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Briscoe: A look back at its history By Amber Fossen Ashland Daily Tidings Soon these halls will go silent, the echo of children's voices gone forever. When passing by Briscoe Elementary School, with its plain-spoken, red brick exterior and classic design, its impossible to catch a glimpse of the memories, emotions, and events that have made the elementary school so much more than a building. Robert Messenger and Marian Flood look at memory books during a celebration May 17. Messenger attended Washington School in 1945 and Flood cooked at Briscoe for more than 25 years. Ashland Daily Tidings/AMBER FOSSEN Over the years, teachers, students, administrators, parents and staff have come and gone through the care-worn halls. While the memories are different, many in the Briscoe community have deep-rooted connections to the school that cross the decades. San Francisco resident P.K. (Kay) Taylor attended Briscoe in the 1930s - what was then called Washington School. Living just "a short dash" from the school on High Street, Taylor recalls his boyhood romping grounds as one would an old friend. "I remember winter days when it was closed up to keep warm, you could smell the food cooking and no one got anything done after about 9 a.m.," Taylor said in a telephone interview with the Tidings. In Taylor's youth, the school was quite different. Washington School, also brick, was three stories high with a primitive dirt yard and a furnace in the basement - which was fed with cordwood from the stacks lined up in the backyard behind the school where girls would jump rope and boys would shoot marbles. "I remember though, the girls shot marbles just like the boys did," Taylor said. According to Taylor, students would congregate on the north and south sides of the school each morning. And, as their teacher played the piano, students would walk into class two-by-two to begin the day. Graduating and moving from the area in 1939, Taylor still recalls the particular assistant children spent afternoons scurrying from. "She had flaming red hair," Taylor said, chuckling. "She must have been older than the world. We were all sure she was a witch who haunted the second floor." "She had a tongue that could scrape the hide right off a pineapple," he said, quickly adding, "Now, this is all through the eyes of a young boy." By 1941, Washington School was deemed unsafe and steps to replace it with a more modern school building were implemented. However, it wasn't until December of 1949 that a new structure was finally complete. It would be known as the George A. Briscoe School - named after George Briscoe, Ashland's school district superintendent for 28 years. Marian Flood, a former Briscoe parent and an assistant cook at Briscoe for more than 25 years, said the elementary school has changed from the outside-in and continues to change with each passing year. "When I started (in 1965) I never even heard of such thing as a vegetarian and toward the end, there were lots of them," Flood said. Flood came here with her family after the war during a baby boom. The school was overwhelmed with students, Flood recalled. "When I first came here after the war, there was such an enormous number of children coming in that my son had to attend the Methodist Church fireside room for one year," Flood said, adding there were three first grade classes and her daughter was still asked to be held back for lack of room. Helman Elementary was founded in 1966 to help alleviate the swelling student population, according to Flood. However, the boom slowly began to taper off as student demographics changed. "When we moved here in the 1950s, the schools here were bulging. It was for the same reason many people continue move here today," Flood said, noting the quality of schools in the Ashland School District have long attracted young families. "As the baby boomers grew up and they didn't have as many children they thought of closing the school but they didn't," Flood said. Former ASD superintendent Bill Moore, who spent nearly two decades in the district, said he had the luxury of serving in the golden days of well-funded education, before the passage of Measure 5 in 1990, which decreased the amount of tax-generated funding the ASD received from the state. "We experienced the very best of times when the schools were properly funded," Moore said. "It's a very sad time for Ashland schools and schools throughout the state. I've never seen it as bad as it is." Moore, who served as superintendent from 1974-1990, said Briscoe was able to offer the students more with full-time librarians, programs for special needs, and even a foreign language program that began in the first grade. But according to Moore, the Ashland student population has diminished over the years, resulting in fewer state dollars. As a consequence, Briscoe's future became less certain. For each student, the ASD receives approximately $5,000 in funding from the state, creating a financial dip when students opt out of the district. From 1997-2002 Briscoe's student population declined by 16 percent or 41 students, according to the Oregon Department of Education. This trend is districtwide, with a total decline of 231 students or 6.9 percent over the last five years. A demographer's report prepared by Judith A. Barmack states the fall in student enrollment will continue with an estimated decline of 15.2 percent or 477 ASD students by 2007. At the elementary level, a 15.5 percent decline is projected or approximately 184 students by 2007. Declining demographics coupled with decreased state funding led the Ashland School Board to unanimously vote to close Briscoe by September 2003. "We have had, for some time the feeling even when I was working, that student enrollment was tapering off and we would see a time when Briscoe might well be the school to close," he said. "I honestly didn't think it would happen. I feared that it might, but I didn't think it was going to." As he considered his years at Briscoe, Moore maintained that despite cuts to education and dwindling student numbers, the school never departed from its principles and commitment to quality education. "Briscoe has always been a school that's radiated care for kids. They (the teachers) love their work and they've always worked very hard," he said. "Even though they're having to teach more children and put their own money toward materials, they are still as completely dedicated as when they had more." 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