How new professional development criteria mandated by a state legislature are being implemented in small rural schools

In 1996, the Ohio Legislature passed Senate Bill 230 authorizing the establishment of Local Professional Development Committees (LPDCs) by 1998 in every school district and nonpublic chartered school in Ohio. The committees, composed primarily of teachers, were charged with reviewing the professional development of teachers in order to determine eligibility for renewal of certificates and licenses.; This study explores ways in which rural districts are implementing the LPDC process. It tested two general hypotheses: Ho. With other independent variables in the model controlled, each variable---district size, district location, district funding, and district socioeconomic status---will not independently account for significant amounts of variance in the district's level of implementation of LPDC provisions. Ho. There will be no significant combined association between four contextual conditions---district size, district location, district funding level, and district socioeconomic status---and district level of implementation of LPDC provisions.; In order to gather data, the researcher conducted a survey of rural districts in Ohio, with the person in each district designated as the LPDC contact serving as the respondent. The questionnaire used in the study included questions related to the independent variables as well as items designed to be combined into scores representing constructs related to the implementation of the policy. Originally, five constructs were anticipated. Factor analysis with the final data set supported the existence of two scores---support and alignment.; Backward multiple regression analysis resulted in models with low explanatory power, but revealing some significant relationships. Level of funding was shown to be related to support for professional development; community socio-economic status and district size were shown to be related to alignment of professional development activities.; Interpretation of findings focused on the technical difficulties with the instrument used to measure constructs related to implementation of the policy and the possible circumstances leading to the inadequacy of the regression models. It also showed linkages between the findings of the study and related research. Difficulties with this study provided support for a number of future studies of policy implementation and professional development in rural districts.