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<br /> NPS Form 10-900-a OMB Approval No.1024-0018
<br /> (8-86)
<br /> United States Department of the Interior
<br /> National Park Service
<br /> National Register of Historic Places
<br /> Continuation Sheet
<br /> Section number 8 Page 9 Ridge Road School
<br /> Orange County, NC
<br /> orchestrated building upgrades. Newbold regularly traveled throughout the state to promote Black
<br /> education.13
<br /> North Carolina strengthened compulsory school attendance legislation in 1919, resulting in escalated
<br /> enrollment that could not be contained on existing campuses. The Department of Public Instruction's
<br /> 1921 inventory of 7,467 public schools revealed that 3,698 one-room and 2,460 two-room schools served
<br /> the state's children. The vast majority of those buildings were frame, but eighty-one log and 248 brick
<br /> structures remained in use. Most housed first through seventh grades; only seventy of one hundred
<br /> counties, including Orange, operated at least one rural high school.14 County school superintendents and
<br /> boards of education subsequently oversaw widespread building enhancements, new school construction,
<br /> and a consequent reduction in the total number of campuses and school districts. Statewide road
<br /> improvements facilitated school consolidation by allowing for more efficient busing.
<br /> School curriculums changed in 1920 after the Department of Public Instruction implemented academic
<br /> benchmarks and high school ratings. The school system mandated that institutions interested in standard
<br /> high school classification offer seventh-through eleventh-grade courses during school sessions of at least
<br /> 160 days, possess a minimum of three certified teachers and forty-five pupils in average daily attendance,
<br /> and execute a department-approved study program utilizing appropriate materials. To improve deficient
<br /> facilities and instructor caliber,North Carolina disbursed eighteen million dollars in operational funds to
<br /> public African American elementary and high schools, summer programs, normal schools, and colleges
<br /> between 1921 and 1925. Of that amount, teacher salaries totaled around ten million dollars, new
<br /> buildings and equipment five million dollars, and teacher training and higher education almost three
<br /> million dollars. By the end of the 1920-1921 term, 116 public high schools for white students had
<br /> attained accreditation. In 1924, the state certified twenty-one Black campuses: four normal, three rural,
<br /> and fourteen urban schools. At the close of the 1929-1930 academic year, the Department of Public
<br /> Instruction enumerated sixty white and sixty-eight black accredited high schools. 5
<br /> Orange County's public educational system manifested statewide trends as the OCBE consolidated
<br /> schools and initiated campus improvement projects. As school administrators sought to construct new
<br /> buildings, they solicited funding from philanthropic concerns, the state, and community members. The
<br /> Rosenwald Fund, Slater Fund, and General Education Board, all organizations devoted to improving
<br /> 13 Ibid.;Brown,A History of the Education of Negroes in North Carolina,61,64;James D.Anderson, The Education
<br /> of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935(Chapel Hill:University of North Carolina Press, 1988),204;Hugh Victor Brown,E-Qual-
<br /> ity Education in North Carolina Among Negroes(Raleigh:Irving Swain Press,Inc., 1964), 129-130
<br /> 14 Jim Sumner,"The Development of North Carolina's Public School System through 1940,"p. 7,appendices.
<br /> 15 Sumner,"The Development of North Carolina's Public School System through 1940,"pp. 17-18,appendices;North
<br /> Carolina Department of Public Instruction,`Biennial Reports of the Superintendent of Public Instruction," 1921-1930,State
<br /> Archives of North Carolina,Raleigh;North Carolina State Board of Charities and Public Welfare,"North Carolina's Social
<br /> Welfare Program for Negroes,"Special Bulletin Number 8,Raleigh,N.C., 1926,42.
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