Single room school days

 Like many of the 200,000+ single room schools that once dotted the US landscape, Sandy Pond was a small neighborhood school. Its 20-25 students did not arrive in big, yellow, buses, nor did they have a school cafeteria.  Students made their way to school on foot, and brought their own lunches. During winter, one of the older students would bring in firewood for the wood stove. Another would ring the bell, officially beginning the school day, after which the teacher would greet the students, who would stand to recite the Lord’s Prayer and salute the American flag. The teacher would then hand out assignments to the older children and begin working with the younger students. 

Today, Sandy Pond School is one of only a few thousand surviving single room schools. For nearly 300 years, these iconic little buildings, along with their teachers and students,  were the bulwark of the American educational system. Together, they helped make the US a great nation. 

 That Sandy Pond School is still with us today, 150 years after it was built and over 120 years since the last classes were dismissed is a small miracle.  ​​Had history followed its normal course, Sandy Pond School would have been torn down within a few years after its closure in 1906. Across north central Massachusetts, only a handful of other single room school buildings still stand, and even fewer that are equally well preserved. Here in Ayer, Sandy Pond School stands alone, a sole survivor of the single room school era.