Archive for September, 2017
John discuss several major cutting-edge rural education issues, including teacher shortages, innovative recruitment practices, and Internet connectivity, with Allen Pratt, the executive director of the National Rural Education Association. Pratt has recently taken over the helm of NREA, the voice of rural schools and communities, and the oldest established organization of its kind in the U.S., representing rural teachers, administers and school board members. Below is a link for the podcast.
http://ruralmatters.libsyn.com/the-voice-of-rural-schools-communitiesnrea
With grated permission from John White.
2017 Legislative Review
The Taskforce for Rural Broadband met Tuesday, September 19, 2017 at Chesapeake College. Guest speakers included Dr. Michael Scott of Salisbury University, Steve Kolbe of the Maryland Department of IT, and Drew VanDopp of the Maryland Broadband Cooperative.
Access the meeting minutes here.
Access a recording of the meeting here.
Access the powerpoint presentations:
Maryland Broadband Cooperative, Inc.
Mapping Broadband in Maryland: A Recap
The Taskforce will next meet on Thursday, October 26, 2017, 10am – 1pm, in Frederick. More information, including specific location, will be made available soon.
For any questions about the Taskforce, please contact the Rural Maryland Council at 410.841.5774.
More than 2,000 people died of drug and alcohol overdoses in Maryland last year — a record number that is part of the nation’s opioid-abuse crisis.
As part of their response, Maryland legislators have passed a law requiring that students be educated four times — twice in elementary school, once in high school and once at the college level for incoming full-time students — on the dangers of opioids, including heroin. The law applies to all higher education institutions that accept state money — and so includes private colleges as well — and requires naloxone (which can be used in cases of overdoses) to be stocked by campus police and public safety officers.
Preventative education for new students is nothing new for higher ed, as colleges often offer or require student participation in programs aimed to prevent drug and alcohol abuse, or sexual assault.
At the same time, despite the widespread use of training and seminars, alcohol abuse and sexual assault — which often go hand in hand — remain major problems in higher education. Will training to prevent opioid addiction be any different?
“This is going to require a variety of different responses and a variety of different channels to solve,” said Tammy Wincup, chief operating officer of EverFi, which is prescription-drug safety and addiction-prevention programming for some Maryland colleges. EverFi is the same company behind the online alcohol education program AlcoholEdu, which many colleges use to educate incoming students.
“What we should be held to — what we should all be held to — is, ‘Are we moving in the right direction?’” Wincup said, recognizing that prevention education at the college level, on its own, probably isn’t enough to stem the tide of addiction and overdoses. While issues stemming from alcohol use and sexual assault are still priorities on campus, she said, EverFi, along with support for its programs from the state and federal governments, has helped make a positive impact at colleges.
AlcoholEdu uses computer-based interactive modules focusing on prevention and education around problematic drinking behaviors, and a study from the National Institutes of Health found it was useful for short-term results, although “effects did not persist in the spring semester.”
In the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s section on “Promising State Strategies” to combat opioid abuse, education programs aren’t listed. Instead, the list has bullet points dedicated to prescription drug monitoring programs and databases; regulations on clinics, doctors and Medicaid; increasing access to treatment; and expanding access to naloxone. To be fair, Maryland has also instituted measures beyond education to fight opioid misuse, including steps outlined in the CDC’s recommendations, and the bill introducing the education component at colleges does expand access to naloxone.
Data Sorely Needed
The classes at Maryland colleges might provide more data for the CDC to use in its study of opioid abuse, although existing data suggest that the opioid education programs at the college level could be effective, if done right.
“There isn’t much evidence about the effectiveness of educational programs among college students, but in terms of programs for adolescent populations, effective programs are those that go beyond traditional messaging and also promote positive youth development and skills,” Courtney Lenard, a CDC spokeswoman, said via email.
Citing a 2013 study on prevention programs aimed at prescription drug misuse, she said that, over all, there are positive effects from education and prevention programs, though the data regarding opioids are limited.
“Interventions have shown longitudinal effects on a range of other substance misuse and problem behaviors and have evidence supporting economic benefits,” Lenard said. “Although these results are extremely promising, the sample sizes were small — there was an overall low rate of prescription opioid misuse — and it is yet unclear how such findings might generalize to populations broader than those studied.”
