Rural Matters

The oldest African American school known to still be standing in Virginia is being restored thanks to Frank Agnew, resident of Fieldale in Henry County.

Rock Run School was built in the 1880s by local African American residents; it educated students until the mid-1950s.

Agnew owns the building and plans to make it available to community residents for local functions. He spends about 20-25 hours each week on the preservation effort and has raised more than $30,000 in donated labor and materials from the community in addition to a $10,000 grant from the Henry County Preservation Fund.

Agnew’s work, and especially the care he has taken to restore the building’s beauty, has been praised by local residents and public officials alike. Many local residents are also thrilled that this important community landmark will again be a functional gathering place.

The building serves as an important landmark beyond the community as well. Thousands of similar schools were built by African Americans after the Civil War. (It’s a myth that most such schools were established by white missionaries or philanthropists; in truth, missionaries generally arrived to find that African American residents had already established schools in their communities, and philanthropists usually supplemented community-based efforts.)

Many of these schools were left to crumble in the 1950s and 1960s when most Southern counties built new, usually consolidated, schools for African Americans in an attempt to demonstrate that they provided equal educational opportunities in segregated schools. These efforts also tended to centralize authority and strip communities of much of their influence over schools.

Rock Run School is also recognized as an important architectural landmark. At several different times the community built additions to the original building in order to accommodate expanding functions and additional grades. Each addition has been recognized as example of best construction practices of its historical period.

You can see a photo and read more about Frank Agnew and the Rock Run School in the Martinsville Bulletin.

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Small schools, rural schools, and schools in the central region of the country are more likely to be under-enrolled and less likely to be over-crowded than other schools. They are also the least likely to have portable (temporary) buildings, although small schools that have portables are more likely than other schools to have troubles with the temporary buildings that interfere with instruction. The National Center for Education Statistics has released a report, Public School Principals Report on Their School Facilities: Fall 2005 that provides information on the condition of school buildings.

The report finds that schools with “percent minority enrollment” of more than 50% and schools where at least 75% of students quality for free or reduced-price lunch are more likely to have facilities problems than other schools. The most common environmental problems for all types of schools tend to be related to air-conditioning and ventilation.

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School facilities issues can be some of the thorniest for school boards, communities, and state policy makers, and practical guidance can be hard to come by. The resources presented here address the specific facilities and facilities-related issues that confront small schools.

Dollars and Sense: The Cost Effectiveness of Small Schools; Barbara Kent Lawrence, et. al., 2002. This easy-to-read book is a great resource to anyone interested in school size issues and includes research on several facilities concerns. Chapters address a variety of relevant topics, including grade span configurations, maintenance, and student outcomes.

Save a Penny, Lose a School: The Real Cost of Deferred Maintenance; Barbara Kent Lawrence, 2003. Practical advice and information on school maintenance and long-range planning.

Continue reading "Facilities Resource Page" »

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Many of America's leaders, people who have--or are--shaping the arts, academics, business, government, human rights, science, technology, and other public fields got their start in rural communities and schools.

We term these people "World Changers" and we're celebrating them and publicizing their accomplishments here on Rural Matters.

Help us add to this ongoing catalog of rural Americans who have made or are making significant contributions to our public lives. Email us the name, rural community or school, and accomplishments of rural "World Changers" of the 20th and 21st centuries.

If you are having trouble opening the email link above, email us directly at blog@ruraledu.org.

We'll feature new nominations on the front page of Rural Matters and then we'll catalog them here on the Rural World Changers Resource page.

You can also add to, change, or comment on "World Changers" nominations already posted. If you'd like, we'll credit you for your nomination.

Nominate a rural "World Changer."

SOME OF THE RURAL AMERICANS WHO CHANGE THE WORLD

DOUG BURGUM is chairman of Microsoft Business Solutions, one of Microsfot Corporations seven core business centers. Burgum is a native of Arthur, North Dakota, population 400. He attended North Dakota State University and earned his MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. At Microsoft, Burgum reports to Jeff Raikes, president of the Microsoft Business Division.

DICK CAVETT, Gibbon, Nebraska. Cavett hosted a number of television and occasionally radio talk programs called "The Dick Cavett Show" on several networks. The shows began in the 1960s and continue to the present.

