Declining enrollment threatens school

Story and photo

by SARA RUSSELL

for the Bigfork Eagle

The days of the one-room schoolhouse may be gone but the spirit remains-at least for the moment.

"Creston embodies everything that's wonderful about small schools," second-year Clerk Jill Kaufman said.

Celebrating more than 100 years of accreditation, Creston School is now faced with the fewest number of students in its recent history. Sixty-six students currently attend the rural school.

This declining student enrollment at Creston has led to a decrease in state funding, Principal Judy Hewitt said. Despite the decrease, the quality of education that the students are receiving is in no way disadvantaged, she said.

Unless more students enroll, the school is facing inevitable layoffs. Creston is a rural elementary school for kindergarten through sixth-grade students. Because elementary schools are required to provide kindergarten through eighth-grade education and Creston is only through sixth, the school has a permissive levy to pay for students to attend either Bigfork Middle School, or Linderman School in Kalispell for seventh and eighth grades. A permissive levy is one that is imposed without having to pass by voters.

With this lack of funding that the school is now facing, Creston is unable to afford any more teachers. As a result, there are only six teachers, one principal, one clerk, one resource teacher, one bus driver, and one on-call maintenance man.

The fifth and sixth grade classes are combined with one teacher at the helm. With the ensuing layoff next year, the kindergarten and first grades will also be combined. The principal is also the librarian, and the clerk is also the title teacher and recess aide.

"Creston is a bedroom community for Kalispell," Hewitt said. "It's become too expensive for young families with kids to live here," she said.

The majority of the community is now made up with mostly retired people because they have "enough disposable income," Hewitt said. Families are becoming smaller and there are more broken homes, therefore "kids are more transient," Hewitt said. As a result, there are fewer children enrolling at Creston.

Each state pays schools within the state an entitlement, which is a certain amount of money depending on the school district, to cover general costs. Creston receives $18,000 per year. Along with this funding, the school gets an additional $4,000 per full-time child and $2,000 for each half-day kindergartner. This equals only $256,000 this year that the school placed in its general fund.

The Montana Legislature sets the amount of money schools receive for each child. This amount is rarely changed. However, with the new legislation this term, Hewitt is having a hard time figuring amounts for next year.

"The state portion is going down," Hewitt said about the entitlement schools receive.

In years past, the state has paid 65 percent of the school's funding. Now the state only pays 52 percent. This decrease is causing the taxpayers in the district to have to pay more to keep the school running.

The general fund has to cover everything from teacher and administration salaries to textbooks and library books to the general running of the school. The only salaries that do not come from the general fund are those of the bus driver and the maintenance man.

The base salary for a teacher is $22,700 per year. Each additional year, the salary automatically goes up 3 percent. Currently, there are four second-year teachers, one third-year teacher, and one teacher who has reached tenure. The second-year teachers are making $23,381 per year.

"I love it here," third-grade teacher, Sandy Johnson said. Johnson is one of the four first-year teachers.

Helen Doten has been teaching at Creson for 20 years. "I like the personal touch," Doten said about the rural setting of Creston. Although she said it can be a hard place to teach because of the small class settings, she said that "it's good for the kids."

The school also receives title money from the federal government each year. The $50,000 the government gives the school is enough to pay about one person's salary plus professional development for title 1, 2, 4, and 5. This amount fluctuates each year, but rarely in an amount that is noticeable.

"I have to do a lot of paperwork to get the title money," Hewitt said.

Hewitt has to apply for grants each year to receive the money, and has to spend the money for the specific purposes that were detailed in the grant.

In 1994, Creston saw a peak enrollment of 102 students. New desks were bought and stuffed into small classrooms. A new two-room building was constructed adjacent to the main schoolhouse to allow for more students. Twenty-three students made up the sixth-grade class that year, in comparison with the six students in the sixth-grade class this year.

As the enrollment continues to dwindle, more and more desks are being abandoned. With hopes of needing them again, the administration stores the empty desks in a Quonset hut near the school.

Because there is no official cafeteria, students eat lunches at their desks in the classrooms. However, they do not want. For hot lunch, pizza is offered every Friday and chili dogs are offered every other Wednesday. White milk, chocolate milk, or soda can be purchased every day.

Teachers are coming up with ideas to fill the space left by the desks and still make the classroom appear welcoming.

Kindergarten teacher, Tami Ward has set up teepees and floor mats for reading along with easels for drawing and painting. Johnson has spread out the desks in her third-grade classroom to provide space and has also set up a lounge area with floor pillows and banana chairs to make reading spaces available for the students.

The only classroom that is full of students is the fifth and sixth grade combined classroom. With the two classes together the amount of students is 19, occupying the majority of the room.

The teachers' lounge, title room, and resource room are the only rooms that are still fairly small. The teachers' lounge and title room are one room connected to the second grade classroom. The two are split by a divider because there are not enough rooms in the building to make them separate.

The resource room used to be the office, and is fairly small. Nancy Hardman, the resource teacher, furnished and painted the room with her own money. This way, she was able to get what she wanted, much more than that which the school would be able to afford.

Two years ago, part of the library was cut off to make room for the main office and principal's office. Although this made the library smaller, it now makes the school more inviting for guests and also allows Hewitt to have an office of her own.

Despite the diminishing funding, the education the students are receiving is not lacking. The teachers feel that with the smaller class sizes, the students get more one-on-one time.

In its rural setting, Creston School has the atmosphere of a small-town school. Teachers are always happy and smiling and helping the students in any way that they can. "We love the kids," Hewitt said.

In addition to serving as a school, Creston benefits the entire community. Birthday parties are held in the gymnasium so parents don't have to have a lot of children playing in their houses. Meetings of different sorts, such as Many Lakes Homeowner's Association meetings, and fire awareness meetings, are held in the gymnasium also. Every April, the Creston volunteer Fire Department uses the gymnasium and entire school grounds for their annual auction. Because there is no park in the rural setting of Creston, Mont., parents bring their children to the playground to work out some energy. Many people feel that the school helps bring the community together while still making it feel small and special.

"It's a dying breed," Kaufman said of small schools. "It would be a huge loss if Creston shut down."