Education with a personal touch

CALDER, Idaho — When crossing the little bridge into Calder, almost a 25-mile drive up the St. Joe River from St. Maries, the first thing the rare visitor sees is a little white school, shining like a lighthouse above the unincorporated community.

The Calder School serves nine children, who act more like siblings than classmates. They study in a small school building with a couple of teachers and an aide. The only administrator works from an office up the driveway.

The Avery School District, where Calder is the only school, is the smallest district in northern Idaho, one of the smallest in the state and has a budget of less than $1 million.

Students go to school four days a week in grades K-8, and travel as far as 55 miles from Clarkia and 23 miles from Avery. For some, their St. Maries High School is a 50-mile commute.

The school is more than a place to learn. It’s the community’s center, where adults gather for the occasional meal, to volunteer, work, enjoy sports and connect.

The school is “the beating heart of the community,” said Superintendent Megan Sindt.

On a snowy November morning, the nine students who attend Calder School stripped off their coats and settled into their desks.

Each desk has its own personality, much like the children who occupy them.

An Aztec-print backpack sat slumped under Stella Harpole’s desk, which displayed a pink notebook and a set of safety goggles for science experiments.

Indigo Priddy sat behind Stella, still in her snow pants, where her desk hosted a half-finished craft paper turkey.

Teacher Renee McQuade roamed the room checking in with each student as they ran back and forth from their desks to the board, solving math equations.

Students stopped “playing with math” when it was time for a snack.

When the four students in the fifth and sixth grades were unhappy with their choices, McQuade hopped on her walkie talkie.

“I have a dissatisfied snack seeker coming to the office,” McQuade told Sindt, as Sindt’s daughter Kinsley bundled up for the dash to the office to replenish their supply.

After snacks, McQuade gave the word and the fifth grade class, a trio of girls, pulled open their laptops, plugged in their headphones, and started a math practice game, while McQuade began teaching the school’s sole sixth-grader, Felix Priddy, his math lesson.

The children bicker like siblings — not only because some of them are, but because they’ve spent so much time together over the years.

Felix is the only middle school student, so the fifth graders go back and forth from McQuade’s classroom to the elementary school room next door. She largely teaches math and science to the elementary student along with all subjects for middle schoolers.

There are benefits to multigrade classrooms, McQuade said. The younger kids hear the lessons for the grade ahead, while the older children get to review as they overhear younger grade’s lessons.

“They’re really being submerged in their education just by being in this classroom,” she said.

Students also get lots of one-on-one instruction and individualized learning plans, McQuade said. The district contracts with St. Maries for special education services but they’re rarely needed, Sindt said.

With that submersion also can come tension — the children know each other’s triggers, they push each other’s buttons, and McQuade’s, too. It’s like a private school in a public school setting, she said.

McQuade, 53, moved to Avery from St. Maries in the early 1990s, so she has been involved in the district for a few decades, largely as a bus driver, in addition to her work for the U.S. Forest Service.

When a promotion with the forest service fell through, McQuade decided to become a teacher. She loved math and science and already was a part of the school community.

“It finally occurred to me when I was 45 that I should probably start making a plan for the future,” McQuade chuckled. “Every single day is different with these guys, just trying to come at things at their level, trying to figure out where they’re at and what clicks for them.”

School aims to be a resource for everyone in changing times

Sindt, 35, always knew she wanted to be a teacher, with her mother and great-grandmother in the profession.

She graduated from St. Maries High and went away to college, and intended to return, though she didn’t imagine moving to Calder.

Then she married a member of the area’s most popular profession: logging. His family has deep roots in Calder and she felt a calling to the small community, home to about 100 people.

“I knew this was capital-H home when I moved here,” she said.

She commuted to St. Maries for a few years, where she taught high school English. She also served as a trustee at the Avery School District.

“And then I had kids,” she said.

She quit her job in 2019 to be home with her babies, then the COVID-19 pandemic hit and she taught online. But it wasn’t the same — she missed seeing the kids every day.

The “stars aligned” and Sindt took on the principal role at Calder School, after getting her master’s degree online. It was the first on-site administrator role in years. Previously, the part-time superintendent/principal was only around a few days a month.

Last year, she became the interim district leader. This year, the school board offered her the position permanently.

“It was a huge shift to have an on-site principal, superintendent, boss, administrator, somebody who’s organizing and planning and you can send your students to when they were being pills,” McQuade said. “She just brought a wealth of knowledge and resources. She opened the world to us.”

Sindt made lots of changes quickly:

Updated the 1918 school building with new doors and key card access.

Added pre-kindergarten.

Continued technology updates, including giving each student a laptop and Mac.

She also encourages the community to use the school building, from Thanksgiving dinners, to reading books with students, to board meetings for area groups. She emphasizes that everyone is welcome.

“The community supports us,” Sindt said. “The community wants a school here but I think we’re going to continue facing declining enrollment because there’s no employment here.”

The school district is the largest employer in town with two teachers, a paraeducator, a part-time business manager, a bus driver and a part-time IT professional. The only other business is the Calder Store, a restaurant and convenience store.

Most families in the area have one parent who works, largely in the logging industry or for the forest service. The other parent stays home. The number of young families able to make life work nearly 30 miles from the closest grocery store is dwindling. A few years ago the district had 23 students — now numbers have dropped to nine.

Many families would fall into the low-income bracket, but Sindt said they don’t feel that way.

“We have very resourceful families,” she said. “We have families with low incomes, but that doesn’t correlate to their ability to care for their kids and their family. It doesn’t correlate with their ability to provide a loving home or dinner on the table.”

But they do need help, Sindt said. She offers resources to all, whether it’s pre-K two days a week or resources to homeschool families. They live out in Calder for a reason, Sindt acknowledges, whether it’s striving for a more simple life or skepticism of the government. Whatever the reason, the school meets people where they’re at.

“Ultimately our goals are the same, right?” she said. “We want to best educate these kids.”

Nine kids dine with the principal

Sindt slips out her office and walks up the driveway to the school’s small gym to serve lunch and give her teachers a break. The pack of students follow shortly, tearing off their cots as Sindt starts heating up their packed lunches.

The district provides hot lunch about once a month, usually with parents coming in to cook. Lunch is also the only prep period for the school’s two teachers and paraprofessional, so Sindt supervises the children.

The girls set up their lunch boxes, as Sindt pulled a two-gallon jug of chocolate milk from the fridge.

“Who wants milk?” Sindt calls out. “Stella, can you hand it out today?”

The children line up as Stella doles out colorful plastic cups.

Blakely’s is pink, to match her pink shirt. She teetered over to the table with Brice Sindt, Megan Sindt’s youngest. She was about to spill when he stepped in, setting it on the table and helping her into her seat.

“It’s very family-style,” Sindt said with a chuckle.

For Sindt, the Calder School doesn’t just represent community, it’s a place where the education system is adapting to students’ needs and making a difference.

“In the current climate of public education, magic is still happening,” Sindt said with tears in her eyes. “Teachers are good, kids are good, I still have faith in the system. I think that people live here for a reason but people send their kids here for a reason.”

This story is from Idaho Education News, a nonprofit supported on grants from the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Family Foundation, the Education Writers Association and the Solutions Journalism Network.