About Rural Schools Open
This website provides strategic information and tangible resources for community members, school leaders, families, and youth. Our purpose is to support communities that are confronting the forced closure of their rural school and are fighting to keep it open.
We recognize that school closures disproportionately impact Black and Brown rural communities and low-income rural communities of all races. This resource is intended specifically to support these groups in their fight for educational equity.
This project emerged from academic research and decades of grassroots advocacy, and it is built and maintained by a team dedicated to this cause.
Our Team
Mara Tieken
Mara Casey Tieken is a professor of education at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, and she has studied and written about school closure for years. She is currently working on a multi-year, grant-funded project that documents, examines, and communicates the impacts of school closures on rural Black communities in the Arkansas Delta. She is the author of Educated Out: How Rural Students Navigate Elite Colleges—and What It Costs Them (University of Chicago Press, 2025), which was a 2025 American Educational Studies Association Critics’ Choice Book Award winner, and Why Rural Schools Matter (University of North Carolina Press, 2014). Before earning her doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, she taught third grade and adult education in rural Tennessee.
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Rural Community Alliance
The Rural Community Alliance (RCA) is an Arkansas-based grassroots organization that empowers rural communities to effect change in education and economic development. With over 20 years of experience, RCA has been a leader in fighting for educational equity and resisting unjust school closures. The strategies on this site are deeply informed by their advocacy and expertise.
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Funding and Maintenance
This project was funded by a generous grant from the Spencer Foundation.
Spencer Foundation
The Spencer Foundation is the only national foundation focused exclusively on supporting education research. It invests in research intended to cultivate learning, transform lives, and contribute to a more just and equitable society.
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This website is maintained by Dr. Mara Casey Tieken, with ongoing technical support from Shauna’h Fuegen. It is an evolving resource, and we welcome suggestions. You can contact Dr. Tieken at mtieken@bates.edu.