In California’s Hamlets, School May Mean Eight Kids and a Cat

The computers hum, Rascal the cat owns the couch in front of a spectacular fireplace and a gaggle of kids pores over textbooks. The setting looks like a ski chalet, but it is the modern descendant of the one-room rural schoolhouses that have dotted California’s outback since the 19th century.

California has 4.7 million public school students in kindergarten through the 12th grade, and most of them are taught in conventional classrooms.

But about 500 students are learning the three Rs--and a lot more--in three dozen one-room schoolhouses from the Mojave Desert to the North Coast. The oldest, Lincoln Elementary School in Marin County, was built in 1872; the newest, in Mendocino County, opened this year.

“They are mostly in isolated areas,” Jim Bush, a top official in the state office that decides where schools are located, said with understatement.

One school is in the tiny Sierra Nevada town of Bear Valley, at 7,000 feet elevation about 200 miles east of San Francisco, where nine youngsters attend class in what resembles a spacious mountain lodge rather than a schoolroom.

With its gymnasium, emergency generator and hot-food cafeteria, Bear Valley School is equipped to face miserable mountain weather. It often does.

“During the winter, we’ll get 20 feet of snow. Maybe just 10 feet, if there’s a drought,” teacher Trisha Fedderly said wryly.

The kids are like kids anywhere: They giggle, they read, they talk, they play, they write.

But there are differences.

The youngsters here take 11 weeks a year of skiing, downhill and cross country, as part of their required physical education program. “The classic quote we all remember was from an eighth-grader who came in one morning and said, ‘Hey, is this a downhill day or an uphill day?’ ” Fedderly said.

Some kids--including one second-grader--ride snowmobiles to school; some ski in. The school bus has four-wheel drive and an ingenious traction system that automatically whirls chains underneath the rear wheels. “I bet you’ve never seen one of those before, huh?” said maintenance man Art Doyle, whose own children, now grown, once attended the school.

And Bear Valley is aptly named: Bears are seen frequently in the area, usually raiding the trash bins near the local market. They cause few problems but are one more reason why living in the country is different than living in the city.

In deep winter, Bear Valley is known as the “anthill” because of its intricate array of snow tunnels that connect buildings. Behind the snow, the lights of the buildings gleam eerily in the darkness.

“I heard all these stories for years about how much snow they get there, and I thought, ‘Yeah, right,’ ” said school district secretary Terrie Peets. “But then I went there and finally saw it and it just blew me away. The snow was above the top of the school. I saw no houses, but I saw smoke coming up and lights glowing. People hiked up these ropes to get in their houses. They hiked up and then they dug a tunnel down to get in. This is serious snow.”

Books line the walls of the 6,000-square-foot schoolroom, and more books are in overflow stacks; the volumes are copious and eclectic. There’s a wide collection of textbooks, there’s a fine selection of National Geographics, there’s Winston Churchill’s history of the second world war, all six volumes; there are paintings and posters and students’ artwork and writing samples; there’s fiction and nonfiction, juvenile and mature. A large round table is covered with computers. Television is an afterthought.

The room exudes energy and fun.

What discipline problems exist are minimal compared to urban schools.

“An older student who acts out may have his behavior rewarded in a middle school. But here, the younger students will look at them and say, ‘What are you doing?’ ” Fedderly said.

At its maximum, a few years ago, the school had 38 students. But enrollment declined as families moved away, at least partly because the parents were hunting for new jobs. Six children left because their parents moved to a lower elevation in Calaveras County to escape the punishing snows.

Local officials believe the enrollment decline is temporary, but Doyle isn’t so sure.

“The problem is that property values are so high that young families can’t afford to buy here, and there aren’t many jobs available,” he said. Wealthy families who have resort homes here have their children in other schools, he added.

Rascal, a tabby of uncertain lineage, has the run of the school. Born 11 years ago in a kindergartner’s sleeping bag, the cat took up residence in the classroom to stop the parade of mice that sneaked down the chimney.

“We haven’t had a problem since,” Fedderly said.