Back in September of 2011, as the school year swung into “full speed” and the annual Inter-Island Event was bringing students from one-room schools all over the coast of Maine together, the students at Matinicus Elementary numbered 10. Three full-time island families, each family including a lobsterman, made up the core group. These children had attended the school for years (as had a few parents and grandparents,) and their island residency seemed certain and stable. This year, our teacher also has two school-age children, and a tenth student was on the island for a short period of time.
Ten students may seem like a tiny group when compared to large mainland schools, but that is a healthy number for a modern one-room school. Numbers on Matinicus have exceeded a dozen only once in the past three decades—perhaps longer—and other island schools typically have had student populations in the single digits more often than not in recent years.
Now, as 2012 begins, our student population has shrunk to four. Two of the three year-round island families have had to become part-time island families, at least for the duration of the winter. Two pairs of siblings make up the entire student body. People worry.
“What is the minimum number of kids you have to have in order to keep the school?,” people from off the island ask. “Won’t the state close your school?” “What happens if the group shrinks even more?”
The answer is that we will have a school. Even if we have only one student, we will have a school. As long as the taxpayers want the school, we will have a school—and on Matinicus, most taxpayers understand that having a school is an essential and integral part of maintaining a year-round community. There is no question.
We know of what we speak here on Matinicus, because we have been through this before. Roughly a decade ago, our student body dwindled down to one child—and then came the year with no students. After a good deal of pacing the floor, thinking out loud, soul-searching and number-crunching, the school board and community members decided that our school would remain open as a legal agency, with or without students, in hopes that some children would eventually come to the island. We passed a budget, paid the utility bills, kept up with the state paperwork, and set money aside to employ a teacher on short notice if necessary. One year and two months later, a seventh-grader moved to Matinicus to live with his grandfather, and later that spring, two more students with native island relatives arrived.
It’s not over until it’s over, and we on Matinicus will shout this from the mountaintops: don’t give up on your tiny school!
Isle au Haut, Monhegan, Frenchboro and Cliff Island are similar to Matinicus in terms of winter population, isolation brought about by complex transportation issues, and tiny student bodies in their one-room schools. All of these schools face continually changing student numbers, and having only a couple of kids enrolled is not unusual. Still, it is a bit scary, particularly for the few remaining island children who wonder what school will be like without friends, and for island parents, who wonder whether the school will be supported for just their family. Their concerns are justified, and each family has to decide what is best for itself, but each of these island schools has survived extremely low numbers before. Generally, given time, the numbers come back up.
Isle au Haut is actively welcoming families with school-age children into their community. Cliff Island is offering a preschool program through the school. Most of the islands now collaborate on work, field trips, and a student council to broaden the social and academic opportunities for students.
Closing the school is usually a final blow; once officially closed, no tiny community could normally afford to open a school “from scratch,” with all that would be required. Perhaps more significantly, it is extremely unlikely that families with children would choose to move to the island if no school existed. The notion that the state of Maine is looking for every opportunity to close small schools is a bit of a myth, and this is particularly the case for schools within a legally independent local district. It is up to the local board and taxpayers to close the school. Very little state funding comes to the Matinicus school, for example; our school is primarily financed by local property taxes. Local money and local authority means that for this island, at least—and I believe, all the islands—school will be open, no matter how few students are playing on the playground before that bell is rung!
Eva Murray is a member of the Matinicus Island school board, and served for nine years as the school district bookkeeper.