Schooling the Dust Belt

This article is a first person's account of working in a rural district affected by drought, economic recession and poor levels of services. It is a facto-fictional narrative describing a typical working day in the life of Peggy, the acting CEO of quality teaching, in what is locally referred to as an NIDA district (where everyone is acting). Peggy is in her fifties, single, a parent of grown up children and a teacher of thirty years experience. She lives alone in a small flat in the regional centre and drinks too much. She travels to schools in the area most days, rising early, arriving home late into the night, overseeing usage of the Quality Teaching Model. During her travels, Peggy also addresses such problems as the emotional strain placed on school principals working away from their families and school water pipes freezing overnight. This facto-fictional narrative is taken from more than 100 interviews conducted in the New England Region of NSW as part of the Rural (Teacher) Education Program--ARC Linkage (2002-2004), conducted jointly by researchers from Charles Sturt University, UNE and the NSW Department of Education and Training