By Dan Tutor

This is the third part in an ongoing series investigating the socioeconomic challenges facing islanders.

On the evening of October 20th, 2025, the Islesboro Central School (ICS) Committee hosted an all-hands-on-deck meeting in the Kinnicutt Center to discuss the dwindling student numbers at ICS. Enrollment has fallen precipitously at the K-12 school, from 102 students in 2001 to 55 in 2025. One hundred or so islanders, and a few mainlanders, attended the meeting in person, and another 45 or more participated on Zoom. Committee Vice Chair, parent, and ICS alumni Sky Purdy led the meeting, with help from fellow committee members: Chair Zach Conover, Jennifer Selendy, Lars Nelson, and Colleen Dove. School staff and administrators, including science teacher Haley Currie-Nelson, Principal Kate Legere and Superintendent Dr. Connie Brown were front and center fielding questions from the floor.

The issues at hand were clear: why is enrollment so low, and how do we attract and retain students and families in order to remedy the problem?

Administrators and committee members relayed that falling enrollment is a state wide trend. “[At] Augusta, when I was the superintendent there, that was a school system of about 3000 kids, and now they’re down to less than a thousand”, Dr. Brown explained. Principal Kate Legere elaborated:

“Student enrollment in Maine public schools has been declining for the past 10 years.  Overall there are over 10,000 fewer Maine students than there were ten years ago.

Contributing factors include declining birth rates and the aging population.  There are simply not as many families with school-aged children living on the island as there were 5, 10, 20 years ago.  Rural communities such as Islesboro are impacted in particular.”

Indeed, statewide enrollment has fallen by 17% since 2000, and Maine’s median age has increased by almost 16%. Still, these trends pale in comparison to Islesboro, where enrollment has declined by 46%, and the median age has increased by almost 22%.