The second of two parts

The children clutched empty, plastic grocery bags and chattered happily as they walked down a gravel road next to their two-room school on a recent, sunny day.

The Shirley Elementary School pupils – all 10 of them – didn’t seem to mind the dark swarms of black flies hovering over them because it was a break from the classroom. Their mission was to scour the roadside for items that would make a colorful collage.

Once their bags were bulging, the kindergarten through grade six pupils returned to the classroom where they began assembling their masterpieces on poster board. The collections included bunches of grass, a few wildflowers, an assortment of small twigs, flat rocks, a tuft of moss and curled bark that had fallen from birch trees.

The multigrade pupils didn’t recognize that the walk, which they considered fun, actually integrated three subjects: physical education, earth science and art. They exercised, described their finds in relation to science and created art, according to teacher Denise Thomas.

“As the teacher of a small school you have to be creative,” Thomas said. More preparation is needed to ensure that the curriculum is geared to the various ability levels of the children. “It’s a lot of work,” she said.

While one- and two-room schools have the flexibility to make quick schedule changes and have spontaneous excursions, their biggest advantages are community involvement, the absence of peer pressure, and the small teacher-pupil ratio, say parents and school officials.

“It comes as close to one-on-one education as you can get,” Shirley Superintendent Dr. Steven Pound said. “Some of the needs can be met in different ways because it [the school] is small.”

And the school binds the community historically, said Pound.

Pupils enrolled in one- and two-room schools consider themselves part of an extended family. But these “small families” are vanishing, victims of declining enrollment and a push at the state level for regionalization.

The Shirley school and Rockwood Elementary School in Rockwood Township are the last of the one-room schoolhouses left on the mainland. Even though the Shirley and Rockwood schools have more than one room, the state classifies schools with multi-level grades and one teacher as one-room schools. A third one-room school, the Caratunk School, permanently closed earlier this month. Seven one-room schools remain on coastal islands.

The future of these remaining schools is uncertain. As enrollments dip to 10, the operators of a small school, whether it is a town, a school district or the state, must address the feasibility of keeping it open. Maine law requires that an educational plan must be developed to address the closing.

Closing the Shirley school, located on the outskirts of the village, has been an on-again, off-again issue over the years. In the 1980s, Shirley was the first town in the state to dissolve a school district when district officials pushed for its closing.

In recent years, the question of closing the school has been on the annual town meeting warrant, but each time school supporters have swayed the vote. Similar discussions have been held about the Rockwood school, which is operated by the state.

That the closing issue is discussed each year unsettles Thomas, who gave her resignation this month. Teaching in a two-room school was something Thomas sought. “I knew I’d never have such a unique opportunity again,” she said

“I’m not just the teacher here. There are a lot of different hats I wear – from administrator, secretary, school nurse, physical education teacher and a fill-in art instructor.” Helping her was Jacqueline Stevens, an education technician, who arrived at the school three years ago when Thomas first began teaching at the school.

Thomas said she’s glad to have served the two-room school, but now wants some stability in her job.

Superintendent Pound understands Thomas’s frustration. But he believes the position will be quickly filled by someone looking for the unique challenge of working with a projected elementary enrollment of 10. In action earlier this spring, the school committee voted to send sixth-grade pupils to the Greenville school next year.

Founded in 1835, the Shirley school has had enrollments as high as 50 and in recent years as low as six. The decline reflects the fact that fewer young families are settling in this Piscataquis County community south of Greenville because there are no industries and few local jobs.

About 20 percent of the approximately 200 Shirley residents are of the “younger” generation, a similar percentage represents senior citizens, and the remainder are 40 to 65 years old, according to Shirley Selectman David Thorp. Most of the young and middle-age residents either commute to jobs in Greenville, Guilford or Dover-Foxcroft, or operate their own business, he said.

Thorp sees the demographics of the town changing. Real estate sales in Greenville are causing people to look at Shirley. Just as Beaver Cove, on the opposite side of Greenville, has become a retirement community, Thorp believes Shirley will become a working class bedroom community. He’s hoping the growth will come from the younger generation.

Although Thorp has supported the school over the years, his focus earlier this year was to close it because it cost $195,000 to run, out of a $315,000 municipal budget, and its enrollment was small. But he later changed his tune when he learned the difference between closing it and keeping it open under local control was about $15,000.

“The school is basically the heart of the community, especially in a small town like Shirley,” Thorp said. As long as the school can be economically operated, it will probably remain open, he said.

The town official commended the local school committee and superintendent for finding ways to cut the budget more than two percent this year, without affecting programs and salaries.

Even with the reduction, however, some residents on fixed incomes feel it is unreasonable to keep the school open for so few pupils.

“I think it’s just become an obsession because it’s the last one [one-room school] in the state,” Athalie Gilles, 80, said. Gilles, whose great, great grandfather Ebenezer Marble and his brother David Marble were among the first settlers of Shirley, has fond feelings for the one-room school. Five generations of her family, including Gilles, attended classes there.

But aside from that history, Gilles has little else in common with the school. “I can’t see paying for so few children. I think it’s a little bit much to keep paying taxes and they keep going up because of the school,” she said.

Gilles said a group of seniors on fixed incomes have been trying to close the school for years. “I almost feel like giving up,” she said, but quickly added that she won’t. “We have a bus already going to Greenville [taking middle and high school pupils] and there’s nothing wrong with that school,” she said. The fact that two of the children attending the school aren’t from the community is another issue for her.

Peyton and Devin Ward, children of Eric and Jenny Ward, are residents of Big Squaw Mountain Township. The state pays Shirley about $20,000 in tuition to educate the sisters. That revenue has helped the school operation.

For Jenny Ward, the decision to enroll her children at the Shirley school instead of at nearby Greenville Elementary School was an easy one, even though she must commute 13 miles each school day to deliver and pick them up.

“It was just an awesome opportunity. The student-teacher ratio is unmatched,” Ward said. Teachers in small schools can write the curriculum for the pupil instead of the entire class. For example, Devin, a third-grade pupil, is now working at the fourth-grade level in all but mathematics. In addition, small schools have an atmosphere of caring and nurturing, she said.

Ward said it has not been easy wondering each year if Shirley residents will close the school. She feels the state should be doing more to promote rather than close small schools. “There’s a huge flashing light out there with the amount of children who are home-schooled. These larger schools may not be where public education should be going,” she said.

Wise for her age, Ward’s daughter Devin believes the performance of the school should be the closing factor, not money and enrollment. She views the school as the town’s activity center. “I think a town can’t be a town without a school because people will move away,” Devin said.

Thorp agrees with Devin’s assessment. “At this point in time with no major industry, the only other attention we have is the school.

“I feel the importance of the old one-room school education kind of outweighs trying to close the school. The history of the educational process started with one-room schools and now the one-room school is the abnormal type school. When you close that chapter in Shirley history, we’ll be closing the history chapter for the state,” Thorp said.