The 1982 proceedings of the joint meeting of the Fourth Annual Kansas State University Rural and Small Schools Conference and the Kansas Community Education Association Conference contain texts of 33 papers with separate bibliographies, plus the conference agenda. Topics most discussed are curriculum development/planning, computers and microcomputers, recruiting and retaining teachers, and strategies for dealing with declining enrollments. Other papers deal with community development in small schools, basic skills centers, discrepancy assessment as a group management tool, testing, help for beginning teachers, creative teaching in a rural environment, the West Montana College model of teacher education for small schols, and a cost analysis process for small schools. Also covered are needs of small schools; characteristics and perceptions of rural teachers, administrators, and school board members; a federal perspective on excellence in education for rural America; aerospace education for students in small and rural schools; the effects of changing school finance on organizational characteristics; Kansas high school attendance policies; New Mexico rural school districts' strategies in special education; legal negligence and the community educator; an interrelated service delivery approach; mental rehearsal to improve instruction; a secondary reading program for rural schools; and rural science education. (MH)