Ten schools in the Ozarks received a grant for GRAD Partnership from the Rural Schools Collaborative to implement student-success systems and participate in the rural portion of a national project.  

In 2022, GRAD Partnership launched its first rural cohort through a nonprofit organization called Rural Schools Collaborative. In its third year of creation, the partnership included rural schools from coast to coast. 

The partnership is funded by the Everyone Graduates Center, created by Johns Hopkins University. The center aims to increase graduation rates and expand student-readiness. 

As part of a regional hub for the Ozarks, MSU’s Center for Rural Education was invited to select 10 schools to be part of RSC’s second cohort. Co-directors Denise Cunningham and Rhonda Bishop selected participating schools from the Ozarks region. 

Student success in ninth grade 

The Everyone Graduates Center collaborates with nine organizations to create conditions for student success. These organizations help teachers, families and communities enable students to graduate ready for the future. 

The three keys to student success systems are supportive relationships, actionable data and student-centered mindsets. 

The data collected from the Everyone Graduates Center has indicated that ninth grade is a pivotal year for graduation and post-high school readiness.  

“Research shows us that if students are successful in ninth grade, they are more likely to actually graduate,” Bishop said.  

Participating schools 

The following are rural Missouri school districts participating in the second GRAD partnership cohort: 

Once selected for the program, the co-directors helped each school to identify one area of focus for the year. The four evidence-based components were school connectedness/belonging, attendance, behavior and course performance.  

The partnership provided each school with $2,500 and schools were required to match the funding.   

The schools selected will apply their support strategies and funding from the organizations to see improvement in the area they chose.  

Cassville Middle School has chosen to focus on “Connectedness and Attendance.” They allocated some of their funding toward the Beta Club as a way to increase student involvement.  

Cassville math teacher Dove Haney is a Beta Club organizer.  

“Our goal with Beta Club is to provide a community and opportunity for students to explore interests and receive recognition through competition at our state convention,” she said.  

Haney explained with the help of the partnership, students can participate more. 

“This partnership has enabled us to provide snacks for afterschool meetings, resources for service projects, and supplies and fees for students to belong and compete in Beta membership and competitions,” she said. 

Assistance from the Community Foundation of the Ozarks 

The Community Foundation of the Ozarks partners with the CRE as a hub lead for the Ozarks.   

“They were all in from the beginning,” Cunningham said about approaching CFO with the GRAD Partnership project. 

CFO provided $1,000 to each school, which helped schools match the Center for Rural Education’s funding.  

“CFO supports the Rural Schools Collaborative’s vision of schools as linchpins of our rural places and has long championed this vision through our grantmaking,” said Winter Kinne, CFO president and CEO.  

Winter is the time to look for coyotes in Missouri, from the city to the country.

These dog relatives are native to North America, and they spread as far as Alaska and the Panama Canal during the 20th century.

Meriwether Lewis described the coyotes as “little prairie wolves” in 1806, when the Lewis and Clark expedition noticed a group of coyotes barking and howling coyotes near their camp close to present-day St. Joseph, Missouri.

With their dog-like barks and howls, coyotes make themselves known in Missouri today. They hunt small animals like mice, rats and crickets and scavenge food like roadkill and trash.

Here’s what you should know about Missouri coyotes from Nate Bowersock, black bear and furbearer biologist with the Missouri Department of Conservation, whose specialty includes coyotes, foxes and badgers.

Why do I see more coyotes during the winter?

Both the environment and coyotes’ food sources mean it’s easier to spot them during the cooler months.

Since pups are bigger, they can roam with their parents looking for food. When squirrels, mice and rabbits struggle to find food in the winter, they are more likely to fall prey to a coyote’s advances.

After the leaves drop off the trees, it’s easier to see a coyote hiding in the woods.

Where in Missouri do coyotes live?

These canines can live in many environments, as long as there are small animals to eat and a patch of woods to hide in.

“Coyotes are just very well-adapted species, so they can live pretty much anywhere,” Bowersock said.

Coyotes live everywhere from remote Missouri farmland to the middle of the city. Bowersock said he’s heard reports of coyote sightings in downtown Kansas City and near St. Louis airport.

“I almost hit one driving through the middle of Columbia the other day,” he said.

Coyotes thrive in urban areas because usually people can’t fire weapons within city limits, therefore they can’t hunt coyotes. Coyotes can also kill the prey that would have been eaten by larger predators that can’t live in cities, like bears.

How do I tell a coyote apart from a fox or wolf?

While all three dog-like animals live in Missouri, they have major differences that can help you tell them apart.

Bowersock said coyotes are known for their typically gray color, big pointy ears, long legs and long snout.

Coyotes are typically a foot and a half tall, about half as tall as an average wolf. However, a coyote’s size can be hard to determine when they have their fluffy winter fur, which makes them look larger than they are.

Unlike coyotes, both gray and red foxes have a splash of orange fur, Bowersock said.

What should I do if I see a coyote in the city?

Bowersock said to stay away from the coyote and don’t approach or feed it. Coyotes are usually scared of humans, so if an urban coyote approaches you, call your local Department of Conservation office.

