This material is based upon the work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0119679. Any opinions, fndings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily refect the views of the National Science Foundation.. Correspondence regarding this manuscript should be addressed to Dr. Aimee Howley, Ohio University, Athens, OH, 45701; Phone: 740-593-4402; Email: howley@ohio.edu. Gardener, & Wieland, 2006), and enticement of talented students to leave their home communities for high-paying jobs elsewhere (Carr & Kefalas, 2009). Some rural communities have been better able than others to retain their small schools and exert infuence on their educational aims (Buikstra et al., 2010; DeYoung, 1995a; Duncan, 1999; Howley, Howley, Camper, & Perko, 2011; Shelton, 2005). In many regions of the United States, however, serious and prolonged economic decline in previously solid agrarian communities has weakened civic institutions, undermining community and eventually resulting in school closure (e.g., Salamon, 2003). Several studies suggest that school survival and community survival are linked: not only does community decline result from school closure (Lyson, 2002), school closure often results from community decline (Post & Stambach, 1999). Commonly, rural schools and communities fnd themselves with little power to offset the consequences of changes they confront. Demographers continue to report population declines in many rural communities, as well as some rebounds associated with resettlement choices of Historically, schools have played a major role in the life of rural communities, transmitting important knowledge and values, serving as the locus for community events, and supporting economic and civic development (e.g., DeYoung, 1995a; Theobald, 1997). Not all schools, however, have been equally successful in supporting their communities, in part because business and government interests often push them toward other purposes (Budge, 2010). Contributing to the breakdown between schooling and community are several prominent modernization efforts—standardization of rural curricula and educational performances (e.g., Brandt, 2002; Wills & Sandholtz, 2009), consolidation of smaller schools into conglomerates serving several communities (Bard, This case study focuses on a four-district collaborative that shared services for more than 15 years in an effort to retain rural schools and thereby to preserve community identity. With population losses in the four districts and suburbanization in the largest, the collaborative made extensive use of distance education in addition to itinerant teachers and shared administrators. Data concerning dynamics in the collaborative came from interviews with administrators, teachers, students, and parents. Qualitative data analysis surfaced two themes relating to shared services: tenacity in the face of decline, and strategies with limited sustainability. Findings also pointed to a disjuncture between the way administrators and parents, on the one hand and teachers and students, on the other viewed the success of shared services and the probable future of the collaborative. A review of changes in the written plans of the collaborative over a several-year period revealed that sharing of buildings through school consolidation was the inevitable next step. This fnding fts with research showing that shared services in rural locales—a strategy initially used to forestall reorganization—often leads to consolidation. Citation: Howley, A., Howley, M., Hendrickson, K., Belcher, J., & Howley, C. (2012). Stretching to survive: District autonomy in an age of dwindling resources. Journal of Research in Rural Education, 27(3). Retrieved from http://jrre./psu.edu/articles/27-3.pdf Aimee Howley Ohio University Marged Howley Oz Educational Consulting Katie Hendrickson Ohio University Johnny Belcher Pikeville High School Craig Howley Ohio University Journal of Research in Rural Education, 2012, 27(3) Stretching to Survive: District Autonomy in an Age of Dwindling Resources