Tiny schoolhouse lavishes attention on students

By M.L. LYKE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

"A classful of of students" is, like everything on this small-scale island, a relative term. Enrollment at the Little Red School House, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is only 14. The one-room schoolhouse has expanded to two rooms: K-4 and 5-8.

The uppergrade class is taught by John Pachuta. In good weather, he commutes to work in a rowing shell from Friday Harbor, watching the sun rise in the east and counting porpoises and seals cutting through the green waters. His enviable student-teacher ratio of 1:5 is complemented with an enviable computer-student ratio of 1:1. Resources here are abundant; Shaw is its own school district.

Kids know they have it good. In a class of five, no one lacks for attention, everyone gets in the school play and field trips are long. Last year, Pachuta took his class to Alaska for two weeks to study the Gold Rush. This year, they're headed to the Olympic Peninsula.

Going off-island is good. Staying on-island may be even better. Ask kids what they like about Shaw, and hands eagerly wave and pump.

"You know everybody here!"

"You can take adventures!"

"There's more trees to climb!"

"More wilderness!"

"More property!"

"Lotsa animals!"

Sixth-grader Willie Schmidt, whose family moved from Seattle to Shaw to be caretakers of the UW Biological Preserve, likes the quiet. "In the city, at night you hear all the cars going down the road," he says.

"Here, it's dead silent -- except for maybe a bird."

Willie doesn't hesitate when asked if he misses the big city.

"Nope."

He doesn't elaborate. He doesn't have to.

Even the youngest citizens on this secluded island know exactly what he means. And even the youngest citizens on this island know some things are worth protecting.