The Minimalist Educator Podcast
A podcast about paring down to focus on the purpose and priorities in our roles.
The Minimalist Educator Podcast
Episode 087: Rural Schools, Clear Priorities with Dr. Melissa Sadorf
Rural education isn’t about scarcity. It’s about clarity. We sit down with Dr. Melissa Sadorf, Executive Director of the National Rural Education Association, professor, longtime superintendent, and host of the Rural Scoop—to unpack how minimalist leadership helps protect the core mission of teaching and learning in communities that already operate lean. Instead of doing more with less, she argues for stripping away noise, centering relationships, and using place-based learning to make school deeply personal and relevant.
Across a 32-year career in Arizona’s rural schools, Dr. Sadorf has seen the power of an asset-based lens: strong family ties, flat decision-making, and the ability to move quickly without bureaucratic drag. She shares concrete ways to fight initiative fatigue by choosing a few high-impact practices, aligning PD and budgets to those priorities, and communicating the why behind required tasks. Her mantra, "connection over compliance", keeps trust high and energy focused where it counts.
We also dive into distributive leadership that taps the strengths of the whole staff. From data analysis to technology workflows to grant planning, leaders can “coach up” people across roles and build a healthier pipeline while spreading workload sustainably. For educators curious about moving from urban classrooms to rural communities, Melissa offers pragmatic guidance: learn the context, honor local culture, and build relationships before making big moves. The throughline is “intentional simplicity”: clear boundaries, protected time for learning, and a steadfast focus on what serves students.
If you value practical strategies and a hopeful, grounded view of rural schools, this conversation will sharpen your focus and renew your purpose. Subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review to help more educators find these ideas. What’s one thing you’ll cut this week to protect the core?
Find our book The Minimalist Teacher and Your School Leadership Edit: A Minimalist Approach to Rethinking Your School's Ecosystem at the links!
Follow on Instagram @PlanZEducation and @minimalist_ed_podcast.
The Minimalist Educator Podcast is a Plan Z Education Services adventure.
Welcome to the Minimalist Educator Podcast, where the focus is on a less is more approach to education. Join your hosts, Christine Arnold and Tammy Musiowski, authors of The Minimalist Teacher and your School Leadership Edit, a minimalist approach to rethinking your school ecosystem. Each week as they explore practical ways to simplify your work, sharpen your focus, and amplify what matters most so you can teach and lead with greater clarity, purpose, and joy.
SPEAKER_02:On this week's episode, we're joined by Dr. Melissa Sadoff. She has a great discussion with us all about rural schools, and her peer down pointer is to make sure that you protect the core mission of teaching and learning. Dr. Melissa Sadoff is the Executive Director of the Arizona Rural Schools Association and an assistant teaching professor in the Educational Leadership Department at Northern Arizona University. With over 30 years of experience in educational leadership, she's the author of The Resilient Rural Leader: Rising to the Challenges of Rural Education. A passionate advocate for rural education, Dr. Sadorf works as a consultant through Vela Educational Consultants, offering leadership development and professional learning. She's also the host of the Rural Scoop Podcast and a nationally recognized voice in rural educational leadership.
SPEAKER_03:Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week's episode of the Minimalist Educator Podcast. This week, Christine and I are talking with a special guest, Dr. Melissa Saydorf, who is someone who has spent a long time in her career working in rural education and supporting educators and students there. So we're really interested to talk to her this week and get her insights into that work. Welcome to the show, Melissa.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you so much. It's fantastic to be here with you both.
SPEAKER_03:We are, like I said, we're excited to have you here. We haven't had someone talk about the ins and outs of rural education. And so we are interested to learn a lot about this. How did you, I don't want to say end up on that path in your career, but what led you there?
SPEAKER_00:That's fine. Well, I never left the rural, the rural landscape of education. I grew up as a rural student in Arizona and went into teaching in a rural school in the town that I grew up in and was there until I left in 2012, went from the classroom to the principal seat. And then in 2012, I took a superintendent's position of another district in Arizona and was there for the last 12 years of my career. So rounded out 32 years, all of it spent in rural education here in Arizona. So I never left.
SPEAKER_03:That's really cool to sorry, Christine, I know you were going to say something, but it is really cool to hear about people who have kind of stayed with where they grew up or have gone into a career that's similar to what they grew up up in. So as someone who spent their school years in as a as a learner, as a student, who spent their time in rural education and then supports and continues to support educators in the same type of realm. What are some of the things that that have been consistent across your kind of lifetime in rural Arizona in education?
