support our Aboriginal learners. 

The 4^th Annual Rural Conference is already being planned. October 21, 22, and 23^rd  2009 have been reserved at the Sheraton Wall Center to host our event. The Rural Strategy Committee would recommend districts consider placing a district pro-d day back to back with the provincial day in order to accommodate larger groups of educators having the opportunity to take advantage of this wonderful rural event.

The 2007 Rural Schools Conference, “It Takes a Village – One Learner at a Time!”, was held October 11 and 12, 2007 at the Richmond Inn Convention Centre. The 2007 Conference focussed on schools as community and schools in community.


Themes of the 2007 Conference further explored 2006 Conference topics:

• Teaching and Learning in Multi-Age Classrooms
• Engaging Aboriginal Learners
• Supporting Special Needs Students
• e-Learning
• Creating Community.

The 2007 Conference highlighted sessions on Boards and Parents Working Together to Support Learning Communities.

Keynote speaker Linda Kaser, and plenary speakers Faye Brownlie and Leyton Schnellert helped guide over 300 delegates through each of the themes. Practising rural educators, parents, and trustees presented a wide range of break-out sessions.

The 2007 Conference was co-chaired by Pat Pearce from School District 74 (Gold Trail), Dan Boudreault from School District 85 (Vancouver Island North) and Virginia Ivey from School District 73 (Kamloops).

The 2007 Rural Renewal Conference webcast keynote speeches and plenary sessions are now available online.

The 2006 Rural Renewal Conference webcast plenary sessions are available online.