End of an era approaches for Florida's last one-room schoolhouse, Duette Elementary
DUETTE -- Most parents hope their children will be educated in small classes, with plenty of opportunity for individual attention.
That's one reason a few families still send their children to Duette Elementary School, the last remaining one-room schoolhouse in Florida. This year, there are 11 children in one classroom, with one teacher and one teaching assistant. The parents rave about the education and attention their children have, saying it's something no other public school can provide.
With advances in technology and the rise of charters, the notion of one-room schoolhouses is re-emerging, according to educational trend experts. The one-room schoolhouse template is driven by that individualized attention and craving to return to a focus on learning instead of testing.
But Florida's last true one-room schoolhouse is about to disappear, leaving parents wondering where they'll send their children and sending the community scrambling to preserve the historic building.
Donna King, the 68-year-old longtime teacher, principal, toilet scrubber and everything else at Duette Elementary, will officially retire. The contract for King's nonprofit foundation to run the school will expire June 30. It's unlikely the Manatee County School District will reclaim the school as one of its own.
"I wish we could make Miss Donna 20 years younger," Robert Swint said. Swint's older son, Eli, now a sixth-grader at a Plant City middle school, began at the one-room schoolhouse. His 8-year-old son, Cutter, still attends Duette. "This school is great."
One-room schoolhouse template
Duette opened in 1930 as a "strawberry school," taking vacations based on the strawberry season so students could help their parents on farms. Although the building technically has more than one room, all the children are educated in one classroom, a model that was popular until the invention of asphalt, said Andrew Gulliford, a professor of history and environmental studies at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colo.
Gulliford's research has focused on this type of education, and he's the author of "America's Country Schools." In 1900, there were 212,000 one-room schoolhouse in the United States, but that number has dwindled. Gulliford did not have an up-to-date estimate of how many are still operating.
With asphalt roads came a better ability to transport students over distances. Then came the rise of bigger elementary schools and consolidation of the one-room schoolhouses, offering more options in subjects like music and art.
Gulliford says he can see that at a middle school or high school level, but not necessarily in elementary schools.
"I think one-room schools now are more worthwhile and offer more opportunity than any other time in American history," Gulliford said last week from his office in Durango.
And that's because of technology. Teachers are able to bring any subject to life for students through computers and the Internet, which Gulliford says diminishes the need for the big, consolidated type of schools.
He is seeing the trends emerging. Private schools and charter schools across the country boast about their small class sizes, one-on-one attention and innovative personalized teaching styles. But what it really is, Gulliford says, is a return to how the United States used to teach children. Students benefit from being in a one-room classroom with children of other ages.
At Duette, King boasts there's less fighting among the siblings who attend the school.
"It's our culture, we don't allow it," she said.
In one-room schools, children are able to teach and learn from each other. Gulliford thinks the trend toward what he calls the one-room schoolhouse "template" will likely continue.
"It's ironic that just at the moment when the actual one-room school buildings are disappearing, the idea is thriving in a different context," he said.
'I would pay'
The students enrolled at Duette range in age from 5-year-old Hector Benitz, in kindergarten, to 11-year-old Marisa Botello, a fifth-grader. Most of the students also have siblings at the school. Many have attended since they were in kindergarten, finding the school through word of mouth.
The Benitz family stumbled on the school six years ago, when Rosa Linda Benitez' youngest daughter, Lina Juarez, was 5. Rosa Linda and her husband, Jubentino Benitez, were making the drive into Bradenton to register Lina for kindergarten. They passed by Duette not knowing what it was. Rosa Linda remembers thinking it was a long drive for a kindergarten student to make each day.
On their way back, they saw children playing out in front of the school. They stopped, asked some questions, and the rest is history. Lina is in fifth grade now, 8-year-old David Benitez is in second grade, and Hector started in kindergarten this year. Rosa Linda can't imagine what she'll do when the school closes.
"I haven't figured it out, and I don't want to," she said.
Manatee County students at the school will be zoned for Witt Elementary, and then to Buffalo Creek Middle School. Some of the students attending the school don't live in Manatee but take advantage of the state's choice programs to attend the school. They would most likely have to return to elementary schools in their home districts.
Swint hasn't figured it out yet, either. He'd like to see the school continue, citing the benefits for Eli and Cutter. Cutter is often the first one up in the morning, Swint said, because he's excited to go to school. They both read far better than Swint did at their age, he said. Sitting in the school last week, he included converting the school to a private school as a preferred option to shutting it down.
"I'd pay to send him here," Swint said.
In all likelihood, Cutter's mother, Megan, will homeschool him if the school closes, Swint said.
King understands the parents' concerns and their desire to keep the school open, and if King had been able to find a suitable replacement teacher, it may have been an option. But after a long and distinguished career, King says it's time to retire.
"I physically can't come here," she said. "I feel so sorry for them."
She thinks the school could be financially viable -- with the per-student funding from the state -- if she could enroll about 30 students per year. But that would require another teacher.
"At one point, we were on the way up," she said.
She recognizes the school can't stay as small as it is, unless it becomes a private school with a wealth of donors.
'It's our heritage'
Betty Glassburn remembers attending Duette with her siblings. Glassburn's parents went to school there, too. So did Glassburn's children.
And Glassburn, 71, says she can't watch a piece of Manatee County history -- and a piece of her history -- go to waste.
"We want to be able to preserve the building and the land as it stands for our heritage," she said. "It's our heritage."
Glassburn personally envisions a community center for the school, preserving the classroom and setting up an area as a museum. She also envisions community concerts, festivals or even weddings on the 19-acre site.
But it takes the community coming together and getting organized. An initial meeting was already held at the school and another is planned this week at the firehouse to elect a board and create a nonprofit.
They also need to set up a meeting with the Manatee County School Board, to see if the board will let them take over the building. Glassburn estimates they'll need between $15,000 and $30,000 a year just to keep the building running.
"What is the possibility that they will let us maintain it? We've got to get out real quick and have some big fund-raisers," she said.
Although Glassburn says her health would keep her from being able to lead the charge in maintaining the school, she's handy with communications and grant writing.
"I'm retired. I have the time," she said. "It's sad to see it close as a school. But if it's got to close as a school, please let the community have it."
Meghin Delaney, education reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7081. Follow her on Twitter@MeghinDelaney.
This story was originally published February 21, 2016 at 12:15 PM with the headline "End of an era approaches for Florida's last one-room schoolhouse, Duette Elementary ."