Molalla's Maple Grove Elementary will close after 122 years | OregonLive.com

Molalla's Maple Grove Elementary will close after 122 years | OregonLive.com

Molalla's Maple Grove Elementary will close after 122 years

By Special to The Oregonian

June 04, 2010, 1:08PM

View full sizeJohn Flavin/Special to The OregonianMaple Grove Elementary School in Molalla.More than a century of rural Oregon history is coming to an end as Maple Grove Elementary School closes its doors.

View full sizeJohn Flavin/Special to The OregonianMaple Grove's staff is (from left) instructional assistant Claire Ferlan, teacher Mike Clarke and teacher Peg Moore.Molalla Mayor Mike Clarke, a teacher at the school, has invited students, families, former students and the rest of the community to a barbecue Sunday to say farewell to 122 years of educating Molalla-area children.

Maple Grove has been in its current building since 1929 and was in the old school up the hill from 1888 to 1928.

In the late 1800s, Clarke said, "when there wasn't enough money to keep the school open, they would go to school for three months, then go work on the farms, save some money, then open it back up again."

Clarke teaches third, fourth and fifth grades; Peg Moore teaches first and second grades. There is one instructional assistant and a secretary. There are 35 students.

"It's a family school," Clarke said. His twin grandsons attend, and several students have siblings or cousins at the school. The instructional assistant, Claire Ferlan, and her husband were students there a generation ago.

"And the neat part of it is that all 35 students line up in the gym to start the day, and if there's a birthday, we all sing 'Happy Birthday.' "