Emmy® nominated “Country School: One Room – One Nation” airs on WQPT-PBS Sept. 3

Emmy Award-winning filmmakers Tammy and Kelly Rundle spent two years visiting over 70 one-room schools throughout the Upper Midwest for their award-winning film Country School: One Room – One Nation.  The Emmy® nominated documentary will air on WQPT-PBS on Thursday, September 3rd at 9 p.m.

Over 80 hours of interviews, vistas, and historic sites shot in all four seasons in Iowa (including the Quad Cities and Jackson County), Wisconsin, Kansas and Nebraska have been distilled down to a feature-length documentary that tells the dramatic true story of the life, death, and rebirth of one-room schools in the Upper Midwest.


Courtesy Julie Lang collection. All rights reserved.

“They did what they were supposed to do,” said Iowa historian Dorothy Schwieder.  “There was a time when they met the needs of society.  There was also a time when they ceased to meet the needs of society.”

Film critic Linda Cook, Quad City Times, gave the film 4-out-of-4 stars and wrote: "Another documentary gem...vivid and fascinating."


Julie Lang, Taylor #4 School in Marshalltown, Iowa. All rights reserved.

Film reviewer Mike Schulz of the River Cities Reader wrote, "Country School emerges as a definitive portrait of education in a one-room environment, a work that's every bit as informative, engaging and impassioned as those telling its tales."  

Along with the expected nostalgia, the Rundles’ journey revealed a few surprises: guns in school, bullying, lunch-stealing ponies, weather disasters, a country school designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and the passion former students, teachers, and preservationists have for these sometimes forgotten and neglected little schools.

Country School also takes a closer look at rural schools and how they attempted to unify American immigrants during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

“One-room schools are a page in American history that is turning, and perhaps in another generation or two, there will be no one left to tell the story,” said writer Bill Samuelson.


Newly restored North Bend Community Center, Spragueville, Iowa.

Country School: One Room – One Nation received a Mid-America Emmy® nomination.  The documentary received numerous awards at film festivals, screened over 100 times all over the country, was broadcast on PBS stations and released nationally on DVD and streaming.

WQPT-PBS will repeat the broadcast of Country School: One Room - One Nation again on Friday, September 4 at 2 a.m. for the late night owls.

Country School: One Room – One Nation was funded in part by the Wisconsin Humanities Council, Humanities Iowa, the Kansas Humanities Council, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and Silos and Smokestacks National Heritage Area. 

To Stream or purchase Country School: One Room - One Nation on DVD, visit https://www.fourthwallfilms.com/contry-school-one-room-one-nation

Fourth Wall Films is a five-time Emmy® Award winning independent film and video production company formerly located in Los Angeles, and now based in Moline, Illinois. 

For more information visit FourthWallFilms.com

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