One-Room School Houses Threatened

Nov. 13 -- It was 7 a.m. and the temperature was zero degrees Fahrenheit as we plowed over the snowbound and ice-crusted back roads of North Dakota's Badlands one day last month.

We were tracing the route to the Stevenson Elementary School — a place so remote, even by North Dakota standards — that the closest mailman comes from next door Montana.

After a 30-minute ride that included driving across the Little Missouri River without benefit of a bridge, we arrived at the door of a one-room white-painted structure. Stevenson School at last.

Inside, Jan Bergstrom presided over six students that included kindergarten, first, second, third and sixth graders.

"Second and third graders, take out your pens," says Bergstrom.

While their lessons proceed, the other kids work quietly with a teacher's aide or study by themselves. It is all very orderly. No one is acting up — not even in the presence of strangers with a television camera.

'No Reason to Change Anything'

Bergstrom is a big booster of one-room schools. Hers is as modern as they come, with four computer terminals, television, and a well-stocked library.

"It's easy for me since I work so one-on-one to pick up on any area where a child might be having problems," she says. "Then I can jump on it right away when they're young."

Keith Rockeman, a rancher whose son Josh is enrolled at the Stevenson School, is president of the local school district. "If they're having some problems with things, usually our teacher catches on real quick and can get them straightened out pretty fast."

"There's really no reason to change anything, as far as I'm concerned," he said.

North Dakota: Time to Regionalize

Unfortunately, for schools like this one and the seven other one-room units in North Dakota, not everyone agrees. At almost every meeting of the North Dakota state legislature, bills are introduced that would have the effect of eliminating these schools, merging their students into bigger — but more distant — schools.