SPEAKER_00:So I'm gonna I'm gonna frame this in terms of minimalism. I I think that I would be remiss if I didn't. Yes, thank you. So, and and you know, minimalism isn't about doing less for students. I think is, and especially in rural communities where we're pretty thin on resources and access anyway. Minimalism in a rural education setting really is about removing the excess from the distractions from what matters most. And that is the relationships that we cultivate in our communities with our stakeholders. It's about the learning that happens in and out of the classrooms on a regular daily basis. And it's about the community that really is who we service in that rural area as the heartbeat of the community. You often hear people talk about what the rural school is is the hub. And that's very true. So so when we are in a rural area, and obviously I'm speaking in broad terms because rural looks different from place to place. It's not a monolith. So you have to consider context. But in rural schools, we we already operate lean. I mean, we have we have small staff and we have the multi-role responsibility. So I think minimalism really reframes this circumstance that we typically find ourselves in as an asset because it really sharpens our focus rather than being a deficit.
SPEAKER_02:I find this topic really fascinating to jump into because you know, coming from Australia and Tammy's originally from Canada as well. We we are from these countries that have huge rural areas. And I personally have never worked or lived in one of those areas, but I'm familiar with some of the some of the things that come along with that lifestyle for the for the community. So, what do you think are some of the assumptions or maybe even misconceptions that come along with with working in one of these schools in a rural area?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think I'll start with the asset-based versus a deficit-based approach to what we do in rural areas. And that is something, unfortunately, that is not easy to overcome. We do a lot of advocacy work with the National Rural Education Association trying to frame rural education as very, very resource-heavy in terms of what we bring in in place. Where we are has a lot to do with what we're able to tap into and then involve our students in terms of their learning, you know, engaging curriculum to community and to the local geography and to the culture of the place that you are in. And so that's something I think that is often missed is that, you know, we really do bring a lot to the table in a rural area that really has the capacity to just be a more enriching experience for the students that are in our care.
SPEAKER_03:That connection to place-based education is really something that we see a lot here in the Big Island, especially because it is very rural out here. And I think people don't necessarily think of island, like particularly Hawaii, as rural, but the Big Island has a lot of rural area. And so knowing that the, and especially being in the middle of the Pacific, right? We have a different challenge as well. But in terms of like that's such a great asset to use for curriculum connections and teaching. What do you notice for in your experience when working with teachers or even as a principal or even as a superintendent? I guess just depending on kind of how you're working with this. But how what is the feeling for teachers, or what has been the feeling for teachers, knowing that there's there might be limited resources and they have to take on, you know, more hats potentially than a teacher would in a heavily staffed school? Because that feels like a really heavy responsibility.
SPEAKER_00:Sure. Well, I I I'm gonna I'm gonna start by answering your question around a place like Hawaii, where you know, you you talk about that connection to place. And I think, and and I it's part of the answer to your question, but preserving that rural identity, I think is really important. And and when you talk about minimalism as far as clarity of purpose, for for rural schools, that often means holding really tight onto that cultural and historical and community tradition that is really evident in all of the rural communities that that I've been in, and I'm sure you both too, even in different countries, that that it's not about cutting away identity when you don't have a lot of assets. It really is about centering it. And there are programs that make rural schools really that that hub of community life. But when you talk about limited resources and and having that multiple hats that they all wear, one of the things that comes to mind for me is minimalism in leadership. And this was me as a superintendent, and it was also me as a as a as a principal. It means protecting teachers from initiative fatigue and getting really focused on what we're doing and clarifying what's the professional development that is truly needed and how are we mentoring to make sure that those few high impact practices that we're focusing on are really where we're spending our time. It's where we're spending our budget, it's where we're spending our thought rather than overwhelming the staff with every new thing that comes down the pike. And so, you know, that was certainly one of the places that I really paid close attention to because we know that burnout is, I mean, we we started talking about it five years ago with COVID. And it certainly is not something that has gone away just because we're not in the same place we were five years ago with with a pandemic. But we want to make sure that we're protecting our staff. We have a recruitment and retention problem right now, not just in in rural communities, but in urban and suburban communities. And that pipeline is really, really running very thin. And it also has impacted leadership. And so we're seeing that pipeline into leadership also being turned off. And so, you know, we've got to protect the people that are there now. We also understand in rural communities that we don't have a lot of applicants for the positions that are open. And so we have to coach up rather than push out. And it's it's really getting focused on what's important, what do they need to know, and how am I going to make sure that I get them there.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's something I feel like I've been having conversations around a lot about recently is that idea of retention rather than just getting new teachers in. I feel like that's kind of investing focus in the wrong areas. Well, it's still important, you know, you do have to look after the people that are already in the profession, you know? Right. It's really interesting to hear about the initiative fatigue. I don't know, I guess maybe naively, idealistically, I would have thought life at a rural school might be simpler and that sort of initiative fatigue might not hit you as hard, but you still find that that is a real problem for you.
