Bismarck, ND – The Cottage School is a one-room schoolhouse ten miles north of Bowman in Slope County. It belongs to the Sheets School District. Due to declining enrollment, it's closing its doors after 98 years of classes. State officials say it was one of six one-room schools left in the state, and this year the school only had two students.
The Cottage School sits out on the open prairie in Slope County with not much to protect it from the wind. It's one of three small schools in the county the Amidon school has four students, Marmath has 12 students, and the Cottage School only two. Lynette Urlacher has been teaching at the Cottage school for four years. Urlacher says the difference between this one-room school and a big school was the individualized attention she could give her students
We start out our day with reading and math and calendar the only difference is, is that you call up the children to the table our little kidney-shaped table here and they learn their subjects on more of an individualized basis.
Urlacher says she could identify the students' learning styles more quickly
I know that Mac is more of a visual learner. So I can tailor my teaching style to meet his needs. Whereas, in a school that sees 24 kids in a year it's harder for the teacher to learn the teaching style of all 24 kids whereas, I know that coming in from year to year.
Urlacher says she was not only the teacher, but the librarian, the janitor, the secretary, the recess supervisor, and anything else the school needed
At the end of the day, I'm the one who has to shut all the lights off, make sure the school is locked, and everything is properly taken care of. If there is a mouse, I can't call the janitor. I'm the one who has to chase it out of the school and make sure everything is taken care of like that.
Urlacher's students this year were 1st grader Mac Stubber and 5th grader Brittney Sandmeier. Seven-year-old Mac lives three miles from the school house his dad also attended.
I learn more here and it's really fun being here. And in Bowman, you wouldn't learn so much so fast as I do here.
11-year-old Brittney is also the teacher's daughter
I have to wake up at 6:30 and then I go to school and I get here at seven. If I had any homework I didn't do the night before, I can do that. Eight o'clock Mac comes and then at 8:15 we start school. And then I do math and I correct my math and then my mom gives me all my assignments and then I just take them to my seat and I do them by myself.
Slope County Superintendent Kathy Walser says the decision to close down the school drew little interest and even less controversy. She says only two people attended a meeting on the school's shut down. Walser says up until last year the school always had ten to twelve students each year. That, she says, was a better learning situation.
It's been coming, everybody has known it's been coming. But they've just been hanging on. Finally, they've realized it is time to let it go.
Urlacher says there are many fond memories from teaching at the school and also some funny and slightly scary stories too. Urlacher says one of her worst fears was that a child would get bit by a snake. She recalls one instance when a snake came into the school
In the fall in August, there was a rattlesnake that came into the school and went into the closet and went back out again. It scared me to death. It pretty much told me that if a child gets bit by a snake, I immediately go to Bowman to the hospital and I do not call anyone.
Urlacher says when it rained too much deer would drink from the puddles on the basketball court. She says when students left food outside in the grass skunks would come scratching at the door for more. But now school is closing and it's things will be auctioned off in June. Mac will go to school in Bowman in the fall and join a class of 25 2nd graders. Brittney will go to school in New England. As for Urlacher
I, myself, will be another unemployed teacher in southwestern North Dakota. There are a lot of us out here. I'll sub and things like that. This summer, I'm also planning on going back for my master's degree in school counseling through Aberdeen so I'm going to be working on that, too.
Walser says with the Cottage School closing the surrounding communities are losing a piece of their history.
A lot of the people that live right in this area they went and their kids went. It's just like, oh, it's not going to be there.' When there is a program or something going on at the school and they attend whether they have kids or grandkids here or not, some of them still come. And I think it's just a piece of history is going to be gone.