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Students and parents at San Diego County's last operating one-room schoolhouse said goodbye to the historic building last week. The schoolhouse - located on top of Palomar Mountain - was forced to shutdown because there's no money to pay for it. Now the community is mourning the loss of the school…and parents are faced with some tough decisions. KPBS Education Reporter Ana Tintocalis has this report.
The small playground next to Palomar Mountain's one-room schoolhouse sits empty. Normally you'd hear sounds of kids running, laughing and playing. But today all the students are inside the schoolhouse helping their teacher pack up books and take down posters. This is the last at the schoolhouse. Eighth-grader Ashley Easton says the news hasn't really sunk in yet.
Easton: This is freaky. Over the summer you expect to come back, but I'll be driving through that gate and I won't be able to come back and work with my friends.
Easton: We're the fearsome foursome -- there's Dylan, Jesse and Joseph.
Tintocalis: The fearsome foursome?
Easton: Yes.
Tintocalis: Why do you call yourselves that?
Easton: Because we're just four crazy kids being who are always handing out, being loud, wrestling and chasing each other.
Palomar is the only school in this rural, mostly undeveloped area. It first opened in 1948. Since then hundreds of students have started their education here.
But the one-room schoolhouse has been struggling financially. Enrollment has dropped from roughly 30 kids 10 years ago to just seven this year. As a result state funding has dried up and the school has to shut down.
Parents are mad, disappointed and sad. They say it shouldn't matter if only one child goes to the school. They say their kids are excelling in this small learning environment....and the state should provide a school building that's close to home.
Joleen Tam's daughter Maddy is the only kindergartner at the school.
Tam: She's learned a lot. She can write her first, middle and last name. Read books and she's talking about 20 times more than she did when she first started. I can't think of one bad thing about her going to school here this year. It’s all positive influences and great friends. I'm devastated.
And Joleen is not alone. Parent Nanette Castro worries about her son's future.
Castro: I have a little boy with autism and he has no place to go. The only other offer is down the hill 25 miles away. But he gets ear infections so he can't be going up and down the altitude. And its treacherous road. Its windy, its narrow, and if it snows they won't get to go to school. And its foggy all the time. I don't like putting them on the bus because it scares me.
California public school officials say there's not much they can do. They say the state can't afford to spend money on small schools when they are bigger schools that have greater needs.
Most of the parents are choosing the home school their kids. They say they don't have the time or money to make the one-hour trip to the nearest public school every day. But they realize homeschooling comes at a price. Their kids will miss out on forming tight bonds with other children like they did at the schoolhouse.
They say their kids will also miss forming bonds with folks in the community. Tim Gray is fire captain of a station just steps away from the schoolhouse. He says the mountain is not only losing a school -- its losing a community center. He says the kids and the schools have been the center of activity for years, hosting pie auctions, Christmas plays and volleyball tournaments. Gray says these kids will be missed.
Gray: Whenever they need anything -- like if they have a dead mouse, or to judge a costume contest, when they need people to read to them we'll go over to read to them. Or take them on a hike to the fire lookout. We always keep a box of Otterpops in the freezer so that when they want to take a break from school, they ask their teacher, and come over and get Otterpops.
Ironically Palomar opened in 1948 with just seven kids. Sixty years later it closes with seven students.
Ana Tintocalis, KPBS News.
