Mary Tetreault likes working at the Matinicus school, where the teacher-student ratio is one to three and she can walk home for lunch. It can be a dream job to prepare lessons for just three young learners, but rock-bottom enrollment spells an uncertain future for the little school. Next fall, two of the three students may be living inshore, as islanders refer to the mainland. Historically, Matinicus teachers don’t last more than a year or two on the job, and whether the school itself can continue seems in doubt.
One thing not in doubt is the impact losing the school would have on the island’s small year-round community. The handful of people who tough it out year-round agree that without a school, a piece of the island’s heart would be cut out. That was the sentiment years ago when Clayton Young’s store, the only one on Matinicus, closed for good. The store had operated from the same harborside building for generations.
“The school is still the essence of the island. Town meeting, any meeting that you want to have, that’s where you go,” said Matinicus school superintendent Jerry White, who lives on North Haven. Last year the school, which sits beside an older one-room schoolhouse, was thoroughly renovated.
Tetreault said she had six children until the end of the calendar year. Then a kindergarten student moved to Vinalhaven, and a sixth-grader and an eighth-grader moved to the mainland. Now she has Isabella, a seventh-grader, plus Devon and Christian, both fifth-graders. “All three are like siblings,” she said. Two other island children, eighth-grader Eric and seventh-grader Emily, are home-schooled by their parents.
In mid May, Tetreault took her class on a field trip to Tanglewood 4H Camp and Learning Center in Lincolnville, using the state ferry’s free passage for teachers and students. An earlier field trip to the Portland Museum of Art involved flying the class from Matinicus to the mainland and back.
White, who is part-time superintendent of Matinicus and Dennystown Plantation in western Maine (four students), said the annual island school budget is about $60,000. Matinicus has had a surplus to carry forward and receives some state and federal aid. Former teacher June Pemberton of Matinicus said the school is vital to island life and somehow will carry on. Islanders are committed to keeping their school, which could only be closed through a vote by residents. Pemberton has been lobstering full time since teaching at the school for three years. She said she taught on the mainland a fourth year because there were no students on the island. But one year when she expected six students, she instead had 15. Matinicus students used to attend boarding schools after eighth grade, but these days are more apt to move to the mainland with a parent. Either way, it’s a big chance in a young Matinicus student’s life.
Tetreault, 29, grew up in Harpswell and earned a liberal arts degree from Lyndon State College in Vermont. Matinicus is her first full-time teaching position after substitute teaching in the past, and she has found the island experience exciting. Matinicus “is a neat place where you can’t escape yourself,” she said. “It’s small. It’s a Little House on the Prairie type thing.” She said she enjoyed the independence of teaching in a remote, small school, although even there the state imposes onerous tests on students. Tetreault has formed a strong attachment to the island, its residents and the children she teaches. “I’m very happy that it was my first teaching job. I wouldn’t have wanted any other. Everybody was nice. Everybody asked the teacher over. It’s been a learning experience for me.” She house-sits a nearby home and loves to walk the island’s foot trails in her spare time.
A local parent of school-age children, Natalie Ames Bryant, was recently elected to the three-member School Administrative District 65 board. She replaces Sari Bunker, a former teacher at the school, and joins current board members Christina Young and Emily Rantala. Another former island teacher, Eva Murray, was reelected treasurer and clerk of Matinicus Plantation.