The purpose of this study is to contribute to the advancement of rural farming areas by actively developing, rather than shutting down or merging, the small schools in the areas. In order to achieve this objective, the following research targets were established: 1) to examine the meaning of the education problem for rural communities, as this issue is one that needs to be solved for the advancement of rural areas. 2) to examine the effects on rural communities of the closing down of small schools in their districts versus the effects of actively developing such schools. 3) to examine how the organization, function and administration of small rural schools needs to be reformed in order to enable them to contribute to the development of their communities. The subjects of this study were residents of Choong Nam province living in areas where schools have been shut down or where schools are likely to be sㄴhut down or merged. The study results were analyzed according to the sex, age, and status (eg. parent, resident, teacher, school administrator) of the respondents. The results of the analysis were as follows: First, the problem of education is a central issue for rural communities and holds great significance for the preservation and advancement of such communities. That is, the biggest difficulties facing families in the rural areas were found to be children\'s education and economic hardship, in that order. Moreover, with regards to problems these areas faced as communities, children\'s education, the education problem, and economic hardship, in that order, were cited as the most serious, indicating that the issue of children\'s education is of critical importance to the preservation and advancement of rural communities. Second, while it is acknowledged that schools are absolutely necessary and that schools are important for the development of rural communities, there is a low degree of conviction on the matter. That is, when asked, \"Do you agree that schools that are financially difficult to maintain because of a lack of students should be closed down?,\" a majority of the respondents disagreed. Nevertheless, one third of the respondents agreed that such schools should be shut down. This can be attributed to the fact that while it is recognized that rural schools contribute to the preservation and development of their local communities and are also important to children\'s education, there is a lack of conviction on this matter. Also, the prevailing opinion that, in the event of a school\'s closure, the school facility and its surroundings are more likely to be left to deteriorate than to be used as a cultural facility, can be understood in the same context. In addition, men were more likely than women to have a positive opinion about the influence of schools on rural communities, and those in their fifties were shown to be the most positive regarding the role of schools in the preservation and advancement of rural communities. Third, it became apparent that most people were basically in favor of devising a reform plan for the active development of small-scale rural schools, but were unable to think beyond the traditional models of school education or conventional practices. That is, the plans preferred for the development of rural schools were methods such as the implementation of vocational education, diversification of school function (eg. daycare function, providing lifelong education), an administratively autonomous, publicly-funded private school model, the operation of a special teacher system for specialized subjects such as computer, art, and music, and extending the capacities of school teachers and principals. On the other hand, teachers and school administrators seemed to be more accepting of the need for a network school system in which one principal manages two or more schools in different regions, perhaps indicating that the limitations of the existing school management system are best felt through firsthand experience. However, the fact that, in general, most respondents preferred the more effective implementation of existing methods, rather than new methods, as a means of activating rural schools, is thought to indicate that there is a lack of information and awareness of the reality that when rural schools with few students are operated in diverse and effective ways, they can produce better educational results than urban schools. If there can be appropriate education to raise awareness about this, it may be possible to generate more positive results regarding more active and innovative schemes for small-scale schools. In conclusion, in order to resolve the contradictory problem (schools must not be closed down, but the closing of schools is inevitable), more research and adoption of teaching methods for a financially viable and effective way of teaching a small number of students is needed, and in order to resolve this problem, decisive measures and research are needed to boldly innovate a school framework based on classes rather than grades, by mixed age groups rather than same age groups, and by individual abilities rather than by standard texts.