Caratunk’s 1-room schoolhouse to close

CARATUNK – School board members in this tiny western Maine town voted Tuesday to close one of two remaining one-room schoolhouses on the state’s mainland. Caratunk Elementary School fell victim by a 9-2 vote to its dwindling enrollment – only four pupils remain – and economic logic.

Jenson Steel, the only member of SAD 13’s board who actually lives in the town, voted against the proposal. But he admitted he was voting with his heart. “My logic zone tells me, ‘Yes, it is time to shut that school down,'” Steel said.

Caratunk, once a thriving logging town, has watched its population shrink to 108 as the state’s timber industry has slowly shriveled. It was estimated that only two pupils would enroll in the elementary school next fall.

School officials said well before Tuesday’s vote that keeping the school open was becoming increasingly unlikely for educational and budgetary reasons.