In Panoche, a School With Panache

John Light believes that a one-room school is one of the best ways to educate an elementary school-age child.

“It’s too bad there are so few one-room schools. Every boy and girl should have an experience like this,” said Light, 59, a teacher and principal at Panoche Elementary School for the past 26 years.

The remote, tiny school, one of the last of a vanishing breed in America, is about 60 miles east of Monterey, in San Benito County--45 miles by narrow road from Hollister, the nearest town. It’s served isolated ranch families for more than a century.

Light cites the “family kind of environment” in the classroom, the closeness of students to one another and the presence of the same teacher from kindergarten through eighth grade as making a big difference in the learning process.

There are no school buses for the Panoche school. Parents bring their children, some for as far as 26 miles. Light sees the parents every day, “and that’s a big plus,” he says. “It’s not like having open house, where a teacher meets his students’ parents once a year.”

Another advantage, Light said, is that older students help younger students and faster learners aid slower learners.

This gives the seventh- and eighth-graders an opportunity to become teachers themselves, explained Light. That in itself, he said, is a valuable learning tool.

“In a small school like this, boys and girls not only learn their lessons, they learn how to get along with one another, learn manners and health habits.”

Six Boys, Seven Girls

This year’s student body is six boys and seven girls, kindergarten through eighth grade. Jim Johnson, 14, the only eighth-grader, was the only graduate during commencement ceremonies Wednesday.

“I’ll miss this place,” Jim, who attended the Panoche school for three years, told a visitor recently. “Before, when I went to school in town, there were 500 kids. I was getting a few Fs. Here I’m getting all A’s, Bs and Cs. You can really learn and get to appreciate studying in a school like this with a teacher like Mr. Light.”

The teaching aide is Margaret Strohn, who lives on a nearby ranch and was the only graduate of Panoche Elementary in 1938.

Her 91-year-old father graduated from the school in 1908, and her mother two years later. Her son, Millard, who is now a schoolteacher, is also an alumnus.

Since Light, a graduate of San Jose State University, came to the school in 1960, enrollment has been as high as 25 and as low as nine. His own eight children graduated from the one-room school. Five of the 13 current students are from one family. There are three kindergartners, one first-grader, two second-graders, no third-graders, one fourth-grader, two fifth-graders, one sixth-grader, two seventh-graders and one eighth-grader.

It was in the early 1880s when the first Panoche Elementary School, a log cabin, was built for ranch families in the remote valley embraced by the Diablo Mountains. A new school was erected in 1890. Ten years ago local ranchers raised $59,000 to build the present schoolhouse.

Light, who has never missed a day of teaching since he started here, has several ideas about improving education. For one, he said he would do away with junior high schools. He believes that junior high school students grow up too fast trying to emulate high schoolers.

Light said a large majority of his graduates go on to college. “I hear from them all the time,” he said. “They all agree that the one-room school experience with its one-to-one education helped them meet challenges throughout high school, college and in later life.”