Small island school that fought closures sees surge in enrolment

For students at Big Tancook Elementary School, the entire island is their classroom and its residents their unofficial teachers.

Located 50 minutes by ferry from Chester, N.S., the 220-hectare island has about 160 year-round residents who regularly take the kids on excursions to watch birds or document how erosion is impacting the community. 

It wasn't that long ago that the small island school was at risk of closing for good, but a tie vote by the local school board kept it open. 

"It was basically by the skin of our teeth that we kept the school, and it was allowed to blossom and bloom and become what it is today because of that," said Hillary Dionne, who fought off two school closures during her decade-plus as chair of the school advisory council. 

At the time of the last review in 2016, just two students were registered to attend the school, but the student body eventually grew to three, then seven.

Now, 14 students from pre-primary to Grade 5 go to Big Tancook Elementary and there are two full-time teachers.

Last year saw one of the highest enrolments in recent memory with 17 students. There were even enough young children to open a pre-primary program for the first time. 

"I just love seeing all the young kids on the island, they all hang out, they run around together in the summer, they pop into my little shop and visit with me and it's just such a good feeling to see that the island is actually so alive with kids," Dionne said. 

Young families move to the island

But Big Tancook Elementary's growth isn't taken for granted, or guaranteed to continue. There are only so many homes on the island and even with a proposed car ferry on the horizon, Big Tancook isn't for everyone, says Jennifer Mackenzie.

It's thanks to families like hers that the school has grown. She spent summers on the island for decades before deciding to move there full time with her husband and young son in 2021.

"The school actually played a huge factor in why we moved," said Mackenzie, who works full time from home.  

She appreciates the multi-level learning — her son Carter is in Grade 2, but in a classroom with kids up to Grade 5.

"They get one-on-one attention and they learn at different levels whether it be a grade up or grade down, which I think is great for all the kids," Mackenzie said. "It teaches patience to the older ones and the younger ones get a broader range of education early on."

Garden, climbing wall and hammocks

The school itself has also transformed. 

The school community built an outdoor classroom, a garden and a climbing wall. Trails were also cut into a nearby forest so students can hang out in hammocks in the woods.

And when it came time to choose a new paint colour for the school, it was done by a community-wide vote. Turquoise, in honour of the surrounding ocean, beat out schoolhouse red.

Back in the 1930s, when there were still two schools on the island, a combined 85 students were enrolled. The current one-room schoolhouse opened in 1949 and the high school eventually closed. 

In the past 15 years, enrolment has ebbed and flowed, with as many as 10 students in 2010 to as few as two in 2016.

Carter will one day have to commute by ferry to the mainland for middle school, but for Mackenzie, the inconveniences of isolation are a small price to pay. 

"I love the community. I love the people. I love that although we're not family down here, we are," she said. "If you get us all in a room, we can all sit and chat and talk and it doesn't matter if they're 10 or if they're 80."

Teaching principal Ellen Smith said she still doesn't know how many students they'll have come September.

"We don't really know of anybody moving to the island, so I feel like at this point enrolment numbers are only going to go down unless we have more families move," she said.

This uncertainty is part of island life.

"I try not to worry about it because these are things that are out of our control," Smith added. "I stay hopeful that there will be opportunities for more families to move to the island and for the school to stay open."