JAMES FERGASUN inventor, Wakenda, Missouri. Fergason is recognized throughout the world as a pioneer of modern liquid crystal technology. Starting in November of 1957 when he saw his first liquid crystal, he has continued to conduct research leading to many applications as well as a better understanding of this state of matter.

Throughout his distinguished career, Dr. Fergason developed over 150 patents on liquid crystal technology, leading to scientific advancements that improved the lives of millions of individuals. His research resulted in the introduction of many new products that leveraged liquid crystal technology including optical medical and safety devices, quartz watches, LCD displays, and much more.

JAY W. FORRESTER is a pioneer American computer engineer and systems theorist. He was born 14 July 1918, on a cattle ranch in Climax, Nebraska, twenty miles from the nearest town of Anselmo. The ranch had been homesteaded by his parents, Duke and Ethel Forrester.

Forrester was educated at MIT in electrical engineering, where he spent his entire career. During the 1940s and early 50s, he did research in electrical and computer engineering, heading the Whirlwind project and developing the "Multi-coordinate digitally information storage device" (coincident-current system), the forerunner of today's RAM. He is believed to have created the first animation in the history of computer graphics, a "jumping ball" on an oscilloscope.

AUTHERINE LUCY FOSTER was the first African American student to attend the University of Alabama. She was born and went to school through junior high in Shiloh, Alabama. She was admitted to Graduate School at the University in 1952, but the University repealed her admissionwhen it discovered that she was African American. She approached the NAACP, which filed a lawsuit under the leadership of Thurgood Marshall. In 1955 the NAACP secured a court order restraining the University from rejecting applicant students on the basis of race. In February of 1956 (seven years before Governor George Wallace made his infamous "stand in the school house door" to block James Hood and Vivian Malone from entering), Autherine Lucy began attending classes at the University as angry white mobs became increasingly violent. After three days the University suspended her "for her own safety" and then expelled her. In 1980 the University overturned the expulsion and in1992, Autherine Lucy Foster earned a Masters in Elementary Education. She is widely recognized for her courage in pioneering the desegregation of public universities in the south in what is widely considered to be one of the first tests of the Brown decision.

LORENZO DOW FULLER, JR. starred in 1947 in a 15-minute variety program on NBC, becoming the first African American to host a national television show. He also shaped early television as a special material writer and musical director. Fuller grew up in Stockton, Kansas.

CORETTA SCOTT KING, civil and human rights activist, namesake of the Coretta Scott King Book Award of the American Library Association, and wife of Martin Luther King, Jr. She was born in Heiberger, Alabama in Perry County, where she attended school through junior high. She went to high school at Lincoln Academy in Marion, also in Perry County, and earned degrees from Antioch College and New England Conservatory of Music. Coretta Scott King established the King Center, promoted non-violence and worked for human and civil rights in South Africa and across the globe, and worked to establish Martin Luther King Day as a national holiday.

CLAUDE PEPPER represented Florida for 61 years in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, serving from 1936 to 1950 in the Senate and from 1962 to 1989 in the House. He chaired the House Select Committee on Aging and is most widely remembered for his advocacy work for the elderly. Claude Pepper was born in Dudleyville, Alabama in Tallapoosa County and attended school in Camp Hill, also in Tallapoosa County.

JEFF RAIKES, President, Microsoft Business Division. Raikes was born in Ashland, Nebraska. His brother, Ron Raikes, runs the family farm there and serves as Chair of the Nebraska legislature’s education committee.

BYRON WHITE, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, 1962 to 1993. He graduated from Wellington High School in Colorado and attended the University of Colorado on a scholarship, where he graduated first in his class in 1938. He played professional football in 1938 with the Pittsburgh Pirates (now Steelers) and in 1954 he was named to the National Football Hall of Fame. White organized the Colorado presidential campaign for John F. Kennedy, who appointed White deputy attorney general in 1961 and selected White for a position on the Supreme Court a year later. Byron White was nominated as a Golden Egg by Joseph Skerjanec, Principal, Fleming School, Fleming, Colorado. You can read the full post as submitted by Skerjanec here.

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