50 years ago: End of an era

GAINESVILLE - Fifty years ago there was a high school in just about every town and small community in Hall County - but that was about to change.

Three new high schools were ready to open - North Hall, East Hall and South Hall (now a middle school) - as part of a massive reorganization of the county school system. There were high schools in such places as Oakwood, Flowery Branch, Lyman Hall, Riverbend and Sardis. Gainesville had its high school, and, since it was the days of segregated schools, there was Fair Street High School for black students.

At that time, most of these schools also housed elementary and what are now called middle school students. As you might expect, it was not a very popular move in some circles - it meant giving up one more sense of community for many people but many others realized it was an idea whose time had come.

"The schools were in need of repair," says Clabus Adams, a Hall County native and a graduate of the old Oakwood High School. "Most had been built on land donated by someone who lived in the area where the school was needed. The buildings were in bad shape...several were destroyed by fire and had to be rebuilt over the years (during the 1940s and 1950s.)"

Adams, commenting during an appearance on Sunday's Northeast Georgia This Week on WDUN NEWS TALK 550 (like AccessNorthGa.com, a division of Jacobs Media Corp.) says another factor in the move to consolidation of the high schools was the curriculum they offered.

"Most of these schools could not offer a well-rounded curriculum that included things like advanced mathematics or foreign languages. I never took an algebra course until I got to college, didn't even know what it was," he chuckled. "Most of the neighborhood schools did not have a science lab."

Adams, who went on to become a career educator, serving as a teacher, principal and in other positions with the Hall County School System, also said "a number of the teachers did not have a four-year college degrees or special education in childhood development. (Fewer) students were going to college because they were unprepared and it was assumed that more students (if they graduated from a high school with a well-rounded curriculum) would attend college and be able compete and graduate from college."

He added there were several studies which found that a high school should have 800-1,000 students in order to offer the kinds of classes that students needed to do well in college. But, none of these high schools could come close to meeting that plateau. The studies also determined that fewer students would drop out of high school if they were able to college-entry courses.

There was also the need, the studies found, to separate the high school students from the elementary- and middle school-age students.

Despite that, Adams, who went on to become a career education at the public school level, says "We (Hall County) had a very good school system. To put a label on (it): neighborhood schools. Most parents wanted and like the neighborhood school concept."

Adams, who also served on the Hall County Board of Education after he retired from the school system, said "at the time (of consolidation of the high schools), most schools were controlled by local people (from the community they served), called trustees. They, recommended teachers and principals."

Adams said these boards of trustees acted as advisory panels to the county school board in a way that planning commissions serve city councils and county commissions by making recommendations on various matters.

"In fact," he said, "for my first principal job, I was recommended by the trustees of the school."

Because of the size of the county, when it came time to position the new high schools, "the schools were located north, south, east," Adams said.

Not only did the creation of North Hall High School, South Hall High School, and East Hall High School bring about a more advanced academic curriculum, it meant a broader spectrum of extracurricular activities for the students.

"Basketball was king at these neighborhood high schools," according to Adams. "We didn't have football teams but you could throw up a couple of goals at each end of a piece of red clay and you had a basketball court."

Adams, now 73, says teams from the schools played each other and did not venture outside the county. He recalls, however, that one time the University of Georgia men's freshman team came to town to play the Oakwood team. They played, he said, in the gymnasium at Chicopee, which was then a mill village. The gym had been built by Chicopee Manufacturing Company for use by those people who live in the village.

"And, we beat them," he recalled, laughing, "by two points."

Adams says the consolidation into three high schools probably was an underlying reason the then-schools superintendent lost his job The school superintendent is now appointed by the school board but at that time it was an elected position and the incumbent lost the first time he ran for re-election after the consolidation. Other than that, Adams said he doesn't recall a lot of controversy and finger-pointing over the plan to close the neighborhood high schools and merge them into the three new schools.

"As I said, many people realized it was time for a change, not because the county population was growing very much, but because the existing schools just did not, could not offer the courses that our kids needed to get ahead in the world, to attend college," Adams said. "There was a growing demand for young people specializing in science. There was, for instances, the space race with the Russians which was just beginning to take shape."

As for the status of the Hall County School System today, Adams says "it seems we are getting back to the neighborhood school concept. Look at all the schools that have sprung up recently and where they are."

Some of the high schools are back in the very communities where the neighborhood schools were located - Flowery Branch High School and Chestatee High School (the Sardis area.)