St. Columba’s Episcopal Church on Emery Lane has hosted Sunday worship services since the early 1980s. It has also hosted weekly exercise classes, blueberry pancake breakfasts, Alcoholics Anonymous and local garden club meetings. But now, a new use has been found. St. Columba’s, in its desire to create "Outreach to the Community," is the temporary home for two Boothbay Region Elementary School fourth grade classes. The church has abundant education space for 22 fourth graders, and teachers Annie Bolduc and Jennifer Lassen are giving the space “all A’s” as a classroom. 

The 2022-23 school year has been a chaotic one for Boothbay Region elementary and high school students. The elementary school’s sprinkler malfunctioned on Feb. 5 resulting in massive flooding and water damage. This created a bit of a nomadic experience for local elementary students resulting in first moving into the high school, and later satellite sites. The fourth grade was sent to Camp Knickerbocker along with the fifth grade. But the camp was not large enough to accommodate two fourth grade classes. 

So school officials searched for another site with available public and private spaces. The search included a couple churches. One was St. Columba’s. Pam Baldwin of Southport is a member of the church’s vestry. “We’ve been looking to become more involved in the community, and wanted to donate our space to the school,” she said. The church contacted School Resource Officer Larry Brown who notified school officials. In mid-April, fourth graders moved into their third space of the school year. 

Lassen has taught at BRES for nine of her 17 years in education. She described the transition to the new classroom as smooth. “Everything has gone surprisingly well. The church is large enough to provide all of our educational instruction needs,” she said.

Each Monday morning, school staff move the tables and chairs into place for education, and on Friday afternoons put them back for the church’s 10 a.m. service on Sundays. Bolduc and Lassen share the teaching duties. Bolduc teaches math. Lassen teaches language arts, and the two team-teach science and social studies. Both teachers agree the new lesson format has worked well. “It has been a wonderful transition for us which I think will carry over to next fall,” Lassen said.

In April, Superintendent Bob Kahler announced the fourth grade’s move to St. Columba’s. He was asked by the Boothbay Register about holding public education instruction in a religious facility. He responded, “The decision was to use a classroom space that would meet student needs and allow us to keep both students and resources close together for programming, management and safety reasons. In this case, the space that met those requirements happened to be a church.”

In the (church), there are no visible images of Jesus Christ, but there is a six-foot Holy Cross. Teachers said the cross is not a factor in the daily lessons.  “I don’t think anyone really notices it,” Bolduc said. Lassen added, “They think of this as a classroom. We told them this is not our space, and must all be respectful.”

Following the February flooding, school was canceled for a week for all BRES students. In total, Boothbay Region students have missed nearly 11 days. The Community School District received a Maine Department of Education waiver so there is no requirement to make up missed days. The two teachers believe students received a quality education despite the missed days. One exception may be in the arts. “I’m a musician, and music is important to me. I think if anything band and chorus have been shortened, but students have not missed instruction in the core subjects,” Lassen said.

BRES Assistant Principal Julie Hansbury agreed. “We have made up several days, but our teachers did a great job in providing the ‘meat’ of the curriculum,” she said.

Hansbury was also appreciative of St. Columba’s Church and the entire community during the crisis. “One of the amazing experiences of this crisis is the community’s response. The whole community has just been so supportive throughout the entire time. We are very thankful,” she said.