SMALL TOWN EDUCATION
TECH GROWS in the WOODS BY HEATHER HAMILTON-POST
“Lowman isn’t really even a town,” explains Stephaney Williamson, laughing. “We have a schoolhouse, but that’s about it.” Instead, it is an unincorporated rural census-designated place in Boise County, less than a two-hour drive from Boise, nestled into mountains along the South Fork of the Payette River. Officially, the population is 42.
Stephaney Williamson is the single teacher in Lowman with nine students in first through sixth grade. VISITING TEACHER Since coronavirus left students at home, each Monday, Williamson rides the bus to drop off work for her students and pick up assignments they’ve completed.
Notably, Lowman is home to one of only a few hundred one-room schoolhouses left in the United States. Williamson, in her second year teaching in Lowman, is the single teacher for first through sixth grade, depending on the year. For the 2019-2020 school year, she had nine students spread across every grade but fifth, and next year, she should have at least one in every grade. In a normal school year, this presents interesting challenges. And this year has been anything but ordinary. Williamson grew up in nearby Garden Valley, and says she’s been trying to move back since she left. When the job opened up in Lowman, she moved her family from Utah where they’d been living and, using the multigrade approach she’d developed as a Montessori teacher, jumped right into this unique teaching situation. She teaches a small but interesting bunch-some of Williamson’s students are siblings to other children at the schoolhouse, some have attended since kindergarten, and two come from families where at least one parent also attended Lowman Elementary.
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Prior to coronavirus, she knew her students very well. But after? “We’ve all taken virtual tours of each other’s houses. We’ve met each other’s pets. My students all say hi to my husband or son when they bring me breakfast. We’re a big family. This has been a chance to bring people together when we’re far apart. Our hearts are together,” she says. Because of the various grade levels of her students, Williamson explains that her students were already independent learners. Each day, she prepares work for each of them and allows them the freedom to choose when and what they work on. Throughout the day, she pulls different students or groups into lessons while the other students continue their learning. After coronavirus left students at home, she morphed her curriculum into a home/ school partnership. “But they’re still doing the same work,” she says. Lowman Elementary is a part of the Garden Valley School District, which provides Chromebooks to every student, so the technology was already in place too. Williamson’s students all had internet access
