What happens when the challenges students face outside the classroom overshadow everything happening within it?

In this episode of our school-focused movie review series, we dive into Rich Hill—the 2014 Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning documentary that offers an unfiltered look into the lives of three teenage boys growing up in rural Missouri. The film captures the challenges they face in poverty-stricken homes, unstable environments, and a school system struggling to support them.

Joining us to break down the themes and realities of Rich Hill is a special guest - Dr. Julie Williams, a school superintendent at Fayetteville Public Schools who brings invaluable insight into how schools are navigating similar struggles across the country. Together, we explore what the film gets right, what educators can learn from it, and how it pushes us to think differently about the role schools play in students' lives beyond academics.

Takeaways:

• Rich Hill shows how hunger, housing insecurity, and mental health challenges often come before homework. For schools, this underscores the need for trauma-informed practices and wraparound services.
• The boys in the film don’t just struggle in school—they struggle to show up, to stay focused, to feel safe. Educators are reminded that consistency, structure, and relationships are just as essential as curriculum.
• The film highlights how cycles of poverty are perpetuated by factors outside any one school’s control—but it also shows the power of local leadership and community partnerships in starting to break those cycles.

Learn More About Julie Williams:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drjulierwilliams/

Connect with host, Kevin Stoller:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinstoller/

Learn More About Kay-Twelve:

Website: https://kay-twelve.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kay-twelve-com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kay_twelve/

Episode 243 of the Better Learning Podcast

Kevin Stoller is the host of the Better Learning Podcast and Co-Founder of Kay-Twelve, a national leader for educational furniture. Learn more about creating better learning environments at www.Kay-Twelve.com.

For more information on our partners:

Association for Learning Environments (A4LE) - https://www.a4le.org/

Education Leaders' Organization - https://www.ed-leaders.org/

Second Class Foundation - https://secondclassfoundation.org/

EDmarket - https://www.edmarket.org/

Catapult @ Penn GSE - https://catapult.gse.upenn.edu/

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