School Days on My Mind

Two days before Calvin was born I was waiting anxiously.  In the small town where I grew up there was a referendum being voted on.  Six million dollars to be paid for by the people, to build a new addition to the public k-12 school.  This was especially interesting to me because we plan on our children attending this school in the future.  If you follow local news in ND, you will know that getting a small town to pass a referendum for a school is no easy accomplishment and it is common to hear of the plan failing by just a small number of votes. Usually the deciding votes belong to a population of well off older people who pay a lot of taxes and usually they don't think it's worth it to them.  The same scenario happens almost every year somewhere and there is usually a short news story that only people from the town pay attention to. That same thing happened to this very school in the mid-90's and I actually found the "vote yes" campaign button from that time when I cleaned my old room and something compelled me to save it.  I was so disappointed that morning and so was every other kid at school.  Of course, the money didn't mean much to us then, but I recall feeling very let down knowing that people didn't care enough about us to pay the cost.  All was not lost and months later a new plan was formed that cost less and involved a less drastic plan and it passed and we were filled with pride again.  The yearbook for 1996 had a cool floor plan and construction theme and when I was in 7th grade, after Christmas break, we moved in.  The students hauled armloads of books into the new library and carefully lifted computer drives down flights of stairs and into the new lab and carried music stands and boxes of sheet music and chairs and arranged them in our beautiful new music room.  But that was 20 years ago and school demographics change and educational standards change.  The days when the average family had many kids instead of 1 or 2 are gone and giant classrooms to hold 40 desks lined up together are gone.  Learning issues are now diagnosed and help is given to students who need it and this requires separate classroom space.  And people just like new stuff (not everyone is me!).  The large district where we live now is always updating and redrawing lines and building new schools and they say the usefulness of a school building is only something like 40 years.  Can you imagine?  Only 40 years?   That means building from 1980 will soon be considered questionable.  Yikes.

Well, I had nothing to worry about because it passed! By 90%!  Holy moly, I didn't think it was possible.  There is one part of me that feels a bit sad though...and that is because the new plan involves taking a wrecking ball to the "old buildings" which date back to 1908 and 1934.

I have a history book that has lots of pictures of these school buildings but it is packed away with lots of other clutter right now so I had to rely on good old Google and it, as usual, didn't let me down.  Good thing it was common to publish post cards of random small town buildings in the early 1900's and also it's a good thing some guy collected thousands of them and donated the collection to NDSU and they archived it for everyone to enjoy.  Now I can share pictures of this building!

What is so striking about the old pictures is the open space behind the school.  Now it sits in the middle of the town.  There is nothing especially unique about it's design.  Schools like this were found in almost every small town.  Maybe not this big but they were everywhere.  This building was mostly for high school students because the elementary students often went to country schools until 8th grade.  My grandma grew up one mile from town and walked her for elementary school so some kids did go to school in "town" when they were young.  My grandpa went to high school here and "boarded" at a house in town during the winter.  I found lists of all the students on a year book archiving website and I found several of my great aunts and uncles dating back to when in opened.  My great grandparents weren't found on the lists but a few of their younger siblings were as were the people who lived on the farm where I grew up.  That is part of what enamoured me with this old place I think-imagining my grandparents, dad and other family members walking the halls and wearing grooves on the wood stairs and playing sports in the gyms the same way I was.  

That tree-lined walkway is pretty cool.  Now that is a street with houses on either side.  

This is from a 50's era yearbook with the 1934 addition in full view.  I don't think I've seen a photo like this before.  There was a 60's era addition attached in front of those buildings so you couldn't see the old entrance to this building anymore.  The whole first level of windows is the upper walls of the gym.  I love 1930's style.  

The problems with these old buildings are many.  Although I never though my learning environment was lacking as I listened to high school Math, English, History and Art lessons well as 6th grade and computer class in the oldest building and music, library, and many middle school classes in the 1934 building, they are deficient in modern amenities.  For example, there are no bathrooms in either building.  The 1908 building has bathrooms but they had to be converted into fire escape hallways apparently (I haven't seen this myself) because the classrooms are so big they now require two interior door to meet fire codes for rooms of that size.  The 1934 building has creepy old locker rooms which were not operational except there was a secret toilet and shower that still worked down there that we used to use when a visiting boys football team or basketball team would take over the girl's locker room and there wasn't time to go home between the end of practice and the game. But it was wedged behind the huge chest freezer for the kitchen which didn't actually fit in the kitchen.  This is just the beginning of a list of multitudes of woes involving accessibility (three stories, no elevators), heating and ventilation (no AC and terrifying metal radiators for heat that sizzled so hot you had to watch your extremities if your desk was near them), lack of space for special education, and fire code problems galore (although, strangely enough, the 1908 building is apparently the only part of the school with a sprinkler system).  I tell you what...you haven't lived until you've navigated a two foot wide metal fire escape staircase with a single handrail from the third floor of that 1908 building during a fire drill! But, regardless of these issues, it's still sad.  But it's also happy because I think we've all seen the alternatives if we've been off the main highways of ND.  When a town loses it's school to consolidation or general population loss the old school ends up standing for awhile until everyone realizes there is no good use for it and eventually it is torn down before it ends up vandalized or weather beaten and all that remains is a vacant lot with a garden and a monument and maybe a small playground.  That's the better outcome.  One of saddest sights you can see in a small town is this:

*These pics are not mine.  You can see the watermarks on them.  The ones without are from the every dot website I have referenced before.

How could this happen, I always wonder?  Building such stylish and permanent school meant the residents were full of hope and optimism and had a reason to look to the future and somewhere it went wrong.  So I guess saying goodbye to the old by choice before it is forced is a good position to be in.  Construction starts this summer with demolition set for 2019.

Here is an editorial from the newspaper editorial board from a few weeks ago and I agree with them.

http://www.grandforksherald.com/opinion/editorials/4376897-our-view-hatton-shows-local-control-still-matters