Rural educators face a distinct set of opportunities and challenges. Strong community ties, smaller systems, and deep local impact define rural schools—but limited staffing, geographic distance, and fewer professional learning opportunities can make consistent development harder to access.

A new partnership between the National Rural Education Association and SchoolSims is designed to address exactly that.

Teacher preparation is evolving—and community colleges are playing a critical role in expanding access to the profession. A new national partnership between National Association of Community College Teacher Education Programs and SchoolSims represents a meaningful step forward in how future educators are trained.

Rural education is not simply a variation of other systems. It is its own context – with distinct strengths, constraints, and opportunities – and it should be reflected as such in how educators are prepared and supported.

The goal of these simulations is not to provide a recipe for effective leadership but to demonstrate that you, as a future educational leader, must fully understand a situation, evaluate it, identify possible responses, and choose the most appropriate solution. The scenario models real life and challenges you to determine the best available choice given the situation…

This movement toward practice-based leadership development aligns with longstanding findings from the Wallace Foundation, which has documented that effective leadership pipelines combine preparation, applied practice, and feedback. Leadership skill develops through structured experience – not theory alone.

K–12 budgeting challenges are not simply technical problems to be solved. They are leadership problems to be navigated with judgment, communication, ethics, and clarity. Simulation-based learning offers a powerful bridge between knowing what needs to be done and practicing how to lead it well – preparing leaders not just to balance budgets, but to lead budgets with impact, resilience, and purpose.

One of the most overlooked aspects of AI-related challenges in education is professional isolation. When uncertainty stays private, it often turns into stress, avoidance, or rigid decision-making. Many teachers and administrators quietly ask themselves:

What if I get this wrong? What if parents push back and I don’t have support? What if my colleagues handle this differently and I’m exposed? What if I don’t fully understand the technology myself?

New educators face difficult conversations, ethical dilemmas, competing priorities, and emotionally charged situations almost immediately. Induction programs typically provide mentoring, observation, and reflection. What they often lack is structured practice—a place where educators can rehearse decision-making before their choices affect students, families, or colleagues. Simulation-based learning fills that gap.

Across all of Wallace’s leadership work—PPI, UPPI, Equity-Centered Leadership, and now the RAND report—one message is consistent: Leadership must be developed through practice, not position. Simulations bring that principle to life.

For more than 35 years, I’ve had countless conversations with leaders—both inside and outside of education—about the challenges that keep them up at night. Over the last decade, in my work with SchoolSims where I have been focused on the challenges in Education, I’ve come to believe that leading a school or district is among the most demanding leadership roles anywhere.