In a press briefing last month, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price named education as a priority in fighting opioid abuse.
“The problem is very complicated, and currently we’re on the losing side of this war,” he said. “We know that this involves public health, the medical community, health-care delivery system, law enforcement, education, local and statewide elected officials, devastated families, and those in treatment and recovery.”
EverFi is confident it is up to the task.
“As an education organization, we have been, over the last decade, focused on how you use multiple delivery sites to stress preventative education,” Wincup said. “Our sweet spot has always been, how do we couple topic areas [such as alcohol use and abuse] with [arming] young people with formative knowledge?”
Demographics
The opioid epidemic has often centered on rural, working-class populations. On the surface, at least, it seems as though the college-going population might not be the most pressing demographic on which to focus anti-heroin resources.
Indeed, deaths from heroin and opioid overdoses are concentrated in populations older than the typical four-year college student, according to CDC data — but that doesn’t mean that abuse and misuse aren’t relevant topics for colleges. And even with the data skewing one way, opioid abuse has been well documented on college campuses, leading some to examine treatment options for addicted students. In addition, health officials need to think about nontraditional college students.
“When we talk about college students, we have to not fall into the trap of thinking of strictly traditional-aged college students who are 18 to 22, on four-year residential campuses,” said Rob Buelow, vice president of prevention education at EverFi. “That simply doesn’t reflect the majority of students who are attending two-year and technical colleges.”
“We have to be thinking of the role those students play within those communities that might be more rural and working class,” he said. “I think having a policy lever to address this across higher ed as an institution that is serving so many nontraditional-aged students as well is really important.”
At the same time, it’s important to be realistic about rates of abuse and misuse among college students when EverFi is making its programming, said Kimberley Timpf, senior director of prevention education.
“The majority of students are not abusing or misusing prescription drugs,” Timpf said. “As part of a community … we hope that [students] will stand up, will recognize, will step in if you see a friend who is struggling.”
Regardless of demographic trends, however, a risk remains — no matter what.
“It’s important to note that no demographic group has gone untouched with the opioid crisis,” Lenard said.
Read more at https://www.insidehighered.com/
As students return to school, we are all reminded of the challenges created by gaps in broadband access in Maryland’s rural areas and beyond. The issue is not only important as we try to educate our students and future workforce but as we try to close the prosperity gap among our rural and urban communities.
According to the Education Superhighway, a nonprofit that supports proper online learning tools, 21 million students in America’s K-12 public schools are being left behind in the ability to receive digital learning content. Twenty-three percent of U.S. school districts do not have enough bandwidth to meet the current needs for digital learning, and it’s much worse for rural or low income areas.
As we strive to close that “last mile” connecting the end-user to nearby services, let’s not forget how important broadband truly is to a thriving community.
Today’s economy is based on information and services. If we want to encourage economic development, we will need to ensure the flow of commerce and services. It will be essential to continue to expand and maintain the utility infrastructure — including broadband.
Access to information is now dramatically making the difference between a growing economy and a retracting economy — a better quality of life and a poorer quality of life — an engaged society and a divided society.
Many of us take for granted the services and amenities that accompany living in the 21st century, in a developed country; services such as the distribution of power, fuel and water, but also increasingly, access to the Internet. The Internet has opened up opportunities for economic growth and will continue to do so in the future.
Internet access dramatically affects commerce. According to a recent Pew Research Center report, nearly eight out of every 10 Americans has made at least one recent online purchase, and online commerce is only continuing to increase. Across the U.S., broadband connectivity is a critical component to a number of services — most notably health care. Telemedicine, being able to connect rural patients to doctors, is particularly important in areas where few physicians or specialists exist and chronic disease prevalence is high.
Our cities and rural towns are still recovering from the loss of good-paying blue collar manufacturing jobs, but what should replace those lost jobs and how do we create new ones for the economy of tomorrow? Studies show the positive impact of broadband expansion on the economy. Workers can develop new skills, children can learn, and seniors can receive better medical care. Each of these will require an accessible and reliable internet.
In a recent presentation at the 2017 Regional Rural Broadband Forum, held in Annapolis, Robert Puckett of the New York Telecommunications Association spoke about expansion of their infrastructure, which also included very strong pricing structures. Increasingly, the higher cost of the higher speeds present a burden to startup businesses, to large producers, and to individual residences alike.
