Tiny, remote SLO County school has educated kids for 70 years. What’s its secret to success?

On a late August morning, 15 young students ranging in grades from third to fifth read the story of “The Three Little Pigs” aloud with their teacher, Lisa Fegley.

“I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down,” the students said in unison while sitting on a mix of chairs and exercise balls at Carrisa Plains Elementary School, a two-room schoolhouse in the California Valley in eastern San Luis Obispo County.

After finishing the story, Fegley quickly walked over to another room, separated from the first by a wall and sliding glass door. She checked to make sure the 10 other students at the school, these ones attending kindergarten through second grade, were on track with their reading assignments.

“At this point I’m just getting exhausted,” Fegley told The Tribune later that day.

Until very recently, Fegley was the only credentialed teacher at Carrisa Plains Elementary.

Atascadero Unified School District just hired a new teacher to help out at the rural school. She started on Monday.

“This is going to be huge for Carrisa Plains,” which hasn’t had two teachers in four years, district Superintendent Tom Butler said.

Teacher: Instructing 6 grades is too much for one person

Fegley, who’s in her 21st year as a teacher, has worked at Carissa Plains Elementary since August 2022

She’s often put in 80-hour work weeks educating more than two dozen students spanning six grade levels, sometimes staying up until the early morning hours grading, lesson planning, scrubbing playground equipment or planning family school events.

“I’ve always wanted a challenge,” Fegley said. “But this is more than I can handle. I would like to not work quite so late.”

Under Fegley’s leadership, students have received 10 minutes of instruction per subject — reading, writing, math and science — each day.

Having a second teacher will double that instruction time, Fegley said.

Carrisa Plains teacher ‘instrumental’ in school’s success

During her first year working at the school, Fegley drastically improved scores on state standardized tests, decreased absenteeism and boosted family involvement.

“We’ve had rotating teachers for years, they were always good for sure, but gone the next year,” said Debbie Twisselman, a support staff member at the elementary school.

Fegley was hired with a three-year contract to stay at Carrisa Plains — something school staff and district officials agree has provided improved stability for the students.

“I’m able to build relationships (because) I remember these students from last year,” Fegley said. “I know their weaknesses and can work with them to help them improve.”

Atascadero Unified trustee Corrine Kuhnle praised Fegley’s teaching prowess during a school board meeting on Aug. 15.

“You are so instrumental in the success of the school and you have taken our students, the staff, into your heart,” said Kuhnle, whose comments were followed by a standing round of applause from audience members. “And the test scores are just soaring. It’s just amazing: The power of a good teacher.”

Schoolhouse is centerpiece of rural community

Carrisa Plains has always been a centerpiece of the community in the California Valley, drawing students from ranching and farming families in the area.

Multiple generations of families — including the Twisselmans, Kuhnles, Becks, Cavanaughs and Lewises — have passed through its doors.

First, students went to classes at the old Simmler School about three miles east of the current schoolhouse. The “old school,” as it’s lovingly called, has still been used for community gatherings.

The so-called “new school” was built in 1954 and named Carrisa after an English-language mispronunciation of “carrizo,” which means reed in Spanish.

“The grain that seemed to thrive so well in the rich soil was fed to livestock which would then be driven to market,” Greg Beck, a former student at Carrisa Plains Elementary, wrote in a history of the area written in 1959.

Changing California Valley means change for the small school

Droughts have driven out ranchers from the valley since the mid- to late 1800s.

The establishment of the 204,107-acre Carrizo Plain National Monument in 2001 and construction of massive solar farms in the 2010s have shrunk available acreage for livestock grazing and crop growing.

“That used to all be ranching,” Twisselman said during recess time as she pointed across the street from Carissa Plains Elementary at empty grassland. Solar farms could be seen in the distance.

The school’s population has shrunk over the years, from about 50 students in the early 2000s to fewer than 30 in recent years.

Part of that is because the school stopped serving middle school students in 2015, instead sending them to Atascadero Middle School. The same change was implemented at all the Atascadero district’s elementary schools.

Although while some ranching and farming families may have moved out of the California Valley area, others are moving in — lured by the promise of inexpensive housing and more space.

Carrisa Plains Elementary School’s student population grew from 11 at the beginning of last school year to 27 as of the start of September, Fegley said.

“There are far more students out here than the district realizes,” she said. “We just have to show them the education they can get here is excellent and they’ll come.”