Southeast Minnesota schools continue to go the distance thanks to a funding boost.

Grants from the US Department of Agriculture will allow several rural schools to beef up their course offerings and develop distance-learning programs.

Southland Schools and the Southeast Service Cooperative garnered two grants totaling $373,123 for what they call the Southeast Minnesota Generation Now Learning Project.

The funds will be distributed among 20 schools to acquire video-conferencing equipment and teacher training this spring.

The schools are Southland, Blooming Prairie, Fillmore Central, Byron, Glenville-Emmons, Grand Meadow, Hayfield, Kingsland, LeRoy-Ostrander, Lyle, Caledonia, Lanesboro, Wabasha-Kellogg, Cannon Falls, Houston, Pine Island, Lewiston-Altura, Rushford Peterson and Spring Grove.

Each school will receive high-definition interactive television units and funds for staff development, said Southland Middle School and High School Principal Ryan Luft.

“The goal is to train teachers to deliver high school and college level courses using this technology,” he said.

Several area rural schools, such as Southland, LeRoy-Ostrander, Lyle, Grand Meadow and Caledonia, currently work with Riverland Community College and Minnesota State College Southeast Technical to offer distance courses to high school students with this technology.

These courses carry high school and college credits, and the students take the courses virtually — from their high school classrooms.

“They are a hybrid of face-to-face, distance and online components,” Luft explained.

The interactive televisions will allow more high school students in those districts to take interactive classes with college instructors, from the comfort of their high school.

The new TVs and training means schools are also going to be able to share remedial courses across districts, Luft said.

“The first step is going to be for each school to develop a course list, of what classes are needed and what is already being taught. Then, we’ll decide which ones to share across districts with this technology,” he said.

Sen. Dan Sparks said in a news release that rural schools face difficulty providing the courses and professional opportunities that schools in more populated areas offer. The grant is meant to bridge the “digital divide,” he said.

The technology also allows teachers to record their lectures and upload them to course Web sites, for any absent students who will need to catch up, Luft said.

This grant proposal was one of 191 that competed nationally in the 2009 USDA Rural Development Distance Learning and Telemedicine Grant Program.

That program is designed to further educational and health care services in rural America.