The last Australian government review on rural education reveals that staffing schools continues to be a challenge. To examine this problem, the paper draws on data from semi-structured interviews with pre-service teachers undertaking rural school placement. The aim is to address rural school staffing through a bi-dimensional social justice approach by drawing on a politics of distribution and recognition. While distributive justice has always been at the centre of the problem, it is argued that a solution might also encompass a politics of recognition that puts "place" as a significant category to understand the complexities of rural staffing.