OCR Text |
Show Regional Centers lo Aid Rural Utah School Districts Because of lack of funds, many of Utah's small rural school districts have been unable to provide their stu dents with the same services that students in large urban districts receive. This year however, rural districts are acquiring many of the services ser-vices that they lacked in tha past. Banding together, 26 of Utah's rural districts have farmed four Regional Service Centers. In this way the districts dis-tricts are able to share costs on a variety of necessary services. The four centers are conveniently con-veniently located in different rural sections of the state. The Northeastern Utah Multi-District Coperative Service Center, for instance, is located locat-ed in Heber and serves nina rural districts in the Northeastern North-eastern part of Utah. The Southeastern Education Center Cen-ter serves four school districts dist-ricts in the Price area, including in-cluding Grand County. The Southwest Educational Reg- ional Development Center is located in Cedar City. Seven districts benefit from services of the center. Richfield also hosts one of the centers (the Coperative Service Agency) which serves six school districts. dis-tricts. While services vary from center to center, depending on the needs of the districts involved, each of the centers employs a Special Education Coordinator. His responsibilities responsi-bilities include helping with the funding of special education educa-tion programs for rural students stu-dents and providing technical research assistance to district personnel. The centers also employ specialists such as psychologists, psychol-ogists, speech and hearing specialists, and media personnel. per-sonnel. The districts share the services of these specialists. special-ists. Consultants are also provided by the centers in learning areas such as math and reading. The consultants are then able to visit individual individ-ual schools in the district served by the centers to help teachers with specialied problems. pro-blems. Also included in the many services supplied by the Regional Re-gional Centers is purchasing power. For instance, three of fhe centers purchase school lunch supplies on a , cooperative coopera-tive basis. Schoo supplies and equipment are also bought through the centers. . Funding for the four Regional Re-gional Centers comes from the rural districts involved, state Title III funds, and some from federal sources. |