Rural School Consolidation: Most Dade County Districts Reorganized Circa 1951

by James McNary, Articles Editor
Boundaries of the proposed Golden City school district as recommended by the state department of education in 1932. (Graphic by James McNary)
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This is the first of a series of stories examining rural school consolidation and the lingering effects past consolidation had on area schools and communities. This initial story will look at Dade County schools on the eve of reorganization in 1950-51; further stories in the series will also give more details on the school consolidation and later reorganization laws of the early and middle 20th century, as well as glimpse at the school system just prior to the major push for consolidation and reorganization following the Great Depression and World War II.

This series is to by no means be considered exhaustive — only an overview of how events happening many decades ago continue to affect area communities into the present time. Personal perspectives and reader input are welcomed, requested and encouraged.

Dade County Schools Just Prior to Reorganization

In 1950, the schools of Dade County were organized much as they were in 1932, the year the Missouri Department of Education presented its initial recommendations on consolidation. In addition to the common districts, which for the most part were in the rural areas of the county operating one-room schools, there were town districts in Lockwood, South Greenfield and Everton, and the consolidated districts of Arcola C-1, Dadeville C-2, Pennsboro C-3 and Greenfield C-4, which also hosted the segregated “colored” school for all 10-15 resident Black students in the entire county.

All the town and consolidated districts with the exception Pennsboro had been operating high schools until fairly recently, as had the No. 18 Bona common district north of Dadeville, which had hosted a two-year high school organized under the “Job” school act, in which several rural common districts could jointly support a two-year high school employing at least one teacher. Both South Greenfield and Bona had closed their third-class (i.e., two-year) schools circa 1941.

When the School District Reorganization Act of 1947 and the Hawkins School Reorganization Act of 1948 came into effect in the state of Missouri, counties were required to form county school boards composed of elected and appointed members to recommend methods of reorganizing the various common, town, city, and consolidated school districts in the county into more efficient “reorganized” units.

Some members of these county boards were directly elected, some represented school districts, and some represented particular communities; the exact formula varied over time. Once all common districts in a county were reorganized with larger districts, the county boards of education were to dissolve themselves.

Some counties acted faster than others to reorganize. Jasper County, despite being one of the more heavily populated counties in southwest Missouri, retained a number of common districts and one-room schools until the early 1970s, some of the very last common districts to lose their independence.

Reorganization Begins

Other counties, such as Dade, moved to reorganize county schools fairly quickly, in part to avoid county school districts losing territory to out-of-county school systems.

It was about 1949 that a reorganizing district in a neighboring county for the first time annexed territory inside Dade County, when three rural districts (No. 1 Henry, No. 2 Scott and No. 5 Silver Star, which already had some territory in Greene County on its own) on the county boundary near Everton were reorganized with the newly formed Ash Grove R-IV School District in Greene County. Though at that time Ash Grove R-IV did not yet include the Bois D’Arc C-10 district, in reorganizing it also took in some schools northeast of Lawrenceburg, in Lawrence County.

At about the same time the Ash Grove R-IV district was formed, the No. 16 Flint Hill district near Cane Hill chose to reorganize with what became the Stockton R-I district in Cedar County.

Having now lost the territory of four rural common districts to reorganized districts in other counties, the Dade County school board opted to place a plan of reorganization for the entire county on the ballot in early 1951, reorganizing the remaining schools in the county into four proposed districts, Lockwood R-I, taking in the western third of the county centered on Lockwood; Dadeville R-II, centered on Dadeville C-2 and including No. 18 Bona (the Dadeville R-II district would go on to include two Polk County common districts as well); Everton R-III, taking in Everton and the remaining common districts in the southeast portion of the county; and Greenfield R-IV, centered on Greenfield C-4 and including Arcola C-1, Pennsboro C-3, and South Greenfield.

Education Rearranged by Reorganization

While these proposed districts for the most part matched up with the proposed consolidation plan of 1932 recommended by the state, there were a number of changes, particularly in the proposed Lockwood R-I district, which would affect the futures of neighboring communities, especially Golden City.

The western portion of the district, along the Barton County line, had been assigned to Golden City in the 1932 consolidation plan, including districts Nos. 63 (Victory), 64 (Ackley), 65 (Davenport), 68 (Smith), 69 (Pleasant Valley), 75 (Stone), and 78 (Sunshine). Nos. 58 (Fairview) and 61 (Bowman) were also assigned to Golden City in variant proposals. The Barton County school board wouldn’t begin reorganization efforts in earnest for about another decade, depriving Golden City of the opportunity to annex the territory in Dade County more logically feeding into their school system.

Though Dade County voters in each proposed district approved of the four plans as a whole, at the time the state law only took into consideration the overall vote totals, not the desires of the residents of the individual districts being reorganized. This was deliberate on the part of lawmakers, as previous efforts at consolidation had failed due to rural reluctance to give up control of their own school district, however tiny it may have been.

This is why, to this day, there are some students living within spitting distance or even sight of the Golden City school campus, but on the Dade County side of the boundary, attending school in Lockwood.

Also, while taking in territory that logically should have gone to Golden City, the Lockwood district lost territory in Lawrence County to the Miller district that was reorganizing at about the same time. The Red Oak district had operated a two-year Job high school together with surrounding rural districts until about 1942, and after its closure many Red Oak high school students went on to attend Lockwood schools. But with reorganization, the Red Oak district and vicinity were assigned to what became the West Elementary School attendance area of the Miller R-II district (although lost to the school district, a portion of this area is now within the boundaries of the Lockwood Fire Protection District).

The northern portion of the proposed R-I district, between Cedarville and Sylvania, had been assigned to Jerico Springs by the state in the 1932 proposal; however, Jerico Springs had discontinued their high school in 1942 and would soon itself reorganize with Stockton R-I. This included districts Nos. 72 (Banner), 73 (Stony Point), 80 (Paragon), 81 (Rockdale), and 82 (Cedarville).

To placate the residents of the northern portion of the R-I district, Lockwood officials agreed to construct a new grade school in Sylvania for those students - but also began efforts to close it down seemingly before the paint was dried on the facility. The closure of the Sylvania grade school will be the focus of another article on its own.

The closure of the various rural schools in Dade County varied over time and district, due to the nature of how the reorganization was accomplished. The larger facilities of the consolidated districts in Arcola and Pennsboro continued in use as grade schools for several more years after 1951, only under the auspices of the reorganized Greenfield district rather than remaining on their own.

To comment or contribute to this ongoing series, contact Articles Editor James McNary at news@greenfieldvedette.com.