Most islands in Hancock County have primary schools that feed into Mount Desert Island High School (MDIHS), which is located on an island connected to the mainland. After graduating from their tiny primary school, Swan’s Island students who wish to attend MDIHS must catch a morning ferry to the mainland and an afternoon one back home again.
Stephanie Dziezyk lives on Swan’s Island and is a senior at MDIHS. She finds the ferry commute a perfect way to start a school day.
“You can get all your homework settled,” Dziezyk said.
Indeed, while the commute seems strange to those on the mainland, she says it doesn’t take much longer than the commute many MDI students make by car. She estimates it takes the ferry and a connecting shuttle bus between 30 and 45 minutes to get her to school, proving the old adage that it’s just as quick to get around her part of Maine by sea as by land.
The one main drawback to the ferry for most Swan’s Island students is the early return voyage.
“A lot of the after school activities you can’t do,” Dziezyk said.
If a Swan’s Island student wants to participate in anything that runs later than the ferry ride home, they either have to stay overnight with friends on the mainland or board on MDI. For her part, Dziezyk enjoys her home life and after school job at her mother’s restaurant on Swan’s Island too much to try to negotiate the logistics.
Dziezyk says a bonus to riding the ferry is students get the day off when seas are too rough. More often, though, they have sea legs by the time they make it to school.
“It does get rough sometimes,” Dziezyk said. But she added, “I haven’t gotten seasick yet!”
The Thomas family of the Little Cranberry Island faced a bigger dilemma than a commute when their two daughters approached high school age. No daily ferry could connect them to MDI, their daughter Rachael didn’t want to board, and home schooling wasn’t in the cards. In the end, it was decided that Rachael would attend boarding school.
“We didn’t make that decision, Rachael did,” joked David Thomas, her father.
Thomas says he and his wife put up as many hurdles as possible to keep Rachael from boarding school, but she cleared them all. One of the biggest causes for concern for her parents was the tuition.
“A working person can’t afford boarding schools,” said David, a lobsterman.
Through her research, Rachael discovered that private schools often give more financial aid than universities. Also, the town of Cranberry Isles would contribute as much tuition toward her schooling as it would have cost to send her to MDIHS. She was granted her wish to attend Northfield Mount Hermon Academy (NMH) in western Massachusetts.
Not only did Rachael flourish there, but also little sister Emily followed in her footsteps. Going away from the Cranberry Islands was a bit of a shock for Emily at first.
“My first term at NMH, I was so homesick, I barely left my room,” Emily said.
But the activities at NMH and its diverse student body won Emily over. She’s had roommates from Korea and Taiwan and is now part of an elite women’s choir. In fact, she now goes to NMH early each term to help international students acclimatize themselves to their new surroundings.
The obvious drawback is that she is 375 miles away from her island home. Her father says they only get to see her between six and eight times a year. Emily still misses her family and her island.
“To me, there’s nothing like the view of an ocean,” she said. “It’s such a beautiful place.”
Anne and Scott Swann faced a schooling dilemma before their children reached school age. They lived year-round on Gott’s Island, an island too tiny to support a school. The Swanns were the only year-round residents and they worried about the effects of isolation on their children.
“It’s pleasant [on Gott’s], but it’s kind of hard to raise three kids out there,” Anne Swann said.
The island is only three miles away from MDI and the school systems there, but there’s no ferry service. Usually the three-mile boat-ride is no problem, but sometimes it can be treacherous.
“You just can’t count on the commute in the winter,” Swann said.
The Swanns elected to move to Bar Harbor for the school year and live on Gott’s Island in the summer. Swann joked that this decision left them “land rich and money poor.”
While she doesn’t enjoy many aspects of being in-town, Swann appreciates the social opportunities there for her children. She helped found a Waldorf school they attended for several years. Now the school has closed and the children go to public school in Bar Harbor. Swann is relatively pleased with the school system; she says it’s accessible to parents. The commute is easy, as well.
“It’s around the corner,” she said.
In the summer, she loves setting the children loose on Gott’s Island, where countless hours of outdoor exploration await them.
“It is good to have the both worlds,” she said.