The History of Elizabeth City-Pasquotank County Schools Since 1945

Keeley Boyer

Elizabeth City is a small town that contains many schools. It has seven elementary schools, two middle schools, and a high school, but it was not always like this. In 1945 there were only neighborhood schools. There were no buses so students walked to and from school. There were no cafeterias so students had to go home to eat lunch (Huston).

Audrey Huston went to school during the forties and graduated from Elizabeth City High School in 1946. Her class was the last class ever to graduate from high school in the eleventh grade. In 1947, the twelfth grade was added. There were also no kindergarten classes then. North Carolina schools began experimenting with the kindergarten curriculum in the early 50’s (Huston).

In the 1940’s the focus was on employment instead of college. In the 1950’s the number of students attending public schools increased steadily. Improvements and repairs to aging facilities were made and the need for the up-to-date instructional methods resulted in employment growth (White).

Hattie Harney was the only city elementary school and S.L. Sheep and ECHS were the only city schools. P.W. Moore and Pasquotank were at this time black schools (Huston).

In 1957 the launching of Sputnik caused ramifications to even Elizabeth City-Pasquotank Schools. The communist scare saw money for more science and math classrooms and teachers. In the race against the Russians we had to be number one. Technology was just getting started. The influx of televisions gave people more leisure time. In the school everything was based on standards, norming, and IQ tests (Atkinson 153).

In the 1960’s, with Brown vs. the Board of Education, even Elizabeth City Schools saw integration. In 1965 Headstart was started. And continues today. The 1960’s were a time of experimentation in the classroom. It was also a time of great fear for students who felt threatened by annihilation with a nuclear attack from the Russians.

Judy Boyer, then attending the Elizabeth City Schools, namely SL Sheep, remembers clearly the bomb drills of that era.

We used to be sent home by the sound of the 4 o’clock siren. It would bellow long and loud and we would all quietly walk home. We were terrified that we would be bombed by the Russians at any moment. My grandfather had all kinds of instructions on Fallout shelters, how to build the, where to go to them in Elizabeth City. There were signs around the town pointing the way to the nearest bomb shelters. It never occurred to us, or at least to me, NOT to go right home when the alarms sounded. It was too frightening. We were having the Cuban Missile Crisis right in our backyard. I don’t know if we ever really got over that fear or not, but we learned to live with it. The 60’s were a wonderful-horrible time to live in. Who would want to go back to my history teacher’s classroom the November day in 1962? We were all crying with the teacher over JFK’s assassination. We were sent home. I don’t remember having to make the day up either. There were no such things as teacher workdays to do so. Who would want to relive the death of Martin Luther King or Bobby Kennedy? It was just a decade of sadness and anger and trying to find ourselves in what seemed to be an upside down world. It did not require a crisis team. The helplessness was discussed with parents or not at all.

Boyer remembers her high school days also.

I don’t ever remember being asked what I thought about any issue, event or topic while I was in school. I also don’t remember being angry about it either. We talked to each other outside of class about what we thought. The teachers taught us the subject matter, and we had some very good teachers and we had those that were boring. We “covered” the material, got tested on it and for the most part learned what was expected of us. We had 6 period days; we took courses like English, science, math and history. The electives were simple ones like typing, home economics (which only girls took), or PE assistant. There were no higher-level courses or AP anything. Chemistry was the closest thing to a higher-level course. The math may have gone one level past Algebra II. Students earned either an academic or a vocational diploma. I have no idea how many out of my class of 155 went to college, but I am sure that it wasn’t that many. We were on the cusp of the feminist movement and the full-out hippie movement, so most girls got a job or got married. The teachers did not call on us at home; they were too far above us for that. We would have been amazed and probably appalled if a teacher came to our house or called our home. We had too much respect for teachers to think they would bother with such menial tasks. In this class of 155, perhaps 5 students were black. They were accepted as far as I could tell, but I also know that I never asked them either. I do know that they were not shunned by anyone that I can remember. They were included in the senior show at the end of the year, and one younger athlete, Lindsay Riddick, was stared at by all of the girls. Once we all crowded in the gym lobby to look through the gym windows on the door to see him play basketball. He was a fine young man and athlete and when he went to Northeastern the next year; he was All-State. However, I do not recall ever getting an opinion from any of these students on how they felt in an almost all-white high school. We never invited them to our parties or to our hangouts after school. I don’t know whether it just never occurred to us or whether we were just jerks. I am sure that they were hand picked from PW Moore to attend Elizabeth City High School. We were integrated on the outside, but not quite on the inside.