SPEAKER_00:Sure. I mean, we have to do the same things that are being done in urban and suburban schools, just with fewer people and fewer programs and fewer access to curricular resources or community resources. And so with that kind of leanness, you have to do with what you have. I call it a bailing wire and duct tape approach to getting schooling done because you do with what you have, which means the human capital around you are who you tap into. And it's very easy to have people take on more than than is probably wise for them in an effort to get things done. We we want to make sure that we're not encouraging too much involvement. We want to spread, spread the the wealth. That distributive leadership that we talk about as leaders is something that really is not just a nice to have, but it's a need to do in a rural community.
SPEAKER_03:Can you talk a little bit more about that, that specifically distributive leadership? Because I I think it's something that people hear about, but they don't necessarily know how to do it or how to make it effective. And so, like Christine and I, when we taught together, we were part of that kind of model, which was really, you know, you you do feel a sense of like, okay, we're all taking on different pieces. Yes, that adds a little bit more, but we're doing this collectively and together. And so can you talk about what that looks like or looked like in your role?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, sure. Well, I'm gonna start with making sure that things are streamlined as far as professional work because as a leader, you are the instructional leader in the building, but you are also the manager. And so that that's a fine line. So for teachers, that means that I'm making sure that I'm not I'm not asking them to do unnecessary paperwork or redundant assessments. I want to make sure that I'm giving back time for instruction and student feedback and those kinds of things that are important for teaching and learning to happen in that in the classroom. And and, you know, focusing on rather than every metric, I'm gonna be focusing on just a few key indicators like attendance and graduation readiness and where are they going post-secondary as far as their pathway? You know, is it is it career, is it the military, is it uh community college? What do those things look like? But then in addition to that, when I'm when I've removed the the chafe from from the weeds, so to speak, as far as what really needs to get done, distributive leadership is making sure that I am investing in the leadership capacity and development of the of the people on my staff. And it wasn't always teachers in the classroom. It could have been my classified staff as well. And so I can't, as a rural leader, do everything for everyone all the time. I I would burn myself out and then I'm no good to anybody. So it was what are the gifts that those teachers or those classified staff bring, whether it's around they are comfortable with technology or they're very good at disaggregating data, or they're really good at strategic planning and uh coming up with goals for grants, whatever those things were, it was giving them the space and the opportunity to take that on as a role that then they could lead forward with, knowing that their first responsibility was as teacher in the classroom or para pro in the classroom or secretary in the front office, but also providing them the opportunity to grow their leadership capacity. And in doing so, not only was I giving them the opportunity to grow, I was also getting things done in a way that it wasn't all me that was doing it. It wasn't a small core group of people that was doing it. Everyone in the system had the opportunity to take on a larger role and to provide leadership to the the whole school, the whole district. And so I you just as a role leader, it is like I said, it really is the way that you are going to lead best, is if you're pulling other people into those leadership roles with you.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, fair enough. So it sounds like a really key thing that you're speaking to here is that idea of like having a really rich knowledge base about the people that you've got around you, about the place that you're in, the identity of the community. Do you think that that that's really at the heart of getting to the purposeful leadership?
SPEAKER_00:Uh it all is predicated on relationships and knowing your staff, allowing them to know you, being vulnerable. It's people over programs and making sure that not only do you know everyone by name, you know your students by name, it just you strip away the clutter, you know, minimal minimalism, stripping away the clutter to make sure that relationship-driven leadership and teaching is really where we're going to land. And that's for that's for everyone in the system. That's for all of our stakeholders, where, you know, it's it's it's an issue of connection over compliance and making sure that, you know, we know that these things need to get done, but that relationship is what starts everything. It's the foundation of everything.
SPEAKER_03:You just mentioned connection over compliance, which is something I I think is a challenge for a lot of leaders because you do have to just do certain things that can feel like clutter, right? So, how did you manage that when you knew that we just have to do this for compliance purpose, but then relay that to the people that you were working with as like, I know this isn't our favorite thing to do, but we gotta do it. So, how did you navigate that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think that people when people understand the why behind something, the why behind the ask, it they're more likely to, okay, I I I get it. We've we've got to do this report, and it has to be done by the end of this month. And so knowing that it's it's something that whether I do it or you do it or somebody else does it, it still has to get done and the consequences for it not happening. So being transparent and being communicative about the why behind the task itself.
