When California educators return to their rural hometowns, the result can be ‘brain gain’

Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSource

Every time former Superintendent Robin Jones walked into Kit Carson Elementary School, she remembered getting off the bus and walking down the hallway as a child. 

Jones, who attended Kit Carson K-8, said coming back as an administrator “just happened.” She recalls becoming superintendent there partially because she didn’t want anyone else to have the job. 

“I just felt like, well, no one’s going to treat it the way I would treat it,” she said.

Kit Carson is located in rural, agriculturally focused Hanford, in the central San Joaquin Valley. Rural areas often deal with “brain drain,” or the loss of college-educated people to urban areas. A 2021 article published in Rural Sociology found, however, that college graduates who had attended a rural public K-12 school and had stronger attachment to those schools were more likely to return to their rural hometowns.

When college graduates do return to their rural hometowns, according to the study, the result can be “brain gain,” the opposite of brain drain. Those who return can become critical players in their community’s development, both economically and socially. 

Jones felt a strong, personal connection to Kit Carson, especially because of her familial ties there. Her grandmother was the first woman on the school board, and her father and all her siblings attended the school. 

“It was kind of just your second home, and everybody knew everybody in the community,” she said. “It was kind of the hub of everything. You know, we didn’t play sports, except at school. We didn’t go to events, except at school. So, it was kind of just our other place besides home — our only other place besides home and church.”

Jones returned to Kit Carson after earning her degrees and credentials at the College of the Sequoias; California State University, Fresno; Brandman University; and National University. She coached at Kit Carson part-time during college, then taught and eventually became an administrator at Kings River-Hardwick School in Hanford, before spending time as superintendent at Island Union Elementary School District in Lemoore. 

When she began her stint as superintendent at Kit Carson, Jones felt the pressure of leading the school she had once attended. 

“It was actually the hardest job I’ve ever had, because I knew what was at stake just from being a student there, you know,” Jones said. “I wanted every kid to have the same experience I had.”

Jones isn’t the only rural California educator who returned to her hometown school. Superintendent of Modoc Joint Unified School District Tom O’Malley spent almost his entire childhood in Alturas, a small town in a rural northeastern part of California.  

Though O’Malley enjoyed his adolescence in Alturas, by the time he graduated from high school, he felt the pull of adventure. 

“It was just really safe. We walked everywhere. We fished a lot. It was a ball. We had a great time growing up,” he said. “And then I just couldn’t wait to get out.”

Like Jones, O’Malley’s return to Alturas was more of an accident. After a stint in Southern California after high school, he got into firefighting and ended up being placed back in Modoc County by the U.S. Forest Service. 

He eventually got a position coaching football at Modoc High, which is where he discovered his passion for education. After earning his math degree from California State University, Chico and spending eight years teaching in the Central Valley, O’Malley and his wife decided to return to Alturas with their first child. 

“Really, I always just wanted to come back,” he said. “You go through life, and then you realize this is where you’re comfortable. I like it here — it’s blue skies, and you know, it’s not a lot of people. It’s pretty slow.”

O’Malley was assistant principal at Modoc for a year, then principal for seven, before becoming superintendent, a position he’s now held for a decade. He said his experience as an administrator at Modoc has been a bit different because he grew up in the area and didn’t have to “start from scratch” like other superintendents.

“I think I got a lot of grace because you know, I was from here and went to the schools and people knew I moved back,” he saidd. “I had a lot of friends that were still here, and they just knew I came back for the right reasons and wanted to be here and wanted to make things better.” 

O’Malley said living in a rural area is a lifestyle choice, and you must make sacrifices when you decide to live somewhere as secluded as Alturas. For him, though, he said those inconveniences — like being hundreds of miles away from the nearest Walmart, Costco and his primary care doctor — are worth it. 

“My students have a lot of disadvantages from living here. You know, accessibility to college, all those kinds of things — just trying to find ways to win, so our kids win,” he explained. “The harder we work and the more systems we can put in place or programs we can do or whatever things we can come up with — just our kids win, and it’s fun when they do.”

Miguel Lomeli, president of the San Lucas Unified School District board, said his return to the school he attended felt “totally natural.” He grew up in San Lucas, a rural, unincorporated community in Monterey County, and attended SLUSD until eighth grade, before moving on to King City High School.

After earning his accounting degree from Central Coast College in Salinas, he returned to San Lucas to work in the agriculture sector, a big industry in the area. 

When his oldest son started attending SLUSD, Lomeli had an opportunity to get involved and has been on the school board since the early 2000s.

Lomeli said having firsthand experience of SLUSD is important for him as board president. For instance, he knows how it feels to be in a class with multiple grades because he experienced it himself as a student at the school.

“Unless you really have gone there, you don’t understand,” he said. 

Like Jones, Lomeli has familial ties to SLUSD. Many of his relatives are involved with San Lucas or King City schools in some capacity. His wife, Maria, also serves as a board member for SLUSD. 

“I think it’s just natural,” he said. “It’s been very enjoyable to do all this and be back in the community that saw me grow up.”

Maribel Velasco, board clerk at SLUSD, also attended the school. She, too, went to King City for high school and felt a lack of connection to her teachers compared to her experience at San Lucas. 

“I always felt connected to all the teachers since it was small classes,” she said. 

Velasco went to Santa Barbara City College for medical coding and spent time working at a hospital in Salinas before returning to San Lucas. Her decision to move back was because she wanted her kids to be connected to their grandparents who still lived in the area, and so they could attend SLUSD like she had.

She got involved with the school board a couple of years ago and also thinks her personal connection to San Lucas has helped in her position.

“Just from us having that connection, we know some of the families, how the families think, what to expect, what the reaction might be to some of the changes we’re going to make,” she explained. “I just think it helps a lot more.”

Jones said she can’t imagine a better experience than attending Kit Carson Elementary, and her experience there made her job as superintendent more valuable.

“You will have the most rewarding job if you go back to where you grew up,” she said.