When the recent issue of The Cliff School Times hit a few inboxes at the Island Institute, staffers were excited to see that the one-room, five student school’s publication had been recognized by the Los Angeles Times for being an outstanding student newspaper in the Northeast.
Part of their prize was the opportunity to intern at the acclaimed paper. Two rooms at the downtown Los Angeles Hilton were booked and they needed sponsors. Or so we thought.
Olivia Crowley, a fourth grader at the school, left me a voice mail in response to my inquiry have being assigned to the story. “We are a real newspaper, but April Fools’, we are not winning anything from the LA Times.” They got us good!
In the fashion of classic news media April Fools’ jokes, The Cliff School Times ranks high in my book.
Not since National Public Radio urged listeners to get Pepsi tattoos in exchange for a lifetime supply of the soft drink had I been so duped-though I never did get inked. This annual prank has been pulled by news outlets such as the BBC, The Boston Globe, The New York Times and now, a student paper on Cliff Island.
When I sat down with the pranksters over Skype and told them about this tradition, they were surprised. “That’s funny that newspapers do that. We had no idea,” said current editor-in-chief, fifth grader Cade Lent.
Lent, along with teacher, Heidi Holloway, were the brains behind the operation. The students beamed when I informed them that the editor of The Working Waterfront and other staffers at the Island Institute fell for the hoax.
The Cliff Island school newspaper, now in its fourth volume, features monthly articles from five writers-Olivia and Eliza Crowley, Julian and Elwen Bernard and Cade Lent. “We started the paper three years ago because we wanted to let people know what we were doing at school,” says Olivia.
Articles aren’t assigned, but brainstormed. “We write about things we’re doing in school-like our recent field trip to Boston,” says Cade. Each student works on articles during daily writing hour. They write and edit into Google documents until it becomes their final version. “It used to be biweekly but we were always cramming, so it became a monthly,” said Olivia. Their “interns” are first graders Eliza and Elwen, while Cade is currently training Olivia and Julian to take over his duties before he graduates in the spring.
As true reporters, each student had more questions for me during our chat than I did for them. I was grilled about everything from what it’s like to be a The Working Waterfront writer to my writing process. The class proved to be loyal readers and commented on the recent offshore wind article that I had written.
Josh Holloway, the classroom’s primary teacher, is in his third year at Cliff Island School. His wife, Heidi, is an educational technician and teaches art part-time. Before coming to Cliff, the couple taught in a two-room schoolhouse on a remote atoll in the Pacific and in a 600-student elementary school in Maui. Teaching in a classroom of five students ranging in skill levels is “rewarding and a challenge,” says Holloway.
Mornings are full of tasks around the classroom, from watering the garden to calculating electric usage to getting out homework. Depending on the subject, students work side-by-side or are mixed up according to skill.
For example, the first half of reading is spent in mixed ability groups and is then split up by grades. Though lessons are learned in a one-room school built in 1895, the students are tech-savvy and use websites like YouTube to look up tourist videos when they’re learning about different countries.
To keep things developmentally appropriate for the younger students, they participate in hands-on activities, such as shooting video of their classmates, creating earthquakes, being read to and experimenting. “While older students are using a program like Movie Maker the first graders are creating their own scientific method project with me,” says Holloway.
The school recently awarded a grant from the Island Institute’s Four-Season Agricultural Fund, since the students want a green house. “For our regular garden, we all made a compost out of an old trash can and materials we find on the island like leaves, seaweed and soil. We have a thermometer in it now, so we’re waiting for it to heat up and graph it for the next paper,” says Olivia.
The class is aware of how unique their school experience is, growing up with the same five students and never being separated by grade. “Our school is great because, when we raise our hands, we have a one in five chance of being called on,” says Olivia.
Though Cade is excited to go to Portland for school next year, he’s going to miss Cliff. “I think going to a bigger school like King [Middle School] will be good for me, but I’ll miss being around the little ones,” he says. One thing that won’t change at Cliff is their monthly paper. “They don’t show any signs of slowing down,” says Josh Holloway.
Laura Serino is a freelance writer who lives in Portland.