Indian Lake Class of 2024: Four graduates

Tiny graduating class highlights problems, solutions around the declining enrollment at rural New York schools

By Arietta Hallock

At the start of Indian Lake Central School’s June graduation, relatives in the dark gymnasium watched projected baby pictures of the Class of 2024 and wiped away tears. In a short row at the back, the graduating seniors — all four of them — waited to take the stage.

With such a tiny class, the ceremony was special from start to finish. Each senior selected a song for their segment of the opening slideshow. A country tune about finding fun after a long blue-collar workweek. A folk hit about childhood fears and running away to New York City. And for valedictorian Kaitlyn Canaan, a song about leaving for someplace far, like South Carolina.

“I’m going to college in Charleston next year. I don’t know where I plan to be after the four years, but I don’t think I plan to come back. I really don’t,” she said.

Indian Lake’s smallest class ever reflects a widespread trend across rural areas in New York —  people are leaving, residents are aging and school-age children are diminishing. As community size contracts, so does employment options, daycare and businesses.

“I feel like there’s a lack of opportunities,” Cannan said. Her town has no permanent stoplights or a full-service grocery store.

Tucked in a center pocket of the Adirondack Park, Indian Lake saw its district enrollment decline by nearly 50% since 2000. Other rural districts statewide have had the sharpest shrinking enrollment rates in recent years.

For the dwindling numbers of students who remain in the Adirondacks and other rural areas, staying in town post-graduation is a less viable option.

“The challenge that remains is what happens to those graduates after they graduate,” said David Little, executive director of the Rural Schools Association of New York State.

Finding the tools to stay

Graduate Joseph Brouthers is the only male in Indian Lake’s 2024 graduating class and the only not heading to college in the fall.

For Brouthers, staying means a nearly hour-long commute north to his job at Alex J. Helms Excavation and Logging in Newcomb. According to Brouthers, living locally takes some resourcefulness, but the long drives are worth it.

“I love the Adirondacks, you don’t get a view like it,” Brouthers said, “There's not much in a small town, but there's different and greater opportunities around. You can still stay.”

During high school, Brouthers attended a career and technical education program shared by multiple smaller districts through BOCES. The program supported his pursuits in a way that he said his school alone could not provide and gave him the skills to find local employment.

“BOCES was the biggest helping hand I think I could have ever had. Before I went into the program, I was lucky to pass tests. But when I went to BOCES, I actually got into the National Technical Honor Society. And it actually improved my mental health,” Brouthers said.

“It's made my life that much better.”

Rural yet resourceful

Indian Lake Superintendent Melissa Mulvey says the district has provided its seniors with a wealth of opportunities even though the surrounding area is sparse.

According to Little, rural districts must provide college preparatory and trade education for students, regardless of their post-graduation plans. The move is not just for student futures but for the survival of shrinking schools.

As suburban schools statewide diversified their catalogs of advanced placement and college-credit courses, small schools found themselves scrambling to offer the same. At Indian Lake, administrators found distance learning was a way to compete.

While an atypical mode of instruction, distance learning allowed Cannan to accrue close to two semesters’ worth of college credits.

“I'm super happy with the education that they get here. I can't speak for Kaitlyn yet, but her older sister has done really well in college. So I feel like the school definitely prepared her for that,” Kaitlyn’s mother Mary Cannan said.

There were tradeoffs. In her college-level English class, Cannan sat in a near-empty room and watched a split screen. On one side, she followed a Syracuse University professor’s lecture, and on the other, she watched a classroom full of virtual classmates from Granville Senior High School.

“I only had one other girl in the class with me, there were two of us. So that did make it a little challenging at times,” she said.

Empty benches

While the graduates each had unique interests, from Logan Howe’s baking to Alizé Ciembroniewicz’s art, there was no finding their “crowd” when all their classmates could be counted on one hand. This meant that extracurriculars and sports needed a majority of students involved to stay running, and more niche interests were pursued individually.

“Everybody has to do everything, and all the same kids that are on all the same sports teams are also in the musical,” Mary Cannan said.

Despite forming joint sports teams with nearby Long Lake, Indian Lake had difficulty mustering both modified and varsity teams, Kaitlyn Cannan said. The same was true for arts and music offerings.

“Our chorus is down to minimal kids,” she said, “It’s a little sad.”

For Brouthers, who practiced trap-shooting on a team with Howe, pursuing the quintessential Adirondack sport at a higher level meant traveling alone to other states for national competitions.

Yet like many musicals, sports games, craft fairs and recitals, the Indian Lake gymnasium was packed at graduation.

The student band gave a hearty rendition of “Pomp and Circumstance.” Mulvey, who was the music teacher before becoming superintendent, said that the school is the sole event center in a place without a YMCA or sizable town hall.

“We are the hub of this community,” she said.

Solutions

According to state Department of Education data, 10 of the top 25 upstate schools with the highest spending per pupil last year were in the Adirondacks. Indian Lake was one of them, with nearly $45,500 invested per student annually.

“Costs are greater even though there are fewer kids,” Little said.

Yet, small schools can deliver a higher quality of education in classes with just a few students per instructor, Mulvey said.

“Our students are basically getting a private school education,” she said, “They're getting loads of attention from their teachers.” 

While combining sports teams has become more common in rural areas statewide, school district mergers continue to be a cost-saving albeit contentious decision. It happened recently when Elizabethtown-Lewis and Westport districts formed the Boquet Valley School District.

Little advocates for the formation of regional high schools rather than complete district mergers. The model would maintain local schools for kindergarten through eighth grade as community hubs while sending older students into regional centers with pooled resources.

If it means that future students can experience richer academics and athletics, Kaitlyn Canaan says she supports the concept. Yet with mountain roads to deal with, her mother and superintendent wondered about transportation problems. 

“I think it would be very difficult just because of where we're located,” Mulvey said.

Silver linings

While the graduating class of four set a record low, Indian Lake’s kindergarten class had more than double that and Mulvey is optimistic that the district will stay open for decades to come.

Other Adirondack districts, including Minerva and Johnsburg, continue to reckon with the possibility of merging as their student bodies shrink.

While Cannan plans to get “a taste of other places” at college, she said she’s grateful for her small-town experience. Community organizations and local businesses offered the graduates a bunch of scholarships, making the awards ceremony the longest portion of graduation.

“The old saying that it takes a village to educate a child really plays itself out in rural New York. Everybody within the school knows every child. They don't just know the kid as a student, they know what their challenges are in the community,” Little said. That closeness was palpable in the crowded school gym.

“My journey through school at Indian Lake has not only taught me about my next destination, but has shaped me into the person I am today,” Canaan said as she closed out her speech. She returned to the row of chairs on stage, filled by four rural graduates facing their futures.