Rural Indiana community highlighted in new documentary
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowPutnam County, and the trials and triumphs facing rural schools, are now in the spotlight.
A new documentary titled “North Putnam,” produced by Purdue University Professor and Putnam County resident Beth Benedix, takes viewers inside the classroom to see the challenges facing students, parents, teachers and administrators.
“I wonder what would happen if we did a film that could help audiences understand what public education looks like,” Benedix told Inside INdiana Business. “I wanted to help people see for themselves what the realities and challenges of a rural school district looks like, and particularly [show] the relationship between our rural schools and the communities that they serve.”
Benedix says North Putnam Community Schools, located in a remote part of the county, has limited-to-no access to reliable Wi-Fi and mental health services.
“They say yes to every single initiative I ever brought to them…let’s try it, let’s see how we can make it work,’ Benedix said. “It’s such a beautiful group of people who have built this culture from the ground up and sort of the top down. That’s kind of what the story was about—to showcase everything that they’re doing.”
Around one-third of Indiana schools are classified as rural. Many of those leading and teaching inside the walls of North Putnam have deep connections to the community, even generational ones.
“Living in Indiana, teaching and working in Indiana, you can’t help but not talk about rural education, right?” Eric Jenkins, the 2024 Indiana Teacher of the Year, told Inside INdiana Business. “When you see what dedication that these teachers have at the school, how progressive a lot of the things are in that town…what they told me is that they felt like it represented some of the best things they have going on.”
The “North Putnam” documentary aims to be a lesson for all to help bridge the gap in where and how kids learn and the educators teaching them.
“We talk a lot about this rural urban divide and that these are sort of two separate worlds with separate concerns, and I hope that urbanites will see it’s the same set of challenges,” Benedix said.