Roughly an hour southeast of Colorado Springs, near the small town of Yoder, sits Edison School District 54JT, a rural district of about seventy students, with around fifty of them in its brick-and-mortar school on any given day. On paper, a place this remote and this small reads like a list of challenges; it is hard to staff, hard to fund, and easy to overlook.
But talk to Dave Eastin, its Superintendent and Athletic Director, and you quickly realise that he sees almost none of it that way.
In a career spanning more than thirty years in education, Eastin has come to understand rural school leadership as something other than making do with less. To him, it's about doing more with what smallness uniquely makes possible for the school district.
So here, we have a system built on closeness, trust, and the freedom to know every student as a whole person.
Ten Miles Wide and Ten Miles Deep
While smaller school districts might not possess the breadth or reach of larger ones, they excel in depth. The same features, like a 4:1 student-teacher ratio or smaller classroom sizes, that would be flagged as limitations are the precise things that make his school district unique, according to Eastin.
He is proud of his staff, who know every student personally; they can go "ten miles wide and ten miles deep" into the curriculum. It is precisely their smallness that allows them the flexibility that bigger places simply cannot afford, where else could you just plan spontaneous, whole school field-trips?
The rural community, which houses this brick-and-mortar school, is closely knit in mutual reliance and respect. "We rely on our community/parents and students, and in turn, they rely on us." This makes students' education a collaborative venture, bringing everyone together in a 'circle-of-life' kind of way.
In such a setting, upholding these values comes naturally, like a family bond, rather than weighing them down as a "duty" to be fulfilled.
Leadership, He Says, Is Common Sense
In a career spanning 30+ years, one in which he has served both as a teacher and as superintendent and principal in various districts, the biggest and most obvious takeaway for Eastin is that a good leader doesn't have to be a calculative strategist. It is a position based on respect for others and building and maintaining relationships with everyone involved.
A simple rule-of-thumb he swears by is, 'don't ask the staff to do anything I am not willing to do.' Rather than seeing them as 'subordinates,' he sees his co-workers as partners and professionals who know their job and don't need to be micromanaged. He feels that if he can make education and their jobs as fun for his staff as it is for him, then the benefits will trickle down to the students, too.
He also resists the common trope that, as a leader, you have to be some sort of solitary hermit, strongly believing that efficient systems can only be built by having people to rely on and not shying away from asking for help, in a school, often on a daily basis.
A life-changing piece of advice that he jokingly drops for educators aspiring towards administrative roles is to "Turn off your phone notifications!"
A Small School With a Wide World
Every year, a handful of Edison's high schoolers travel out of state, across Kansas and Nebraska, to tour colleges and technical schools like Goodland Vo-Tech, McCook Community College, and NCTA, the Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture. This year, five students will make the trip, the fourth annual one that the school has organised. It might not be the kind of thing you'd expect from a district of seventy-odd students an hour from the nearest city, but at Edison, the road trip isn't an exception, but the pattern.
The school is as committed to creating opportunities for its students that expand their world much beyond Yoder as its staff is committed to depth with the curriculum. They have an Esports program that builds teamwork and communication, a chess club that went up to Highlands Ranch to compete, as well as culinary lessons, which are much liked by the students. Their junior athletes represent the school with what Eastin calls 'pride' and 'sportsmanship.'
A school this size could have easily restricted itself to the basics, but Edison chooses to keep expanding outward. Because the goal is to have a cohort of graduates who are prepared well, not just for college or a career, but for life.
Eastin is also particular about the need for school leaders to keep pace with technological advancements, especially in the field of AI. He wants his students to develop the aptitude and skills needed to comprehend the world around them in an AI universe.
Such attention to detail and overall development hasn't gone unrecognized. In 2024, Edison School District 54JT's elementary school received the Governor's Distinguished Improvement Award.
Working against the odds, the school proves that a scarcity of resources does not mean a scarcity of values or ambitions if one proceeds with the right mindset.
The Year Every Decision Was the Wrong One
'Do what's right, do your best, and treat others as you wish to be treated.' Eastin's life motto, which he has come to endorse to even staff and students, found itself on shaky ground during the COVID-19 Global Pandemic, a defining moment in his career as a school leader.
The chaos and uncertainty that ensued led him to challenge everything he thought he had been doing right up until then. With the stakes getting higher and the inevitability of decisions being disagreeable to one person or the other, not taking things personally became extremely hard for a man in his position.
What kept him going through the turbulence and unfamiliarity was knowing that the decisions he took were, at the end of the day, benefiting his students. It is what allowed him to feel at peace with himself, or as he phrases, "Allowed me to go home and look at myself in the mirror and be okay with it."
The realities of leading a small school district are amplified even more in moments like this. However, while it might be easier to dwell on the many lacks of a remote location, the difficulty in retaining staff, and the increasingly dipping school funding in Colorado, Eastin still believes in counting the blessings — free lunches, for instance, have been very beneficial to not only students at Edison but across the state.
The Holy Grail
As a school leader, Eastin has shown exceptional ability in virtuously accepting the good and the bad that come with rural school leadership. However, you might wonder, what is it, at the end of the day, that keeps him going, and that has kept him in the field for 30+ years now.
His answer is quite simple, for him, former students and athletes seeking him out years after graduating means "everything". For a school leader who has also continued wearing the hat of a coach for three different sports across 25+ years and is still serving as the district's Athletic Director, this represents all the joy and love for his craft and the humility that has carried him through his career. A bonus tip he peppers in is to "be able to laugh at yourself."
Eastin never once forgets to acknowledge the support of his family, which grounds him, and the staff, which he has called 'awesome' more times than we could count. Despite donning the hat of an administrator for quite a few years now, he loves being in the classroom and laughing beside his students.
After a long and fulfilling career, the legacy he wants to leave behind is the same as the rules he has lived by and inspired others to follow.
With a slight smile on his face, he said that he would be at peace knowing that:
"I did what was right.
Did my best, and
Treated others as I wished to be treated."
Why TomoClub Shares This Story
We bring you Dave Eastin's story because it runs counter to what school leadership is so often assumed to look like. In a field where leaders can get caught up chasing shiny programs, big budgets, and bigger numbers, Eastin is a reminder that the job can be done differently.
Here is a superintendent who still coaches, and often finds his way into the classroom. What he has built at Edison did not come from copying what looks impressive; it came from honesty, simplicity, and a genuine optimism about the people around him.
His story teaches us that smallness does not have to be an inhibition. A remote location, a tight budget, and a hundred practical constraints are real, but they need not set the ceiling for what students can reach. As long as a leader has the conviction to keep widening the world for their students, and the wits and humility to lean on their community, even the smallest school can offer something whole and genuinely worth aspiring to.
Follow TomoClub's Educational Hall for more stories of educators quietly building something that lasts.