Back row left to right: Ryker Knoefler, Kyler Ledesma
Front row left to right: Charlett Ledesma, Braylen Ledesma, Lexee KnoeflerParents and students gathered at the Downieville School last Wednesday to kick off another school year. Student Council members Abigail Sainsbury, Ariann Jackson, Lily Antrim, and Kayden Stringer served some delicious mac & cheese and garden salad before folks filled the hallways and classrooms to meet their teachers.

This year’s enrollment of (52) students has increased by 23% from last year (42), a promising sign for Downieville. Downieville Elementary has 31 students, and the Junior/Senior school has 21, with two seniors set to graduate next May.

Speaking with Superintendent and Principal James Berardi, he is excited about the upcoming year. While there is a critical shortage of teachers nationally, leaving many schools understaffed, Downieville is fortunate to be fully staffed for this school year with ten teachers. It has been difficult to hire full-time teachers, with housing nearly impossible to find, but Berardi is grateful to have a cadre of retired teachers stepping up to fill the teaching gaps in the school. Through a grant to the Sierra County Office of Education, Berardi is looking at a longer-term solution to teacher recruitment by creating a program to cultivate “homegrown” teachers. The goal is to create a local teaching pipeline and hopefully encourage some of our youth to pursue a career in teaching and stay in Downieville.

Downieville School has always taken advantage of our beautiful mountain geography, providing more hands-on experiential learning outside the classroom than most other schools. Berardi’s vision is to continue focusing on this direction and give students even more project-based learning opportunities. The Environmental Science class Berardi teaches will be entirely project-based, without any textbooks.

On a final note, Downieville School has a new lunch lady, Sara Kernitz. After eight years of serving the kids in Downieville, Tammy Helm, or “Miss Tammy” as the students call her, decided to hand over the reins of the kitchen. Sara brings lots of experience but has some big shoes to fill. One 5th grader even reached out, offering her some helpful advice in her first week on how to win over all the students. “Make more desserts!”