that can arise when a parolee in a county jail has a disciplinary or medical problem. NORTH SLOPE BOROUGH SCHOOL DISTRICT: A BIG COLD CLASSROOM Distance education has benefited rural communities that often face challenges in attracting teachers, especially in specific areas of curricula. Low demand for particular courses, and difficulty in meeting state-mandated requirements compound the problem of delivering rural education. Barrow, Alaska's North Slope Borough School District, provides K-12 service to one such rural community. The North Slope Borough School District is the largest in the United States. Equal in size to the state of Minnesota, it measures 650 miles from east to west and covers 88,000 square miles. All points are above the Arctic Circle. Scattered among eight villages, 86% of the 1,700 students within the district are Alaskan natives. More than 1,000 of these attend school in Barrow. Others attend village schools where, with only few high school students and very harsh climatic conditions, it is hard to find and Video Communications: The Whole Picture retain trained professional staff with proficiencies in all subjects; most teachers need to be generalists. Some high schools include only two or three seniors. The North Slope Borough School District, a pioneer in distance learning, placed VTel PC-based video communication systems in village schools. The systems offer both face-to-face video communication and the ability to create and store graphics and text files. A multipoint bridge allows simultaneous conferencing SO that students and teachers may converse between three or more sites. This replaced a satellite system that provided receive-only video and two-way audio. Instructors find that students enjoy education over video communication. The medium allows increased social interaction between students that might otherwise meet only once or twice a year. Video communication allows students at the smaller schools to leverage resources and develop new relationships. Eleven interactive video- confe