Groveton Elementary School (1933-1972) (Site)

Here follows an excerpt about the school's history as prepared and published by the Fairfax County Public School System on the school's website:

By 1933, the Groveton community had grown to such an extent that the two-room school was significantly overcrowded. In April of that year, the Fairfax County School Board appointed a committee to search for a site for a new elementary school in the area. The committee selected a tract of land owned by W. Franklin Pierce Reid, Chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, and purchased the property for $400. This property was located on Memorial Street, catty corner to the Groveton School’s playground.

Design and Construction
Groveton Elementary School was designed with six classrooms and an auditorium. On June 28, 1933, the School Board awarded the construction contract for the school to Mr. J. H. Bennett of Richmond, Virginia, for $22,174. Work on the heating, plumbing, and electrical systems was contracted out separately. Mr. W. Wade Richardson of Marshall, Virginia, was awarded the contract for the heating and plumbing systems for $3,873, and the contract for the electrical work was awarded to George Shaw for $675. The contractors were given 120 days to complete the school, a very tight timeline. Construction was partially paid for with a $21,000 loan from the Literary Fund of the State Board of Education of Virginia.

Opening Day
For white Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) students, the 1933-34 school year began on Thursday, September 14, 1933. Because the two-room Groveton School was already filled to capacity, many Groveton students were bused to temporary facilities such as the old Cameron Valley one-room schoolhouse, and the two-room Snowden School near Collingwood. FCPS also rented a room in the Hosley Chapel south of Mount Vernon for $8.00 per month for classroom use.

Through the efforts of the Groveton Mothers Club, a Parent Teachers Association (PTA) was formed for Groveton Elementary School on September 29, 1933. The first PTA President was Garfield Duvall. Groveton Elementary School opened its doors to students for the first time on December 4, 1933, while contractors were still putting the finishing touches on the building. Approximately 250 children in grades 1-7 were enrolled in Groveton at that time. Children in the primary grades were housed on the first floor of the building, close to the bathrooms and drinking fountain. The first Student Council Association (SCA) was formed in February 1934, with seventh grader Wilifred Walker as president. In the spring, the seventh grade class published the first school newspaper called the Peek-a-Boo. Other student activities at Groveton Elementary School included the Glee Club, a 4-H club, and a PTA-sponsored Boy Scout troop.

The First Teachers
Groveton Elementary School opened with seven teachers: Elizabeth R. Shackleton (Grade 1), Ruby Smith (Grade 2), Elma Besley (Grade 3), Catherine Beane (Grade 4), Frances E. Nevitt (Grade 5), Ethel G. Simms (Grade 6), and James E. Bauserman (Grade 7). Mr. Bauserman was also the school's principal. In February 1934, the School Board authorized the transfer of Mrs. Roche M. Padgett, and her class of fourth and fifth graders, from the two-room Woodlawn School to Groveton for the remainder of the year.

Segregated Education
Did you know that from 1870 until the early 1960s, public schools in Fairfax County were segregated by race? The schools at Groveton, including the new elementary school, were built to serve white children from the surrounding community. In 1933, African-American children living in the vicinity of Groveton attended the Spring Bank School. Located at the intersection of Quander Road and Route 1, Spring Bank was a one-room schoolhouse built in 1890.

The Spring Bank School, 1942. Spring Bank was the last one-room school in operation in Fairfax County. The last one-room school for white children, the Sydenstricker School near Burke, ceased operation in 1939.
After the Spring Bank School closed in 1948, the children were bused to the Gum Springs School located on Fordson Road in the Gum Springs community.

The Gum Springs School, 1942. This two-room school was later expanded to three rooms. It was replaced in 1953 by Drew-Smith Elementary School.

