Julia Xistris is a 4K-5 STEM Discovery teacher in the School District of Belleville. She was one of 19 teachers invited by the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to speak about rural education issues with education researchers, policymakers, faculty and graduate students at the third annual Teacher Speakout!

Held at the university in November, Teacher Speakout! was a two-day event in which teachers from 18 rural schools across Wisconsin gathered at the university for a panel discussion on issues that matter most to STEM teachers working and livin...