ARLINGTON — The fate of Trafton Elementary School is scheduled to be decided tonight.
Faced with declining enrollment at other schools, decreased state funding and a budget deficit of about $1.7 million, Arlington’s school board is considering closing the historic building to save $258,586 next year, along with the cost of repairs to the old school.
If John Kroeze had his way, the school would serve as an elementary for many more years.
“I just can’t see that school closing down,” he said. “The taxpayers built it. Literally.”
Kroeze, 101, started first grade at Trafton in 1915, just a few years after folks in that community rallied to rebuild after a fire destroyed the one-room school they established in 1888.
“I remember that my brothers’ hats burned up in that fire, so it must have happened during the day,” said Kroeze, who is considered Trafton’s oldest living alumnus.
After the fire, people anticipated population growth and built a four-room school. When Kroeze was a student, though, the upstairs classrooms served as living quarters for one of the Trafton’s teachers.
“We had eight grades at school, with 10 pupils in my classroom, including four Stillaguamish kids,” he said. “We made our own baseball diamond, we played marbles in the dirt and we always looked forward to our Christmas party.”
A longtime farmer, Kroeze and his late wife, Dena, raised two daughters and were married 71 years. Still sharp, spry and funny, Kroeze laughs when he tells the story of ringing the school bell in the morning and then sneaking onto the roof of the building in his stocking feet to wave at the other children. He also loves tales of dipping pigtails in the inkwell on his desk and raising flying squirrels in a bird cage that hung in the classroom.
“A kid wouldn’t be able to do those things these days,” Kroeze said. “You’d be the one to fly — right out the door!”
Kroeze also remembers hauling wood up the wide staircase for his teacher Cora Dent’s stove.
“Sometimes in winter she served us hot cocoa or hot soup along with what we brought in our lunch pails,” he said. “We had very good teachers.”
The same sort of community spirit and close relationship with faculty continues at Trafton, Kroeze said.
“The Trafton kids are a wonderful group,” he said. “I get a kick out of those little ones.”
Trafton Elementary School recently was named to the Most Endangered Historic Properties list issued annually by the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation. Considered the oldest continually operating public school in the state, Trafton is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the Washington State Heritage Register.
Many people in the Arlington School District told school board members they support cost-saving measures that help all elementary school students, even if that means shuttering Trafton.
A vocal and large group of Trafton parents, alumni and community members have argued with great emotion that the school shouldn’t close.
Keep Trafton Alive members are raising money to make repairs to the school building and have insisted that the proposed closure might backfire on the school district. Some parents have threatened to pull their children from the Arlington School District if Trafton closes, resulting in an even greater funding loss from the state.
State law requires that the school district conduct a review before closing any school. At a workshop meeting Tuesday, school board members told district administrators that they have the information necessary to make tonight’s decision about Trafton.
John Kroeze said he’ll be waiting.
Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427, gfiege@heraldnet.com.
Meeting tonight
The proposed closure of Trafton School is on the Arlington School Board agenda at 6 tonight in the school district administration building board room, 315 N. French Ave.
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