LOVELL, Me. — New Suncook School, nestled in a clearing off a pine-scented road in northwestern Maine, seems an idyllic setting for 270 young minds to grow.

But the elementary school's scenic solitude is both blessing and curse.

As schools across the country struggle to meet a decade-long push for reform, rural schools like New Suncook face the task with two major handicaps: isolation and scarce funds.

In this Maine village, which survives on potato farming and summer tourism, teachers make $16,500 to $29,500 a year. Teachers like Rhonda Boyer routinely work unpaid extra hours each morning to be on hand to greet the first busloads of kids arriving at 6:30 a.m.

'I Like Talking to Kids'

"I don't really mind coming early," Boyer said as she looked after about 50 children in the schoolyard. "I like talking to kids in a social way."

Staying in touch with the latest teaching methods means long weekly drives to universities on the Maine coast.

Reform ideas could easily have passed by a school like New Suncook. But its principal, Gary MacDonald, was determined not to let that happen.

"There was a general sense here that, with all the reform reports coming out, . . . if we wanted to be respected as professionals, we had to respond. We had to be on the cutting edge," he explained.

Urged on by MacDonald, teachers taught themselves the art of grantsmanship. The school received several Maine "innovative grants" to enhance ties with parents and the community.

Grades Mixed in Class

Another state grant helped two teachers devise a highly innovative "MAGIC Class" (an acronym for Multi-Aged Grouping using Integrated Curriculum) that mixes 90 kindergartners, first-graders and second-graders in a single class. In that class, younger or less able students aren't labeled or isolated from their older or more capable peers; students mingle and learn from one another.

At their own expense, MacDonald and several teachers flew to Seattle a couple of years ago to hear the views of John Goodlad, a highly regarded reformer. Last summer, MacDonald and some teachers attended a National Education Assn. symposium in Minneapolis on school-based reform.

New Suncook even established a sister-school relationship with a rural California school. MacDonald met Karen Kawai, the principal of G. B. Miller Elementary School in La Palma, Calif., at the Minneapolis meeting, and the two hit it off.