If any student got in trouble then it was taken care of immediately down in the basement. The basement was where all of the band equipment was stored and all of the misfits were kept out of everyone’s way. The crippled, dumb, deformed were kept down in those dark halls. No one that was crippled ever was in any of my classes. I used to wonder what ever happened to Jo Jo who had polio and wore braces on his legs. He was in the basement rooms when I would walk by to go to bank, as was Clyde who wasn’t successful in the main classes. He delivered papers all of his life in Elizabeth City. I wonder if he learned that drive to keep busy and be productive down in that basement. It was here that you received your paddling or after-school punishment. We did have corporal punishment and I can’t see where it has harmed anyone. We did not have air-conditioning, but we went to school anyway, sweated and learned the best we could, muddled through as best we could. The best place to go to get cool air was the cafeteria with all of the fans. This was the place where you got nice juicy breast meat if they liked you or the “parson’s nose” if they didn’t. There was only one line in the cafeteria; there was no choice. You ate what they served or you brought your lunch from home. No chicken sandwiches, pizza, French fries, salad, taco salad, chips, etc…etc…it was the real lunches that had a meat, vegetable, Rolland milk. Take it or leave it!

We even had summer school way back then. If you failed during the year you went to summer school. My brother who always bit off his nose to spite his face had to go one summer because he hated the English teacher. He would not study at all for her. He would place a tape recording of a story or whatever under his pillow and think that he would somehow learn it in his sleep. I think this is a common myth among high school students even today. Anyway, hence his summer school. But I do not think that he had to pay to go to summer school. With the draft looming on the horizon, the deaths of so many great Americans, the taking of the Pueblo, I wonder how any of us could concentrate, but we did. We devoured books and newspapers, while waiting for our dates to call or crying because of a zit. All around us history was shaping and we couldn’t see it.

Whether our schools prepared us for the real world or not is questionable. Those who focused in the vocational track went on to get good jobs in those fields. I have friends who never completed college and own their own business today. The guys who survived Vietnam had the GI Bill to come home to or a vocation that they could make into a success. The girls either married the guys before they shipped out to Vietnam or went to a college. Most girls headed into the teaching field, that being one of the only choices girls had in the late 60’s.

I guess we had the traditional education of the 60’s. We had core courses but nothing that is offered in today’s schools. We were taught mostly by lecture, note taking and testing with pen and paper. We did have the SAT to take which was used to determine whether we were to go to college or not, but it was certainly not a focus for any of us and was not taught in the curriculum of the schools. I went to kindergarten only because I went to school in Florida and they were experimenting with the concept. None of my classmates in North Carolina had gone, and those who couldn’t read well in high school or anywhere else got along with this handicap as best they could since there were no programs like Chapter 1 or anything else. We got the education that was offered, and we didn’t do so badly with what we got.

According to Charles White, the process of merging the Elizabeth City schools and Pasquotank County schools was started in 1965 as both units grapple with the need to improve and expand the school facilities, and the need to comply with Title 4 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. On October 18, 1965, joint meetings involving the Elizabeth City Board of Education and members of the Pasquotank County Board centered on the passage of the November 2, 1965, bond referendum. At the request of city board, Superintendent Charles Weaver prepared a paper titled “School Planning” and presented this paper to board members on December 20, 1965. The paper proposed a single countywide comprehensive 10-12 high school. This high school would merge all segregated schools. At the time of the merger the following schools were governed by the city board:

Elizabeth City High School (7-12)

P.W. Moore High School (7-12) – Black Population

JC Sawyer Elementary (1-3)

HL Trigg Elementary (1-6) – Black Population

Sheep Harney Elementary (1-6)

Annie E. Jones Elementary (1-6) – Black Population

The total ADM (Attendance Daily Membership) population of students governed by the city board was 3,625. At the time of the merger the following schools were governed by the county board:

Central High School (1-12)

Weeksville Elementary (1-6)

Pasquotank Elementary (1-6) – Black Population

It should be noted that Newland Elementary was officially closed in 1966 and its students consolidated on the campus of Central High School. The total ADM population for students attending schools governed by the county board was 2,531.

The first official face-to-face meeting of the two boards occurred at COA on March 3, 1966. Four key areas were discussed: The Legislative Act, selection of a new site for the high school, selection of an architect of the high school, and pupil assignment.

While there were minor adjustments made to the Legislative Act, the major point of discussion centered on board elections. The original act called for four members of the board to represent the county. In mid February, spurred by lack of action on the part of the county board in offering its endorsement of a Legislative Act for the possible merger of the two districts, the city board approved a resolution that changed the representation to reflect today’s board makeup of three members from the city, three from the county and one to serve at large. The first elected officials were elected in December 1968. The first meeting of the new board took place at the Holiday Inn. They were as follows:

W.F. Thompson

Dr. William Spence

Dr. William Thomas

Ray S. Jones, Jr.

