Final Bell Rings in Bisbee School
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| 5/20/2008 |
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| Since the early 1900`s the Bisbee school served as a place of learning, a meeting place and a place to have fun. For many small towns, the school is the heartbeat of the community. "It kind or makes the community less alive,” says Michelle Keller, Bisbee Principal and Science Teacher. Sadly, schools like this are getting harder to find. Thursday, May 22nd will be the concluding classes, the last lunch and the final time big, yellow buses pull up to the Bisbee school. "In the last few years our enrollment has declined drastically,” says Keller. For Keller it will be a huge change in her life. Not only will it be her final day teaching at Bisbee, it`ll be her final day teaching altogether after 33 years. "Well, 33 years plus going to school here for eight years. I don`t know if it`s sunk in yet,” says Keller. The decision to close a school is never an easy one but the Bisbee school board knew it was a decision that was coming. For those teachers that wanted to continue their career, they will get jobs in Cando because that`s where the students will be going as well. They will be known as the North Star District. "It`s kind of an empty feeling,” says Marla Nelson, Bisbee Kindergarten Teacher. One of those teachers moving to Cando is Nelson whose been teaching at Bisbee since the Egeland school closed six years ago. Mrs. Nelson had one student in her kindergarten class last year. This year the size of her class tripled. "I think the last few years here it`s like your home schooling them and all the kids are really close to eachother, the six graders play with the kindergarteners, sort of a big brother big sister thing,” says Nelson. There are 45 students in all here, but only 16 in elementary school. Unfortunately that`s the trend rural North Dakota is seeing. "It had to be done,” says Keller. So the choice has to be made to give students the opportunities others in larger districts have. "With maybe four or five kids in a class, it really wasn`t doing justice to the students,” says Keller. Like the state basketball title in 1989, the hundreds of students who graduated and went on to do great things or the dedicated teachers who inspired them, locked doors will not shut out the memories of Bisbee High. "It`s a real closeness that you don`t get a really big school,” says Keller. There are seven seniors in the graduating class. |
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