Bowersock said to not be worried if there are coyotes in your town.

“I think, as a scientist and an ecologist, you know, they’re there because there’s a resource available to them. They wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t food for them and cover for them to utilize,” Bowersock said.

How can I keep coyotes off my land?

Lock up your livestock and pets overnight, Bowensock said. Putting animals in a chicken coop or barn will keep your small animals from becoming a snack for coyotes, Bowensock said. Smaller cats and dogs can fall victim to coyotes, but a predator is unlikely to kill an animal larger than itself.

If a coyote is causing problems, call your local Department of Conservation office, Bowersock said. They can put you in touch with a wildlife conflict biologist, who can help mitigate issues with the coyotes.

2024 The Kansas City Star. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The Missouri Department of Natural Resources’ Water Protection Program will host a meeting Friday to publicly discuss permitting land application of industrial wastewater and wastewater treatment residuals.

This meeting pertains to a piece of legislation orchestrated to regulate animal waste basin companies such as Denali Water Solutions. Attendees will get to learn more about the specific parameters the DNR is adding to the more general restrictions, including in the “Sludge Bill.”

Denali operated two waste lagoons in southwest Missouri, in McDonald County and in Macon County, which could hold between 10 million and 15 million gallons of waste. 

In July, Gov. Mike Parson signed House Bills 2134 and 1956 to place restrictions on water disposal companies such as Denali. Due to an emergency clause on the bill, the restrictions went into effect immediately and “effectively shut down” Denali’s operations in Missouri.

Rep. Ed Lewis of District 6, which covers Randolph and Macon counties, sponsored the bill along with Rep. Dirk Deaton of District 159, which includes McDonald and Newton counties.

“It wasn’t just for Denali — it would be for any company that was trying to take multiple wastewater streams and putting them in one basin at that large size, an open basin, they were going to have to be regulated,” Lewis said. “We put the regulations in, and because of those regulations, the company is probably not going to try to meet those.”

The bill is tailored specifically to companies with “comb-angled” wastewater mixing where there are multiple sources of waste, in order to not apply to municipal wastewater or centralized animal feeding operations (CAFOs), which already have their own regulations.

Denali’s waste basins were filled with “sludge” from animal and food processing plants, wash-down rinse water and grease trap waste — creating a smell that bothered nearby residents.

“What we were doing was going after this unregulated space that had been carved out by a company, using a loophole that was existent in current statute at the time,” Lewis said. “We wanted to close that loophole and make sure that everyone was abiding by rules that were reasonable and provided a secure environment for the farmers and for the people that lived around these basins and where the material is being land-applied.”

The legislation signed in July included requirements like having the basins be at least 3,500 feet away from “occupied dwellings.” The representatives tried to mirror pre-existing legislation, such as CAFOs needing to be 3,000 feet away from homes and to be away from the edge of the property. They added the additional 500 feet to ensure that basins wouldn’t be right at the edge, like the CAFO requirement. 

“It was really mirrored after the CAFO restrictions because ‘Why re-create the wheel that’s already in place?’ (We made) sure it’s the same type of regulations,” Lewis said. “We didn’t go beyond those, this was just tailored for those industries that weren’t falling into any of those previously defined categories.”

Lewis said that in McDonald County, some houses were so close to the basin that residents could “throw a rock from the front yard” into it.  He said this legislation was “very popular” with his constituents, as well as highly bipartisan, as it received a two-thirds vote to earn an emergency clause. 

“I was pleasantly surprised that we were able to, in one session, actually pass a stand-alone bill,” Lewis said. “That doesn’t happen very often. I think there were only 17 non-budget bills that passed last (session) and two of them that were stand-alone bills.”

Since July, the DNR has been working on more specific parameters with regards to amount of testing, exact phosphorus levels and other more scientific requirements. Even before the legislation was passed, the DNR had stepped in this spring to shut down Denali when it over-applied the wastewater to farmland and contaminated the water supply.

“Nobody can just dump stuff that’s going to end up getting in the waterways,” Lewis said. “That was actually how DNR was able to shut down their operations before our bill went into place. But then what our bill has done is made it a permanent ceasing of this type of operation, unless they want to follow the rules. And I don’t really think, in this case, that this company is interested in particularly following the rules.”

Lewis said there are still questions on land application, particularly about phosphorus chemicals with high fluorine content that are hard to break down in the environment. He said he’s been asked to file bills to expand the regulations but is apprehensive of getting ahead of Environmental Protection Agency studies and creating something that is “too restrictive.”

“We don’t want to shut down all of these type of operations if they’re doing a good job and there’s a service they’re providing to the community and they’re getting rid of waste from these basins — but we want that to occur safely,” Lewis said. “It is a balancing act.”

Though there could still be more questions raised at the DNR meeting Friday morning. Lewis said sees the legislation as having solved a problem for Missourians. 

“I think sometimes we don’t see government that actually works and responds to its constituents, and here’s an example where it did,” Lewis said. “The government actually did what the constituents wanted and hopefully solved a problem and didn’t create a new one.”