Lincoln Union Elementary will merge its school district with Laguna Elementary this summer, protecting both historic one-room schoolhouses from demise. “If we don’t join forces, then this way of educating young people out in this community will go away,” Luke McCann, the superintendent of both school districts, said at a hearing last week with the Marin County Committee on School District Organization. The Hicks Valley school, built in 1872, is the oldest continuously operating one-room school in the state. But Lincoln’s enrollment fell to just four students in 2018, leading it to lapse and annex with neighboring Laguna Elementary, on Chileno Valley Road, in accordance with state education code. The school got a waiver to continue operating for the following two years, but the waiver is set to expire in June. Laguna, built in 1906, is a slightly larger school with 20 students, but its enrollment also declined before the pandemic. Most of its students come from ranch families, and before 2020, the entire student population qualified as socioeconomically disadvantaged, according to the state’s School Accountability Report Card. The school had to pay for an in-district special needs student to attend private school for several years, and now has a significant budget deficit. If its district did not merge with Lincoln, the school would be forced to shutter. “They’re running out of money, and we were starting to run out of kids,” explained Jim Grossi, president of the Lincoln Union School Board. He said the annexation will provide Laguna with more funding and allow Lincoln to keep running with its current enrollment. Both schools have grown since the pandemic. Mr. Grossi attended Burdell School, a rural schoolhouse outside Novato that is now closed. He made the case to the reorganization committee that Lincoln and Laguna share common interests and the consolidation would help preserve their personalized learning and local control. “We’re down to the last of the small schools,” he said. The Lincoln Union school district is itself the result of consolidation. Union School, another one-room school outside Petaluma, was annexed by Lincoln in 2017 after its enrollment dropped below six; its schoolhouse on Red Hill Road has not had a teacher or students since then, but the merger of Lincoln and Laguna opens up the possibility that it could reopen to students as part of the new district in the next few years. Laguna and Lincoln were two of the first 15 schools in the county that opened for in-person learning this school year, after obtaining waivers. Both schools grew as a result, because parents from nearby districts in Novato and Petaluma sought out in-person schooling for their children. “We were able to do it because we’re a small community, a small cohort,” Mr. McCann said. Cindy Demchuk, the teacher and principal at Laguna, said there was no real pushback from parents about the merger, since most just wanted the schools to stay open. She said the school’s size gives her students a sense of ownership. The whole school helps raise the flag in the morning, tend the garden and take out the recycling. Along with her bilingual aide Maria Rojas, Ms. Demchuk said she’s able to tailor her teaching to every student. “Nobody falls through the cracks,” she said. Richard Sloan, a 50-year veteran of the Lagunitas School Board, has been on the reorganization committee since 1982. He joined primarily to advocate for the preservation of small districts and is usually opposed to any consolidation, but he agreed this was a necessary step. “I am saddened by the fact that the three districts have consolidated,” he said, “but I like the fact that by doing so they’re attempting to hold on to their tradition of having one-room schoolhouses.” He added, “When you say you’re supporting traditional American education, I believe that means the small rural one-room school districts.”