As small schools across the Northern Plains consolidate, a town fights to preserve its rural, two-room schoolhouse.

The spelling and grammar lesson in Steven Podoll's classroom is a little like the changing of the guard. "Fifth-graders, please come up," Podoll calls. Two students push back their chairs and rise to meet him at a table in the front of the room, passing two fourth-graders on their way back to their seats with their assignment. Half an hour later, two sixthgraders replace the fifth-graders. Finally, the seventh-grader is called up. And so it goes for math, science, reading, and the rest of the subjects the fourth- through eighth-graders in Podoll's class study at this two-classroom rural school in Baldwin, North Dakota.

The Baldwin School sits on a small hill in the center of "town"-just behind the hand-printed "Welcome to Baldwin" sign and across the railroad tracks from a white clapboard post office the size of a toolshed. It overlooks the wide northern plains that roll on for miles before meeting the sky

The town itself lies on a country road east of Highway 83, about 15 miles into the sloping grasslands of the open prairie north of Bismarck. The population hovers around 54 or 55, according to the local postmaster. A community of farmers and ranchers, the people of Baldwin have for generations worked the land through storms, drought, grassfires, and blizzards. Like fluctuating crops of grain, the town has grown and flourished, withered and shrunk. But it's always endured, thanks in large part to the town school that first opened its doors in 1908.

For those who live in Baldwin and other small towns across the country's Great Plains, the prairie isn't just a place, it's a way of life-and one that may be drawing to a close as farmers sell off land and livestock, urban areas sprawl, and small towns dwindle. With them go the country schoolhouses that once dotted the landscape. North Dakota alone had more than 4,700 one-room schools in the early 1900s. Now only a handful remain, and as is the case elsewhere in the Midwest, state laws and declining populations are prompting many small schools to either consolidate or close.

Often, a town's school is its last foothold. When the school closes, the town dies. And that's exactly what the people of Baldwin hope to prevent. "If the school closed, it would be as if Baldwin suffered a stroke," says Podoll. "It might survive, but barely."

THIS YEAR, THERE ARE NO EIGHTH-GRADERS IN Podoll's class, which has just seven students-two each in the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades, and one seventh-grader, a tall, blonde girl named Tori, who often helps the younger students, including her sixth-grade brother, Travis. Next door in the K-3 classroom, fellow teacher Beth Duey has eight students-a few of them with siblings in Podoll's class.

Over the years, the population of the school has reflected the prosperity of the town. When it first opened in 1908, eight years after Baldwin was founded, teacher W.E. Yeater (gender not recorded) had 26 students and earned $50 a month. The population held steady through the teens and twenties, growing to 37 students in 1934-a class that, according to the records, included six "farm boys," six "farm girls," 12 "town boys," and 13 "town girls." Then the Dust Bowl spread northward and depression gripped the country. By 1937, just 11 students were enrolled in the Baldwin School.

Slowly, the town population rebounded. By the 1950s school enrollment was back in the 30s and 40s, but Baldwin was never the same. In its heyday, the town boomed with banks, hotels, grain elevators, a lumber yard, newspaper, train depot-even a dance hall. A series of fires razed many businesses, others simply closed their doors. Today, the center of town consists of a post office, a railroad track crossing, a handful of houses, and the Baldwin School.

That list might get shorter if North Dakota's state legislature passes a bill that would retire elementary schools with fewer than 100 students to consolidate with a district that has a high school. After the eighth grade, Baldwin students currently have a choice between high schools in Bismarck to the south or the "bigger small town" of Wilton to the north.

Although the Baldwin school wouldn't immediately close-the town must vote whether to keep it open-residents feel the passage of S.B. 2333 would make it inevitable. "It's taxation without representation," says Podoll. "It would take local control of the school away from Baldwin, and it would divert property taxes to the [consolidated] district. Nobody in Baldwin wants this to happen. Everyone realizes that when you stop funding schools, towns suffer."