With just three students left attending high school, officials in Rochester, Vt., have decided to close the town's middle-high school.
The Associated Press reports that Rochester, a 25-minute drive from the nearest big town, looked at merging its school district with two other communities, but the proposal failed after not all the towns approved it.
Vermont has been dealing with dropping enrollment and has encouraged school districts to merge. It is a largely rural state, and one of the least populated.
For the past decade, the talk in Rochester has been about how to keep its schools open with fewer and fewer students, school board Chairman Jeff Sherwin says.
With the middle-high school set to close at the end of the school year, residents are thinking about homeschooling or moving, and families that remain worry how they will get students to and from school in another community.
In the next academic year, the elementary school will merge with the district serving neighboring Stockbridge, and each town will keep those schools open. Rochester middle and high school students will go to other schools, with parents providing transportation.
