Less than 200 public schools in the US have only one teacher, down from about 200,000 in the early 1900s, according to a 2017 report. Most of the remaining one-room schoolhouses are in states with large rural areas, such as Nevada, Wyoming, and Montana.
DUCKWATER, Nev. — On an early October morning, the Duckwater School’s three third grade students discussed why Pueblo Indians may have lived in cliff dwellings at the Grand Canyon. Maybe, one girl suggested, it was to keep warm.
Only 16 students attend the Duckwater School, an updated version of a frontier days relic: the one-room schoolhouse. The students at the school, which has been open for 65 years, range from pre-K to eighth grade.The Duckwater School is the only public school for at least 45 miles in any direction. It lies between mile markers 16 and 17 on an empty stretch of Nevada State Route 379 in Nye County. The closest grocery store or gas station is more than an hour away.
There are some downsides for the students being in such a small, remote school. There are no sports teams to join, no Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts troops or after-school clubs. But Huston is inventive in providing the students with extracurricular activities. One year, she found a woman in Kansas City to give violin lessons to some of the students via Skype. The school has a piano and offers lessons after school with a teacher in California using Facebook Messenger.
Some years, the school has had as few as six students, while in others it’s had as many as 22 or 23. Most live on ranches or the Duckwater Reservation, with some traveling less than 20 minutes and others more than an hour to get to school. Meanwhile, Bradshaw taught multiplication and simple arithmetic to the first and third graders in a room that is also the library. Yajaira Lazos, the other aide, worked on counting with the youngest children in another classroom that also serves as the cafeteria. Huston said the school’s environment encourages students of all ages to work independently, without constant monitoring from adults.
“A lot of times they don’t understand and we’ve done it before, and it would be rude to not help them,” sixth grader Bailey Bradshaw said. “They are my friends and it’s such a small school, so you just help your friends.”Huston comes from a long line of teachers — her mother and grandmother both taught in one-room schoolhouses.
For many years, she had no teaching aides, making it difficult to juggle the varying grade levels in years when she had larger class sizes. She had to make sure the kindergartners were learning to read without letting the older children fall behind. And even if she didn’t feel well, she still came to school, not wanting to cancel classes.“I would just bring in a blanket and pillow to school and teach lying on the floor,” she said. “And a bucket to throw up in if I had to.
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