The keyboard of the Gold Creek School piano is dusty. So are the building’s ancient wood floors and bookshelves — and its modern computers and smart boards.
76-year-old Sherry Curlin is there, as are her friends and fellow school board members, Ruth Little and Linda Hogan.
Curlin attended the K-8 school in 1956 as a fourth grader, and later taught music at the school as a volunteer. The old piano in the corner of one of the school’s two rooms still bears the note names she wrote on the keys decades ago.
“I don’t know if it’ll play,” she says. “It’s probably out of tune.”
But, a few chords later, she decides it sounds just fine.
There are no students in attendance for a music lesson that day. Gold Creek Elementary near Deer Lodge is a school without students. Last summer, it became the 16th tiny, rural Montana school within the last decade to enter “non-operational” status after its enrollment dropped to zero, according to state data. Now, the clock is ticking for trustees to find news students and a teacher — or risk the school dissolving into neighboring districts.
Linda Hogan, longtime Gold Creek resident and chair of the school board, says she watched as the school’s student population slowly dwindled.
“It was always a concern for the last, say, 10 years,” Hogan says, sitting at a table with her fellow trustees. “And, each year got harder and harder to keep our students here.”
The trustees have two remaining school years to recruit at least one student and teacher so that Gold Creek can reopen. If they can’t, state law mandates that the school will join nearly three-quarters of its non-operational peers from the last decade in closing down for good.
Losing students
Hogan and the trustees walk through a library at the midsection of the school. Shelves lining its wood-paneled walls are still crammed with brightly colored books.
“This is what they built to put the two schools together,” Hogan says.
Gold Creek Elementary’s trustees say the school is no stranger to change. Back in the 50s, it absorbed another small school and students numbered close to two-dozen.
But steady state funding and community support weren’t enough to stem a tide of dropping enrollment. In the years leading up to Gold Creek’s closure in 2022, the trustees say they had about nine students who left the school for a number of reasons.
“Some went to Garrison, some went to Deer Lodge,” Hogan says.
“Some of them graduated from the eighth grade and went to high school,” Little adds.
The trustees say one big reason families left was to provide more opportunities for their kids to make friends and play sports.
Retaining students and teachers isn’t a struggle unique to Gold Creek. Dennis Parman was Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction under former democratic Gov. Steve Bullock and currently leads the Montana Rural Education Association.
He says the state is home to more than 60 one-room-schoolhouses — more than any other state in the nation. Many of those schools may teach students from three families or fewer.
“And they grow up, and they get older, and there aren’t any more families moving in,” Parman says. “And, all of the kids age out, and that school district is left with no students.”
Gold Creek is located in Powell county, one of the few counties in Western Montana to see population decline over the last decade. According to U.S. Census data, most rural Montana counties to lose residents between 2010-2020 were located in the eastern half of the state.
Parman cautions conflating population decline with an exodus from rural education. A 2019 report from the national nonprofit Rural Schools and Community Trust indicated three-in-four Montana students attend a rural school. And, the data don't indicate a lack of student success, either. Rural students in Montana rank highly on educational outcomes compared to other states.
Parman says there isn’t an easy answer to finding more students. The Office of Public Instruction can explain the options and legal procedure to a non-operational school.
“But if it came down to it, if the question was, ‘Well, how do we get students?’, you know, we could ask a lot of people, but we wouldn't have the answers to that,” Parman says.
Help wanted
While observers say small, rural schoolhouses aren’t shutting their doors in Montana any faster than they ever have, they’re concerned that new pressures may tip the scales against schools like Gold Creek struggling to reopen.
Montana Small-Schools Alliance director Janelle Beers says her members are looking to fill dozens of open positions next fall.
“I think what they’re facing now, which is new, is the teacher shortage,” Beers says.
Of the organization’s nearly 140 schools, she says about a quarter of them teach fewer than 10 students.
Beers says starting pay for most new Montana teachers is between $30,000 and $33,000 — that’s nearly $10,000 less than the national average, according to the National Education Association.
“You know, that’s terrible,” she says. “It’s hard to live on that, and then you think of some of these tiny places, and it’s like, ‘Where are they going to live out there?’”
The state Legislature recently passed laws incentivizing schools to increase starting teacher pay. Educators at Montana State University are designing programs to prepare students for jobs in rural schools.
But, the state reported a drop in new teaching licenses in January, recording the lowest amount issued in the last five years.
Mindy Schrecengost’s first job with her teaching degree was at Gold Creek in 2021. She said she was nervous at first to teach in such a small setting.
“You know, you have all these grade levels,” Schrecengost says. “It’s like, ‘How do I teach this?’ But I loved it.”
Schrecengost says she developed strong bonds with her students’ families, and loved working one-on-one with each kid. But, around the time it became clear Gold Creek would lose its remaining students, Schrecengost landed a job teaching third grade in Deer Lodge that was an easier commute.
“So there were just no young families coming in with children. And so, I was worried about jobs, and I was worried about gas prices because that’s quite a drive for me,” Schrecengost says.
“Deep, personal ownership”
Even without a teacher, the trustees at Gold Creek say they’re focused on finding students, first.
Curlin, Hogan and Little their school face a turning point, but all three say they aren’t ready to give it up just yet.
Dennis Parman says he’s seen many trustees from many districts fight a similar battle during his years working with Montana’s schools.
“There’s a lot of deep, personal ownership to the individuals that are on the school board, and few folks live in that area and live within the boundaries of that district, and it’s really personal for them,” Parman says.
Hogan and her fellow trustees say the town has a stake in Gold Creek Elementary, which has served as a meeting place and hub of community activity for generations. But, they also have a personal stake in the building and the memories they formed there.
Without new families moving into the community, it’s likely only the memories will remain.
“There’s some things we can’t change,” Little says.
“As much as we would like to,” Hogan adds. “Change is hard, and some of it is just harder than others.”
If the three-year clock runs out and Gold Creek hasn’t found any students, its school boundaries, funds and assets will be absorbed by a neighboring district.
