Island School Has Just About Everything

The Long Island School has everything necessary for a successful new school year: Eager teachers and children, involved parents and a new state-of-the-art library and computer room in which to learn. Islanders just wish they had more children to take advantage of all the school has to offer.

"We desperately need children," said Paula Johnson, lead teacher at the school.

The school, which serves kindergarten through grade 5, has just 10 students this year. That’s down from 11 last year, and a drastic drop from the 16 to 24 students it has had for about two decades, Johnson said.

The school population on this island, whose year-round population of about 300 swells about fivefold in the summer, has waxed and waned over the years because of birth cycles. But this time islanders fear the decline in student numbers is because property values are climbing so high that families with young children can’t afford to live here.

"It’s tough down here for young families," Johnson said.

Islander Shawn Rich, 36, a fisherman whose daughter Zalea, 4, is in kindergarten this year, said he has brothers who can no longer afford to live on the island where they grew up. Small cottages without a water view are selling for $200,000, he said. Homes on the water go for a half a million or more.

He and other islanders fear that Long Island – which became a town in 1993 after seceding from Portland – will become a place of only older residents.

Still, islanders are hoping that the quality of the education offered on the island will function as a drawing card for families with children. On the first day of school Friday, many of the amenities of the small school were evident.

One is its warm, close-knit atmosphere. Parents – and other proud relatives such as grandparents – come to school with their children on the first day to share refreshments, chat with staff and one another and attend an informational session about the upcoming year.

It seemed like a big family reunion on the school’s lawn, as the adults milled around in the warm September sun and the students posed for class pictures.

And in fact – not surprising on an island less than 3 miles long and three-quarters of a mile wide where many have lived for generations – most of the parents, children and school staff know one another and some are related.

For example, 8-year-old Hattie Train, is excited that she’s in third grade this year and for the first time won’t be taught by her mother, Marci Train, who teaches kindergarten through second grade. Train said she had Hattie call her "Mrs. Train" in class.

"It’s funny," Hattie said, "I never called her `Mom’ in class but sometimes the other kids would call her `Mom’ (by mistake)."

Johnson, who teaches grades 3, 4 and 5, will be Hattie’s teacher. Hattie has a connection to Johnson, too: She is Hattie’s godmother.

Train, an 11-year veteran of the school, said this year will be a new experience for her, too, because instead of teaching a multi- age class, she’ll just have three kindergartners to teach. There are no first- and second-graders this year.

"We can’t break up into small groups because we already are a small group," Train said.

But that means her students, a girl and two boys, get a lot of individual attention. On Friday, she had the children hunt down clues she had hidden as she walked with them to explore their new classroom. The clues pointed them to the desks where they’ll write, the soft sofa where they’ll snuggle up with her to read, and the computer station where they’ll learn the basics.

In Johnson’s class, the older students also were familiarizing themselves with their classroom. Johnson pointed out some dictionaries on a shelf and told the third-graders: "If you can’t reach them have a fifth-grader or fourth-grader get them for you." Another amenity of the small island school is that older students can help younger ones.

One of the most senior students is David Whitney, 10, one of two fifth-graders this year. Next year, he’ll attend King Middle School in Portland, where the island pays tuition to send most of its students. Steve Whitney, David’s father and a lobsterman, said David’s two older siblings found the island school prepared them well to make the transition to the mainland.

David said he started school on the island as one of 24 students.

The school building was built in the 1940s, according to Chub Dowdy, 73, who said the island had two schools when he was growing up, one at each end and each with about 40 students.

But now the building has a beautiful new 4,000-square-foot addition, about 1.5 times the size of the rest of the school. Islanders held a variety of fundraising activities to cover its approximately $850,000 cost. It contains a library, a computer room and a community room with a stage, all for use by both students and residents.

Nancy Jordan, a librarian on the island and chairwoman of the building committee, said islanders invested in the facility because they want to preserve their year-round community. To do that, she said, "you need a good school."

Staff Writer Tess Nacelewicz can be contacted at 791-6367 or at:

tnacelewicz@pressherald.com

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