At the end of the school year, in June, there were eight students in the Islesford school. Heather Spurling was about to graduate from the eighth grade. Isaac Philbrook would be joining his older brothers, Abe and Peter, when he entered kindergarten, in the fall. Sally Rowan and Skip Stevens had purchased a house on the island. Their children Ben and Meg would also go to school here in September. As one student was leaving, three more were coming in. It was a good sign for the school.
When there are fewer than 10 students, a vote is required, at the annual town meeting, to keep the school open. Two of the five islands in our town, Great Cranberry and Islesford, each have an elementary school to serve their year-round populations. The Longfellow School on Great Cranberry has not had students since 1999, yet our town has consistently voted to keep the school open. The library occupies a part of the building and the classrooms currently house and display the collection of the Great Cranberry Island Historical Society. To close the building would not serve the town, and to reopen a school is both complicated and expensive. The positive vote reflects the hope that both of the island schools will remain active centers of the community. By including an extra teacher’s salary in their proposed funding, the school committee budgets for the unexpected
On the morning of Sept. 6, the Islesford playground was cluttered with people waiting for school to begin. Parents, grandparents, friends and neighbors had come by to observe the informal photo session on the first day of school. The returning teacher, Lindsay Eysnogle, started to organize the children for pictures so classes could get started. The resulting photographs were not as some might have predicted at the March town meeting. How is it that in this year’s snapshots there are 17 students, two teachers, and one aide? The Van Dusen-Ramsey family is here for the year from Olympia, Washington. Gretchen and Richard are taking a leave of absence from their jobs so their children, Eliza and Ian, can experience the island school. Richard is working as a sternman for David Thomas. Ian and Sheila Krasnow arrived from Rochester, New Hampshire, so Ian can help his dad, Steve, with some building projects. Their children, Samantha and Isaac, are attending the Islesford School as well. Danny Poulin and Wendy Racliff have been commuting, daily, to the island from Trenton on the mainland. They decided to stay here this fall. Their choice added Wendy’s three children, Paul, Casey and Joe, to the school population. There are now twice as many students as there were at this time last year. The school committee did well in its planning. It hired a second teacher, Jane Grover, from Scarborough, Maine. Jane was already familiar with the school when she arrived because her daughter, Rebecca Cross, had been the teacher here in 2001.
The school day starts with the younger grades in Ms. Grover’s classroom, and the older grades with Ms. Lindsay. There are students in every grade except first. Throughout the day, there is travel back and forth between the rooms as Jane teaches math and science, and Lindsay teaches English and social studies. Music and art are taught on Wednesdays by returning teachers, Cyrus Moulton and Shira Singer. The new students are excited about attending a school that is so much smaller. The original eight students are quite interested by what is, for them, a huge change. “Its a lot different not to know what everyone else is doing all the time,” was the comment from one eighth grader. Over all, it sounds like things are going well.
I checked out some of the old town reports from the Islesford Library to look at random fluctuations of school populations over the years. In 1924, Irene Bartlett and Elmer Hadlock were in high school and there were 30 boys and 31 girls attending the elementary schools on both islands. In 1932 there were 17 students in the Islesford School and 32 in the Longfellow School. In 1960, when my husband, Bruce, was in fourth grade, there were 12 students at Islesford and 15 at the Longfellow School. Our sons started kindergarten in 1988, when there were only three other children in the Islesford School and about 15 on Great Cranberry. The year that Fritz and Robin graduated from eighth grade, 21 students were on Islesford, and two on Great Cranberry.
The Islesford School is accustomed to being a bit different from schools on the mainland, but this year it is not alone in dealing with an unexpected influx of students. Countless schools throughout the country have added to their enrollments with students who have been displaced by hurricane Katrina. After a summer of waiting tables at the Islesford Dock Restaurant, Laura Merrill was all set to return to New Orleans for her junior year at Tulane University. Many of her belongings were already back at school when the storm struck. Laura had to make some quick decisions in order to start her fall semester on time. She and three of her friends from Tulane were able to enroll at Boston University, tuition free. I saw her on the mail boat as she was leaving for school. While she was clearly concerned about the aftermath of the hurricane, she was also relieved to have a plan for continuing her studies until Tulane reopened. Her resilience for dealing with the unexpected showed in her smile as she said to me,
“At least this year I’ll be able to come back to the island for the Harvest Supper.”
Islesford, Sept. 15, 2005