NATIONAL EDUCATION groups don’t often enough provide sufficient attention to the needs of public schools in rural America, even though these schools educate roughly 18 percent of the nation’s school-age population. That’s why we periodically devote a theme issue to rural school leadership.

This month’s issue details how superintendents in the Pacific Northwest who are running small districts in far-flung places have found a professional networking mechanism that delivers well for them and staff members at their schools in Danette Parsley’s piece, along with companion perspectives by two participating superintendents, Lois Davies and Cody Fisher.

There’s also researcher Sara Dahill-Brown’s article on “the power of place” in rural school leadership and a succinct overview of AASA’s role in support of rural schools. Allen Pratt, who directs the National Rural Education Association, writes about his quest to define “rural” as he travelled the country to meet his members.

Finally, you can read about the phenomenon of the shared superintendency, alongside a series of first-person perspectives by William Braun, Dawn Lewis and Ben Petty, and a feature about homegrown superintendents — those who return to their hometowns to serve as district superintendents.

We’re committed to revisiting the particulars of rural education before long, so we’d welcome your suggestions for what to explore next.