By Emma Duncan, education reporter
Montgomery County goes by many titles—rural community, persistent-poverty county, the greater Blacksburg area, home. Some of these titles carry more weight than others.
For Montgomery County Public Schools, being classified as a rural area or not can stand between receiving federal funding and benefits.
The National Center for Education Statistics, a division of the Department of Education, uses a 12-category classification system to define locales as one of four categories: city, suburban, town and rural. Locales are different from counties: counties house an entire school district of locales, while locales typically represent one community or 1-3 schools.
According to the June 2007 NCES Status of Education in Rural America report, “The new measures or locale codes are assigned to each school according to the school’s physical longitude and latitude. Thus, these new locale codes make school data more consistent, accurate, and useful to policymakers, researchers, and educators concerned with rural education issues.”
The NCES Locale Lookup map shows that Montgomery County is majority rural, with most of the county falling in the rural fringe category. At the center of the county, two bubblegum pink regions dictate small cities, better known as Blacksburg and Christiansburg.
This map and data from NCES are used by other government agencies and departments as the basis for resource allocation. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has its own FNS Rural Designation Map used to qualify students for free or reduced lunch and the summer meals program. On this map, all of Montgomery County is green and classified as rural, except for Blacksburg and Christiansburg.
“We have four unique strands in our county: Blacksburg, Christiansburg, Shallsville-Elliston, and Reiner,” said Andrew Webb, coordinator of communications and public relations for MCPS. “Shawsville and Reiner qualify. Christiansburg does not. Blacksburg Middle and High schools don’t necessarily qualify, but Price’s Fork Elementary School does; it’s not necessarily within the town of Blacksburg limits, but it’s got a Blacksburg address.”
Webb explained that MCPS bases its internal classification and allocation on this map, acknowledging that most of the county is rural. However, some scholarship and financial aid programs don’t agree.
The George Washington Carver Assistantship Program through Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences “[supports] the development of high-achieving graduate students with varied, diverse experiences and backgrounds.” U.S. resident graduate students in this college can apply for the scholarship if they meet at least one of the following criteria: are a first-generation student, have a disability, are a veteran or come from a disadvantaged background, such as a rural area.
This scholarship utilizes the Health Resources and Services Administration Rural Health Grants Eligibility Analyzer and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data to define rural; Montgomery County is not considered rural or grant eligible on either of these indicators.
While the HRSA does not consider Montgomery County rural, the county is classified as a persistent poverty county, an area “in which poverty rates of 20 percent or higher have persisted for 30 years or more,” according to an article from the USDA. This definition may cause some to conclude that, if an area is rural for so long, it can lose its rural status and be redefined by its poverty, limiting scholarship access to a county that historically needs it.
The HRSA was contacted for a comment, but only referenced their “How We Define Rural” website. One aspect of the administration’s rural definition read, “outlying metropolitan counties with no population from an urban area of 50,000 or more people.” This is where the bubble gum pink regions come into play.
The Town of Blacksburg defines itself as “a vibrant college community with a daily population of over 50,000 people.” When Virginia Tech is in session, over 30,000 students call Blacksburg home. The population of Blacksburg disqualifies Montgomery County as a rural area.
As a tax-exempt organization, Virginia Tech does not pay local taxes to Montgomery County. However, the university still impacts its community and serves Montgomery County students economically and through development and education efforts.
“Virginia Tech gives in so many different ways and we can’t limit ourselves just to one measure,” said Mark Owczarski, chief spokesperson. “At our university, impact is about bringing families together, empowering students, bringing faculty into the local schools and hosting programming, not to mention living here. Faculty and staff have kids in the Montgomery County school system. When they decide to live here, they bring whatever talents and gifts they have to the community at large, along with investing their salaries in the area. Virginia Tech is Montgomery County, so as Virginia Tech changes, our impact changes.”
Many classes, including Community Writing in the Department of English, visit county schools weekly to teach students, host programming and support the development of Montgomery County. Clubs such as Primeros Pasos mentor disadvantaged students as they navigate post-secondary education and life.
Although students from Montgomery County may not qualify for state and federal scholarships based on rural status, the Virginia Tech Office of Undergraduate Admissions offers onsite admission, a service that gives early application review and decision to high schools in the New River Valley and Roanoke Valley.
“They have their own process just for local kids,” Owczarski said.” “They don’t do it because they have to, they do it because they want to. We want Virginia Tech to be an obvious choice for students in surrounding areas.”
In mid-February, Virginia Tech will receive its economic impact report, completed by Tripp Umbach, which will detail the location and reach of the university’s cited multi-billion-dollar impact. Owczarski shared that he will be briefed on the report and able to answer questions about it beginning Wednesday, Feb. 18.
With a mixture of classifications, resources, and support services in Montgomery County’s reach, Webb clarified that the school district doesn’t let titles prevent its students from succeeding.
“Equity is a big part of what we do here,” Webb said. “We have a director of equity who strives to make education as accessible as possible, reducing barriers, whether it be transportation, meals, anything we can do to help level the playing field. If you don’t have a fair share, it’s hard to want to go to school every day, and we want to make our schools a place where every kid feels welcome and wanted.”
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