T.L. McDaniel

Garland Harris

Norman Hopkins

W.F. Thompson was elected to serve as the first board chairman. Dr. William Thomas was elected as the first Vice Chairman. Charles H. Weaver, who served as city Superintendent, was named the first Superintendent of the merged system. Franklin Britt, who served as county Superintendent, was named associate Superintendent. That board was officially known as the Elizabeth City-Pasquotank Board of Education.

With the consolidation of the Elizabeth City School districts, the attention focused on how best to meet the instructional needs of a district that numbered more than 6200 students. As the district’s structures continued to age, staff efforts continued to overcome low per pupil funding and a troubling dropout rate. By the mid 70’s the district joined with others across the state and nation in making available kindergarten classes (White).

The 70’s saw the first merged high school, Northeastern High School. Its mascot was the eagle and its first principal was “Red” Davenport. The assistant principal was Andrew Williams.

The 70’s across the nation saw the Civil Right’s Movement continue, desegregation, busing, the end of Vietnam, the abolishment of the draft, Kent State, Watergate (Boyer). Elizabeth City Schools saw open education with open classrooms like those at JC Sawyer. When Northeastern High School opened its doors in the fall of 1969, 1200 students walked in the door. Within the school system it was back to basics with ETT (Effective Teacher Training). This was a seven-step process fro training teachers. There was a seven-point lesson plan with objectives, summaries and closures. Although this was effective for new teachers, it was tedious for the veterans; it left little room for creativity. Many teachers resented being evaluated through this process (Williams). Close to this reform was the Madalyn Hunter plan shown on videotapes to elementary schools. Francine Sanders, an elementary teacher, has this to say about this plan:

You had to state the objective and it must be on the board. You had the anticipatory set, which gets the children involved and sets the stage for learning. Then, we had the teacher guided practice and then the independent practice. You also had to have closure each day which was to ask the students to tell you what they had learned that day. It works better with math and science classes that are sequential and build on each other from one day to the next, but it does not work with English classes or lab classes. It was one way to teach, but it was not the only way to teach. I was glad when the administrators decided that more creativity was needed in the classrooms because it freed teachers to do what they do best – teach from the heart.

In the 80’s school reform across North Carolina was in full swing. Perhaps the most significant aspect of Pasquotank’s public education over the 70’s and into the 80’s was the decline in the student enrollment. Beginning in 1970 the district’s student population steadily dropped from just over 6300 students to a bottoming out figure of 5,093 in 1985 (White). But the school population did grow, and the facilities needed to be improved. When the ninth grade moved to the Northeastern campus in 1988, something had to be done to help the overcrowded conditions. Over the past decade, much community attention has been focused on improving facilities as one element to improving instruction as well as dealing with a growing student population. While construction was in progress on a classroom addition at Northeastern High School, a fire leveled the old Hattie Harney structure on the Sheep-Harney campus. Within months condemnation of the old portion of the P.W. Moore campus laid open the need for a substantial infusion of construction money to bring the district’s facilities up to an acceptable standard (White).

In the Elizabeth City School System teaching approaches like padeia (a basic seminar approach to teaching), cooperative learning, and whole languages spread across the system. Mrs. Wilma Flood, a veteran teacher of the Elizabeth City-Pasquotank Schools, gives her views on the ever-changing approaches in the school system from 1945 to 1988, when she retired. Flood taught in the Elizabeth City-Pasquotank School System for thirty-eight years and remembers when the twelfth grade was added. In her early years of teaching, Mrs. Flood remembers when there was no guidance office. The Principal was all there was. There were no secretaries or anyone to help the principal out. He was his own administration. Flood also remembers some things about the dress code. The majorettes didn’t come to school in their uniforms. She says that mostly everyone dressed in their expected decorum until around the 70’s. She says that even then, the teachers seemed to be less careful about what they wore. Now, she states the teachers have gone back to a more professional dress code. Flood also remembers that no woman was pregnant and went to school. It just didn’t happen. If you were pregnant and the word got out, then you were immediately dismissed from school. Flood stated that she does think that the policy of allowing students to stay in school even if pregnant is a better policy today. “That’s where students belong, in school.” Mrs. Flood also said that no matter what the age of the student or what era or what new program is implemented in the school system the important things bout teaching and learning is that students must get the basics before they can go on and be successful.

