Albemarle Training School

Albemarle Training School was a segregated school for African American students in Albemarle County, Virginia. It was located north of Charlottesville near what is now the Ivy Creek Reservoir. It was built on the site of the Union Ridge Graded School (founded 1885)[1] after that building burned down in 1893. The school served all grades, and is notable for being the first four-year high school for African American students in Albemarle County.[2] In 1951, its students were transferred to the new Burley High School in Charlottesville, and the facility became an elementary school until closing in 1959.

Curriculum and student body

The school's curriculum changed significantly over time, beginning with practical training in trades and eventually shifting to a more academically oriented high-school curriculum. In 1918, the school planned to open a broom factory in Charlottesville, operating as a satellite program of the school.[3] In 1941, a course in woodworking, taught by W. W. Coles, was added to the curriculum as part of the county's effort to add national defense training courses to the school district.[4]

The school's student body shifted with the demographics of Albemarle County. During the era in which the school operated, the African American population decreased, but a higher percentage of remaining African American children entered high school classrooms.[2] In 1941, a school in Oak Union closed and its prospective students enrolled at the Albemarle Training School.[5]

Administration

The school was led by African American principals and teachers, as was generally the case in segregated schools in the region. The school's first principal was Jesse Scott Sammons (1853-1901).[6] A descendant of the Hemings family of Monticello,[7] he grew up in the free Black community of Union Ridge and had been the first teacher at the one-room Ivy Creek school, and the first principal of the Union Ridge Graded School.[1] John G. Shelton served as Principal in the 1910s;[3] he was also editor of the Charlottesville Messenger, the city's Black newspaper at the time. Mary Carr Greer served as the school's principal from 1931 to 1949, after teaching Domestic Science there for fifteen years.[8] She worked to develop an accredited 4-year curriculum similar to that in white high schools of the period.[9]

References
  1. National Register of Historic Places: Determination of Eligibility Notification for Sammons House and Sammons/Ferguson Cemetery (PDF). 2013.
  2. "[Untitled News Item--Charlottesville, Va. Nov. 19]". Richmond Times-Dispatch. 20 November 1931. p. 14. Retrieved 1 September 2018.
  3. "Broom Factory Added to School". Richmond Times-Dispatch. 8 December 1918. Retrieved 1 September 2018.
  4. "Defense Training Approved". Richmond Times-Dispatch. 22 January 1941. Retrieved 1 September 2018.
  5. "Six Teachers are Elected in Albemarle". Richmond Times-Dispatch. 15 August 1941. Retrieved 1 September 2018.
  6. "Sammons Family Cemetery - Charlottesville". www.centralvirginiahistory.org. Retrieved 2018-09-01.
  7. "Education: The Power of the Mind | Thomas Jefferson's Monticello". www.monticello.org. Retrieved 2018-09-01.
  8. "Albemarle Training School | African American Historic Sites Database". African American Historic Sites Database. Retrieved 2018-09-01.
  9. "Sammons Family Cemetery - Charlottesville". www.centralvirginiahistory.org. Retrieved 2018-09-01.

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