2 North Bay 1-room schoolhouses to consolidate

The three-member school board governing one of the last historic one-room schoolhouses in the North Bay chose Monday night to preserve the one-room schoolhouse education option for rural Petaluma families a while longer.

Faced with dwindling attendance numbers - this year only seven students are enrolled - and related budget issues, the 121-year-old Union School, just over the Marin County line in the hills south of Petaluma, will consolidate with the Lincoln School District, which operates the nearby 12-student Lincoln School, the oldest ongoing one-room schoolhouse in the state.

The decision was either that or joining the larger Wilmar Union Elementary School district, which runs the 240-student Wilson Elementary School in Petaluma.

“The pit of my stomach is still inside out,” said Diane Rowley, president of the Union Joint School District board, and a Union School alumna who’s been on the board 22 years.

“Especially when all of the neighbors turn out, and the community is there rendering their opinions. It was very hard to decipher what’s the?right decision.”

The decision means children at the K-6 Union School will attend Lincoln School instead, as soon as this fall.

The vote came a week after about 30 people packed the Union School building for a special meeting to weigh the school’s options for the future.

Monday, about the same number returned to witness the culmination of an almost two-year debate over the future of one of the oldest operating one-room schoolhouses in the North Bay, and the last original one Sonoma County residents have the opportunity to attend. There are three other one-room schools in Sonoma County, but they’re in modern buildings: Kashia School near Stewarts Point, Horicon School in Annapolis and Montgomery School in Cazadero. In 1916, there were 115.

In the end, what pushed Rowley to vote for the merger with Lincoln School was preserving a piece of history.

“My roots run deep,” said Rowley, whose children and uncle attended Union School as well. “I’m committed to the one-room schoolhouse way of life. For the community, I think it was the best decision.”

The vote leaves two important questions unanswered: What’s the future for its lone teacher and principal of 11 years, Cynthia Walsh, who was promised employment if the district had merged with the Wilmar Union Elementary School District, and what’s to become of the white clapboard building, built in 1895?

“That’s the saddest part of this whole thing,” Rowley said of Walsh’s uncertain future. “That was the most challenging part of it. She’s been a wonderful advocate for Union School.”

As for the building, Rowley would like to see it still serve the community in some way, whether as a preschool, museum, community hall or some other incarnation.

You can reach Staff Writer Christi Warren at 707-521-5205 or christi.warren@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @SeaWarren.