The 90’s brought even more school reform to the Elizabeth-City Pasquotank School System. On the cutting edge, the Elizabeth City Schools became the pilot site for the outcome-based education reform movement and the ABC School Reform. The construction of a completely new elementary school (Northside) in 1989, the renovation and construction on the Central campus, and the campaign to make every campus in the district air-conditioned bridged the 90’s to the present. At this time, the district is involved in its most ambitious construction program in history, spending more than $21 million on six campuses. In all, just over $38 million has been spent by the county to improve facilities (White).

While the structures that house public education are important, the instruction and learning that take place inside is more important. Over the past decade, the district has embraced new assignments with a willingness and energy that demonstrates a true desire to help students succeed. Through implementation of such state-mandated programs as the Basic Education Plan, Senate Bill 2 and School Reform, the staff has shown great diligence and creativity in meeting new challenges (White).

The district has assumed a leadership role across the state, piloting such programs as Outcome Based Education (White). As reported in the The Daily Advance January 4, 1993, on the pilot program of OBE,

Early last year, Elizabeth City-Pasquotank Public Schools received one of six grants statewide to develop and implement an Outcome-Based Education, or OBE. Dr. Peel explained the program as ‘an attempt to realign schooling with real world needs. And that’s done through a set of beliefs that are very different, I think, from how we have gone about educating children and schooling in the past. Children can learn and succeed, but not at the same rate. Society is telling us that we no longer have jobs for uneducated people and that a high school education is a very minimal standard for being able to successfully compete. The practice of pushing children into society prior to high school completion has to change…It’s not so much what you know but what you are able to do…We need to teach children how to use information and how to access information…We need to expect and only accept quality work from out students.

The OBE pilot kicked off lots of consultants coming to the school system to train teachers on how to get the best results, or the quality work from students. One such group was the High Success Network from Oregon led by Barbara Benson. According to Benson, OBE is “deciding what is really important for kids, then making it happen.” Benson also states that OBE has three beliefs: “All students can learn, success breeds success and we control the conditions for success.” She was a dynamic speaker and introduced the high school teachers to the concept of the senior graduation by exhibition project. This initial consultation has resulted in the board adopting a senior project standard in 1996 (Boyer).

Another major movement in the state is the standards and accountability commission. Jim Williams, a member of the state commission under the direction of Sam Houston and a teacher at Northeastern, explains this movement:

We are trying to convince the state that standardized tests are not the only means to assess a student. Teachers from all across the state for the past two years have been meeting in Raleigh to design tasks that can be used as assessment tools in place of or combined with the state’s standardized tests. There are many ways to assess a student’s performance in school and we believe that these tasks which will be put on- line for easy access for all teachers is the way to do this. Designing a task with rubrics is a very difficult job, but it is worth it if the state will allow this type of authentic assessment.

The ABC’s is another pilot program that the school system has been involved with beginning with the 1995-1996 school year. The first year all of the schools were involved, but in 1997 the state pulled the high schools out until better guidelines could be established. The high schools were put back in the pilot program which holds teachers, students, principals and superintendents accountable for the “longitudinal” growth of the same group of students (Peel).

Dr. Joseph Peel, Superintendent of Elizabeth City Pasquotank Schools since 1992, has been the leader in the Elizabeth City-Pasquotank County school system’s reform. He has been in education since 1967 and states, “School changes as the state changes.” The ABC’s is another change that the state wants to see across the state and this system has decided to be a part of it from the very beginning. This is the first time that the state holds individual schools accountable for the students’ growth. The ABC’s test the 3^rd, 6^th and 8^th graders on the end-of-grade test. As of 1997, the high schools have the new 10^th grade test. Peel says that the promotion standards have also been raised. Students have to have a greater awareness of the working world. The schools are going from the industrial age to the information age. Now students have to be able to process information, do group work and problem-solve. They also have to get through higher levels of math. Schools have to be more like the real world and make students apply their knowledge (Peel).

The educational system of Elizabeth City-Pasquotank County has changed drastically from that of the 1940’s. No longer are students told what to think and how to do things. Now students are being asked what they think and want out of their education and are given hands-on work in school. The students are pushed more now than ever before to go to college, whereas in the past they were prompted to go into the work force right after high school. The high schools are still preparing students to go to work through the Job Ready Program. The Information Age is approaching quickly and the schools are going at it head on. With the help of computers and more business classes, the students are being taught all of the necessary tools that they will need for the future. The students are now able to access information and learn how to do things on their own terms. The Elizabeth City-Pasquotank Schools are preparing its students for college and the work force that they will be in soon after high school.