The Great Depression
Groveton Elementary School opened when the United States was in the midst of the Great Depression, a severe world-wide economic downturn. By 1933, approximately one-fourth of Americans were unemployed. This led to extreme poverty, homelessness, and malnutrition for many families. On March 4, 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt began his first term as President of the United States. President Roosevelt quickly instituted several programs to help stabilize the economy and combat unemployment. At the same time in Fairfax County, the public school system was in the midst of the consolidation movement. FCPS Superintendent W. T. Woodson’s ambitious consolidation program led to the closure of rural one-room schoolhouses throughout the county, and the construction of new, modern schools, such as Groveton Elementary. Superintendent Woodson and the School Board were keenly aware of the economic recovery programs being instituted nationally, and, during the winter of 1934, Woodson secured an agreement with the Civil Works Administration (CWA) to provide grading and landscaping for the school grounds.

Groveton Elementary School, 1942. The federal CWA program abruptly ended in March 1934, before the work at Groveton had been completed, so Groveton's PTA stepped in and completed the school's landscaping.

Free Meals
During the 1930s, schools in Fairfax County did not have cafeterias and children brought their lunches from home. The Great Depression caused tremendous financial hardship in Fairfax County, leaving many families unable to provide lunches for their children. Through the Federal Emergency Relief Act (FERA), funding was made available to provide school lunches to impoverished children in Fairfax County. During the spring of 1935, FERA funding was used to provide nutritious home-cooked meals at lunchtime to children at Groveton, Annandale, Centreville, Floris, Franconia, Franklin Sherman, Herndon, and Lorton Elementary Schools. In the rural one-room schoolhouses, teachers often cooked a large pot of vegetable soup on top of the potbelly stove used to warm the building. The vegetables were donated by area families.

The Challenges of Growth
When the plans for Groveton Elementary School were drawn, it was believed a six-classroom school would be more than large enough to handle the number of children living in the area. However, rapid student population growth quickly led to overcrowding at Groveton, and by 1935 FCPS administrators were already discussing the need to build an addition to the school. From the 1930s all the way into the early 1970s, the old two-room Groveton School was reactivated on multiple occasions to serve as overflow classroom space. The construction of an addition to Franconia Elementary School in 1935, the opening of the new Woodlawn Elementary School in 1938, and the conversion of Lee-Jackson High School to an elementary school in January 1940 relieved overcrowding for brief periods of time.

Lee-Jackson High School opened in the fall of 1926. Even though it was referred to as a high school, the building actually housed students in grades 1-11 into the early 1930s. After Mount Vernon High School opened, Lee-Jackson fully converted into an elementary school.

The War Years
Student population growth in the Groveton area continued unabated as the United States entered World War II. Creative solutions to overcrowding had to be found because there was very little funding for school construction and permanent building materials were not available as a result of the national war effort. One such solution was the construction of temporary wooden school buildings at Groveton and several other school sites. In August 1942, the School Board hired Mr. E. E. Lyons to construct a four-room temporary building at Groveton, the cost of which was funded by a loan from the State Literary Fund.

This four-classroom temporary building at Groveton Elementary School was constructed in 1942. Parents wanted the outside of the building covered with asbestos shingles, but tarpaper was chosen instead because it was more economical. The building remained in use well into the 1950s and was torn down sometime after the opening of Bucknell Elementary School in 1955.

On June 15, 1945, Superintendent Woodson submitted an application to the U.S. War Production Board for permission to build a permanent brick addition to Groveton Elementary School. The addition would consist of two classrooms, a health clinic, and a storage room. Approval was granted two weeks later, and on October 9, 1945 the School Board awarded the construction contract for the addition to Mr. E. E. Lyons at a cost of $30,868. As in the past, the addition was funded by a loan from the State Literary Fund. Construction was delayed by several months because building materials, bricks in particular, were in short supply, so the addition wasn't completed until January 1947.

Beacon Field Airport
Did you know that from the 1920s until 1959 there was an airport located on the present day site of Beacon Hill Mall? The Beacon Field Airport, as it was known, was owned by W. Franklin Pierce Reid, a former Chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. Under the Civilian Pilot Training Program established in 1938, the Ashburn Flying Service at Beacon Field Airport trained hundreds of pilots for military service to support the war effort. After the war, the Lehman / Reid Flying School at Beacon Field trained veterans under the G.I. Bill.