SPEAKER_02:If you had a magic wand and you could magic up one thing that would make a huge difference for rural schools and rural educators, what what would that one magical thing be that they could do?
SPEAKER_00:That's a really good question, Christine.
SPEAKER_02:Like something that would really make a difference to people and make life a bit better.
SPEAKER_00:You know, I I I I honestly think that I I wish that people would understand that rural education is not about scarcity, it's about clarity. It it I I wish that, you know, people would understand that if we strip away what does not serve students and we look at what we have around us that helps to provide really a foundation for connection with place, with people, with community and culture, that's the heart of rural education. And that intentional simplicity is where education is deeply personal and rooted in community. I I wish that people would understand how beautiful that is and what an opportunity it is both to teach and lead in that kind of environment and to learn as a student.
SPEAKER_03:You just said two words that really caught me: intentional simplicity. And if that that if we could capture that, if we could like just wave the wand everywhere and have everyone participate in that intentionality, particularly like let's learn something from rural schools and bring that into those large urban centers, right? Because things are so complicated and bureaucratic in large areas that it's so easy to lose sight of what the purpose is. And Christine and I talk a lot about purpose. Like, what is the point of doing this? And if it's not going to serve students, why are we doing it? Are we doing it? Yeah. And so I think there's a lot of strong lessons to be learned from the work that you've done and that other leaders are doing in rural education. What has been what what do you think would be your favorite part of working in rural communities?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, it's definitely about the community itself and the engagement that you're able to uh really lean into. It's about families that know each other and know who you are and you know them. It's the capacity that you have to move quickly. There's not a lot of red tape in rural education because you have pretty flat organizational charts. And so there's not a lot of uh of layers between decision and and implementation. And so things can turn pretty quickly. And it's and it's knowing that you are ensuring the preservation of an identity of a place and being a part of contributing to that in a very real, very important way.
SPEAKER_02:So if we had some listeners that were big city teachers who'd spent their whole career in, you know, urban environments, and they're now really motivated and they love the idea of moving into a rural community and and joining the schools there, what sort of advice would you have for them as they move into that sort of part of their career?
SPEAKER_00:So I think that what's important is that people who are considering moving into a rural area take the time to understand rurality. And so it's not the same from place to place. Like I said, rural Arizona is not the same thing as rural Maine or rural Hawaii or rural Montana. There's there's context to take into consideration. Um, and so getting a chance to really know the place that you're considering going to, who are the people that are there? What are the traditions that really are important to them? What's the geography like? What are the resources that are available to you? And uh spending some time really doing some research on what does it mean to be a rural educator in that particular place would be really important. I a lot of educator prep programs now and leadership prep programs following that are focusing at least a course, if not some experiences within a teacher internship or something like that, on being in a rural area and doing your hours or your practicums in a rural because it is different. And not having an understanding before you go into that kind of environment, you you might get lost. And it's really important to have an understanding of what you're stepping into before you get there. So I would I would hope that people that are considering that would make sure that they take that extra step and go spend some time in a rural area so that you know what it means to be in a rural area.
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely. Always understand the place that you're heading because you can have some major culture shock in a positive or negative way for sure. You just have to frame it for yourself. That's um, Melissa, we have enjoyed talking to you. And as with many of our guests, we can just keep talking and talking, but we always like to keep our episodes around 30 minutes. It's a nice commute chat that people can listen to. At the end of our shows, we ask our guests for a paradown pointer. And I feel like you've given a lot of those throughout the show. Is there something that you would, you know, if you're giving one piece of advice, this would be your paradown pointer that you've maybe you've already mentioned it, or maybe it's something else?
SPEAKER_00:I I guess I would say minimalism in rural education is about setting boundaries and choosing not to say yes to everything external, all of the demands that are on your plate or time, and instead protecting the core mission of teaching and learning, whether it's in a rural area or anywhere else. Stay true to what matters most.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you so much, Melissa. That's a perfect way to end the show. Thank you again for being with us this week.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_02:It was a pleasure. This episode is sponsored by Plan Z Education Services, supporting educators with forward-thinking professional learning that puts both student impact and teacher wellness at the center. Driven by a vision to teach less, impact more, they help educators find purpose, prioritize what matters, and simplify their practice. Learn more at planzeducation.com.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you for listening to the Minimalist Educator Podcast. Join Christine and Tammy and guests again next time for more conversations about how to simplify and clarify the responsibilities and tasks in your role. If today's episode helped you rethink, reimagine, reduce, or realign something in your practice, share it in a comment or with a colleague. For resources and updates, visit plan zeducation.com and subscribe to receive weekly emails. Until next time, keep it simple and stay intentional.