Unfortunately, many of our underserved communities are being left out of the 21st century. Internet providers are ready to build but can’t service households without a return on investment. Whether through government incentives or regulations, the state’s policy must address this market failure. Public-private partnerships, such those that have developed in Garrett and Kent counties, are good examples of positive approaches to this challenge, and a recently created state task force will be investigating this issue in the coming months.
As obviously important as connectivity is, it’s not easy to do without greater commitments, investments or partnerships. Let’s not leave our students, health care workers, small businesses, seniors and broader rural communities behind. Let’s work together to find solutions now and let’s close the prosperity gap.
The Rural Maryland Council looks forward to working together on collaborative solutions so that broadband access will be a part of all citizens being able to live in healthy, connected, and thriving communities.
Josh Hastings is chair of the Rural Maryland Council; his email is jhastings@eslc.org.
PRESS RELEASE
The Maryland Agricultural Education and Rural Development Assistance Fund (MAERDAF) was established in 2000 to offer financial assistance to rural nonprofit organizations that promote statewide and regional planning, economic and community development, and agricultural and forestry education. In addition, MAERDAF offer grants to community colleges that support small and agricultural businesses. with enhanced training. and technical assistance. Between 2001 and 2017, the MAERDAF program has awarded more than 3.8 million in grants to 101 rural serving non profit organizations. During fiscal year 2018, a total of 119 applications were submitted with a total of $1,642.296.00 requested.
A total of 34 grants totaling $680,515.00 were distributed to 32 organizations:
• Allegany Health Right, Inc., $19,900.00
• Arundel Lodge, Inc., $29,951.00
• Atlantic General Hospital Corporation, $26,590.50
• Bay Area for Independent Living, $20,000.00
• Bay Community Support Services, Inc., $13,000.00
• Caroline County Council for the Arts, $13,000.00
• Chesapeake College Foundation, $9,469.00
• Chesterwye, $30,000.00
• Community Development Network, $30,000.00
• Eastern Shore Area Health Education Center,
$15,120.00
• End Hunger in Calvert County, Calvert Ca$h
$7,500.00
• End Hunger in Calvert County, $7,500.00
• Evergreen Heritage Center Foundation, Inc,
$9,625.00
• Farming 4 Hunger, $27,000.00
• Friends of the Grape, $30,000.00
•Garrett County Memorial Hospital, DBA Garrett
Regional Medical Center, $25,000.00
• Habitat for Humanity Choptank, $26,625.00
• Hagerstown Community College, $29,813.00
• Heart of the Civil War Heritage Area, $11,800.00
• Historic Sotterley, Inc, $27,580.96
• LEAD Maryland Foundation, Inc., $30,000.00
• Maryland Association of Soil Conservation
Districts, $3,400.00
• Maryland Forestry Foundation – Mel Fellowship
Program, $25,140.00
• Maryland Forestry Foundation, $22,600.00
• Mental Health Association of the Eastern Shore,
$12,552.00
• Philips Wharf Environmental, $22,100.00
• Preservation Maryland, $30,000.00
• Southern Maryland Resource Conservation &
Development Board, Inc., $10,000.00
• Susquehanna Workforce Network, $18,800.00
• Tri-County Council Foundation, $10,269.00
• Western Maryland Resource Conservation & Development
Council, $17,380.00
• Washington County Community Action Council,
Inc., $29,600.00
• Washington County Museum of Fine Arts,
$30,000.00
• Women Supporting Women, Inc., $9,200.00
Founded in 1994, the Rural Maryland Council operates under the direction of a 40 member executive board in a nonpartisan and nondiscriminatory manner. It serves as the states federally designated rural development council and functions as a voice for rural Maryland, advocating for and helping rural communities and businesses across the state to flourish and to gain equity to its suburban and urban counterparts. The vision for RMC is the the ultimate realization that citizens living in rural communities are achieving success in education and employment, have access to affordable, quality health care and other vital public services, live in a an environment where natural and cultural resources are being sustained for future generations.
For more information, visit the RMC website: www.rural.maryland.gov
Phone: 410-841-5772
1-888-373-7888
233733