On Friday, April 2, 1943, an airplane bound for Beacon Field Airport crashed on the grounds at Groveton Elementary School. The accident happened shortly after recess ended and no children were harmed. Superintendent Woodson spoke with airport officials, requesting that all possible caution be exercised in the future to ensure such an accident never occurred again. A second accident occurred in the fall of 1948, when an airplane crashed into the side of a home adjacent to Groveton Elementary School, approximately 150 feet away from the school grounds. Groveton's PTA, with support from the School Board, tried unsuccessfully for several years to have the airport moved or closed. Learn more about the history of Beacon Field Airport here.

The Baby Boom Begins
In June 1945, there were approximately 8,235 students enrolled in Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) at 42 schools. By December 1959, that number would climb to 54,100 students at 84 schools. FCPS administrators had been projecting record enrollment growth for several years, but were unprepared when actual growth far exceeded their expectations.

A few more than 580 pupils are attending classes in three buildings at Groveton, an increase of more than 80 over last week's enrollment.
~ The Sunday Star, September 28, 1947

In 1948, five additional temporary classrooms were added to Groveton Elementary School in the form of Quonset huts. Quonset huts were acquired from World War II military surplus suppliers and were used to combat overcrowding at schools throughout Fairfax County.

Even with all these temporary facilities outside the main Groveton building in use, the school still remained overcrowded. In the late 1940s, it became necessary to partition the auditorium in half to create two classrooms. A third class was held on the auditorium's stage. Additionally, FCPS rented the recreation room at Groveton Episcopal Chapel for classroom use, and some first and second grade classes attended school on half-day shifts. In December 1949, a literary loan in the amount of $131,000 was approved to build a second addition to Groveton Elementary School, but the State Board of Education was unable to release the money to FCPS immediately because it was short on funding.

All the 663 children at Groveton Elementary School use the toilet facilities in the main school, planned to accommodate 210. The extra buildings are all heated by coal stoves. "The work need not suffer seriously because the environment is primitive," Principal Emmett M. Day declared. "Overcrowding, of course, cannot be conquered, and it is bound to affect us all. Yet our school has the highest record of the five schools that feed into the nearby high school. My staff is wonderful and the parents are thoughtful, considerate and helpful."
~ The Washington Post, May 28, 1950

Teacher Salaries
During the 1950-51 school year, Groveton Elementary School had 20 teachers. The teachers were hired on ten-month contracts, and their salaries ranged between $2,300 and $3,600 for the year depended on their level of education, type of certification, and years of experience. Principal Emmett Milton Day was employed on a 12-month contract at a salary of $5,340 for the year. The average class size at Groveton during the 1951-52 school year was 38 students, the highest in the county at that time.

The 1950s
The plans for Groveton Elementary School's second addition were prepared in 1950 by the architecture firm of Dixon and Norman. The addition consisted of five classrooms, a cafeteria, kitchen, library, boiler room, a teachers' lounge, and a book storage room. In May 1951, the School Board awarded the construction contract for the addition to Eugene Simpson and Brother, Inc., at a cost of $177,865. The cafeteria was completed in the fall of 1951, and, in May 1952, the remaining rooms were certified by the School Board as complete. Groveton Elementary School's first librarian was Miss Anna C. Bugg. In the early 1950s, elementary school librarians were assigned to more than one school at a time. Miss Bugg worked part of the week at Groveton and part of the week at Mount Eagle Elementary School.

During the 1950s, enrollment at Groveton Elementary School fluctuated as new schools opened nearby, but overcrowding continued to be a major problem throughout the decade. The annexation of Lee-Jackson Elementary School by the City of Alexandria in 1952 was of particular concern to Groveton residents as it exacerbated overcrowding at the few area schools in operation at that time.

During the late 1940s and early 1950s, FCPS built several elementary schools in the vicinity of Groveton to relieve overcrowding: Mount Eagle and Hollin Hall (1949), Belle View (apartment annex in 1950, building in 1952), Cameron (1953), Bucknell, Hollin Hills, and Virginia Hills (1955).

