Not far from where I live, there's an elementary school with just 36 students. It's not a private school. It doesn't have a special curriculum. It's a regular public school designed to serve several hundred students. But the neighborhood has changed into a business district, and the few residents who remain are mostly older people with no children. Enrollment at the local elementary school has fallen so much there are only three children each in the second and fifth grades.

Should a school with so few students remain open? Our school board doesn't think so. Citing studies that advise a school have at least 100 students for good social and academic interaction, the school board recommended it be shut down next March, at the end of the current academic year. Local residents are opposed to closure because the school has been a fixture of the neighborhood for more than a hundred years. Parents like the atmosphere of a small school, and don't want their children to have to walk to more distant schools. But with only 36 students left, it's hard to make a case for keeping the school open.

Communities throughout Japan are wrestling with similar decisions about haiko (school consolidations and closings). In big cities, redevelopment causes population shifts that can drastically affect school enrollment. In the countryside, young people move to urban areas for better job opportunities and more excitement.