In November 1954, the Groveton PTA requested that the tarpaper-covered temporary building be torn down upon completion of Bucknell Elementary School, provided that this would mean that only the first graders at Groveton would have to remain on half-day shifts. First graders at Groveton remained on half-day shifts through at least the 1957-58 school year. It is unclear when the tarpaper building and Quonset huts were removed, but the old two-room Groveton School remained in use into the early 1970s.

When we were in elementary school, we were given somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 cents to go to Groveton Elementary School on Saturday afternoons. That would get you admission to a movie, a bag of popcorn, and a coke. We would watch movies like Blondie and Dagwood, Abbott and Costello, Tarzan, The Bowery Boys, or an occasional thriller like Dracula. 35 cents was a small price to pay to get the kids out of the house and enjoy the peace and quiet.
~ Kim Arceneaux, Groveton Alumna

The 1960s
The decade of the 1960s brought several major changes to Groveton Elementary School. In September 1960, FCPS opened its first intermediate schools. Prior to this time, elementary schools in Fairfax County educated children in grades one through seven. The seventh grade children in the Groveton attendance area were assigned to Bryant Intermediate School on Quander Road.

In the early 1960s, FCPS began a slow process of desegregation. Prior to this time, African-American children living near Groveton were assigned to the "colored" schools at Spring Bank or Gum Springs. Spring Bank closed in 1948, and Gum Springs in 1953, after which the children were assigned to Drew-Smith Elementary School located on Fordson Road in the Gum Springs community.

All public schools in Fairfax County racially integrated at the end of the 1965-66 school year, marking the beginnings of the ethnically and culturally diverse Groveton school community we cherish today. Also in the 1960s, FCPS offered its first kindergarten classes. A kindergarten program was piloted in several schools in 1967, and in 1968 Groveton opened its doors to the five-year-olds of the community.

A New Building
By the late 1960s, Groveton Elementary School was beginning to show its age. The size of the school lot prohibited expansion of the building, and FCPS administrators felt the school was completely outdated and was no longer adequate to support the needs of the community. A report to the School Board in January 1971 indicated that 444 children were enrolled at Groveton Elementary School. 360 of these children were housed in the brick building, and the others were housed in a trailer and in the old two-room Groveton School. The report also indicated that the architectural plans for a new 990-pupil capacity Groveton Elementary School were complete.

On March 25, 1971, the School Board awarded the construction contract for the new school to Burroughs and Preston, Inc., at a cost of $1.38 million. The new building was completed in time for the opening of schools on September 5, 1972. During the 1971-72 school year, on what would be the last day of school in the "old" Groveton Elementary School, students marched down Groveton Street to the new building and took pictures in front of their new school.

The Principals
During the time when Groveton Elementary School operated out of the building on Memorial Street, the school had eleven principals: James E. Bauserman (1933-36), Melvin Bowman Landes (1936-40), Frances Mitchell (1940-42), Helen M. Haertel (1942-43), Emmett Milton Day (1943-55), Warren Joseph Pace (1955-56), William E. Campbell (1956-57), Harriet G. Trites (1957-1964), Merlin Gil Meadows (1964-66), Alan R. Sterner (1966-March 1968), and William E. Zepka (March 1968-86). We have been able to locate photographs for six of these principals.

Area I Office
After Groveton Elementary School moved to Harrison Lane, the 1933 building was converted into the FCPS Area I Administrative Office. The building was also used to house maintenance facilities and mechanics. Conversion of the building to office space was carried out during the spring of 1973, and in May of that year the Area I office staff relocated from Hollin Meadows Elementary School to Groveton. In 1981, the School Board declared the building surplus to school needs and began preparation to move the Area I Office to the old Hollin Hall Elementary School. The 1933 Groveton building was torn down in the early 1990s, and today the site is owned by The Beacon of Groveton apartment complex.