Broward County Schools
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A PUBLICATION OF THE BROWARD COUNTY HISTORICAL COMMISSION volume 32 • number 1 • 2012 Broward County Schools: Some Places of Instruction Book Review: Pioneer Parish: Saint Anthony, Broward’s First Catholic Church The Sensory Experience That is the Mai-Kai Spirit of the Times (Reflections of a Broward School Teacher) Broward Legacy • 1 A PUBLICATION OF THE BROWARD COUNTY HISTORICAL COMMISSION A SERVICE OF THE BROWARD COUNTY BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS Bertha Henry, County Administrator BROWARD COUNTY HISTORICAL COMMISSIONERS volume • number • Betty W. Cobb, Chair 32 1 2012 Steven Glassman, Vice Chair Dr. John D. Bloom, Jr., Secretary Hazel K. Armbrister FEATURES Hal Axler James Bradley Paul Callsen Maureen Dinnen Marla Sherman Dumas Wally Elfers Roberto Fernández III Elsie Johns Bill Julian Phyllis Loconto Alexander Lewy Sheldon McCartney Wingate Payne Broward County Schools: Broward County Schools: Schools of Pompano Renee M. Shrout A Look Back Page 3 Some Places of Instruction by Daniel Hobby Page 21 Daniel J. Stallone by Denyse Cunningham Page 5 Lee Tiger Wendy Wangberg BROWARD COUNTY LIBRARIES DIVISION Robert E. Cannon, Division Director Dave Baber, Historic Preservation Coordinator BROWARD COUNTY HISTORICAL COMMISSION STAFF Peggy D. Davis, Libraries Manager Denyse Cunningham, Editor, Curator Maria Munoz, Secretary Matthew DeFelice, County Archaeologist Helen Landers, County Historian Broward County Retired The Spirit of the Times Spot Light on historic site: Copyright 2012, by the Broward County Historical Commission. All rights reserved. Educators (Refection of a Broward The Sensory Experience that No part of this work may be reproduced by Margarite Falconer Page 26 School Teacher) is the Mai-Kai or copied in any form or by any means, by Maureen Dinnen Page 29 by Mayor Anne Sallee Page 33 whether graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, tapeing or informational and retraval systems, without permission of the publisher. Broward Legacy is published annually by the Broward County Historical Commission. Location and mailing address: Broward County Historical Commission 301 Harmon (S.W. 13th) Avenue Fort Lauderdale, FL 33312 Phone: 954-357-5553 Fax: 954-357-5522 Annual subscriptions and back issues are available. Unless otherwise noted, photographs are from the archives of the Historical Commission. Neither the Board of County Commissioners of Broward County, Florida, nor the Broward County Historical Commission is responsible Book Review: Pioneer On the Cover: An Early On the back cover: for the statements, conclusions or Broward County School Bus You can help preserve observations herein contained, such matters Parish: Saint Anthony being the sole responsibility of the authors. Broward’s First Catholic 1915 (colorized original black and history page Church white image), Mary Leonard Phelps Collection. by Marla Sherman Dumas Page 37 2 • Broward Legacy Broward County Schools: A Look Back Gallery at West Side School, Photograph by Steve Vinik This exhibit, Broward County ward County’s population was then Schools: A Look Back was created 4,763. At the time of incorporation, by the Broward County Histori- nine schools from Hallandale to cal Commission as part of the 2nd Deerfield were handed off to the Annual Broward County Heritage newly-elected, three-member Bro- Celebration in honor of National ward County Board of Public In- Historic Preservation Month. The struction. In 1915, there were 835 theme of the 2012 heritage celebra- white students and 247 black stu- tion, Broward’s Education History: dents, who were educated separate- A Path to the Future, was presented ly. By 1920, the population of Bro- to bring focus to this part of the ward County had grown to 5,135 County’s rich heritage. residents, prompting the Board to organize the county into three dis- On October 1, 1915, Broward tricts; today there are five. County was officially incorporated by Florida State Statute. The coun- The earliest educational opportuni- ty was formed from the southern ties for African-American students part of Palm Beach County and the were provided by the Dade County northern part of Dade County. Bro- Board of Public Instruction. Lat- Broward Legacy • 3 er, for some African-Americans, school buildings were provided by the Rosenwald School Build- ing Program. Broward County had four Rosenwald schools. This beautifully presented look back is captured in fourteen large panels with historic images and in- formative text. Glimpses of histo- ry are represented in this exhibit on these panels depicting: Broward County Schools: In The Beginning, Broward Schools 1915-1938, Afri- can-American Schools in Broward County, Rosenwald Schools, Gone But Not Forgotten: School Name- sakes, First Schools in New Sub- urbs: 1951-1990, and Private and Specialty Schools. Augmented by interesting and well-preserved ar- tifacts, the exhibit is something to experience. Portables at North Side School in Fort Lauderdale, Courtesy of Helen Landers. The Broward County Schools: A display there until late April. At Look Back Exhibit is on display in that time, this exhibit will become the Gallery at the Broward County a part of the traveling exhibits Historical Commission Building which will rotate through Broward located at the historic West Side County’s Regional Libraries. For Grade School, 301 Harmon (SW more information, please call the 13th) Avenue, in Fort Lauderdale, Historical Commission office at Florida. The exhibit will remain on 954-357-5553. Primary contributors to the Broward County Schools: A Look Back Exhibit are as follows: Dave Baber, Historic Preservation Coordinator Denyse Cunningham, Curator West Side Grade School in Fort Lauderdale, Helen Landers, County Historian Courtesy of Helen Landers. Zoraida Garcia, Digital Media Designer, Office of Public Communication 4 • Broward Legacy Broward County Schools: Some Places of Instruction By Denyse Cunningham Braithwaite School. Broward County Historical Commission. Denyse Cunningham was the curator at Bonnet House Museum and Gardens in Fort Lauderdale and has been the curator for the Broward County Historical Commission since 2002. She earned a Master’s Degree in American and New England Studies from the University of Southern Maine. For the past 29 years she has worked for several art and history museums around the country. AFRICAN-AMERICAN Deerfield Elementary was opened SCHOOLS sometime thereafter. In 1903 the first school for Af- African-American schools were rican American students in Bro- operated on a split term, with no ward County opened in the town classes during the winter harvest of Deerfield with the Rev. B. F. season so that children could work James as the teacher.1 It was named in the fields. This meant that black Deerfield Colored School.The sec- schools could not be accredited and ond school in Deerfield, the Braith- that their graduates would have waite School, was built in 1929 difficulty entering accredited col- as a three-teacher school and cost leges. The NAACP took the matter $9,000. It was torn down to make to court which ruled in their favor way for a senior center.2 West to keep the schools open in 1946.3 Broward Legacy • 5 Though most of the earliest Afri- can-American public schools were housed in privately owned build- ings, teachers and administrators were provided by the Board of Public Instruction. With a donated building from Fort Lauderdale pioneer Tom Bryan, Colored School No. 11, a one- room wooden building on North- west Third Avenue and Second Street, opened in 1906.4 Four years later, classes moved to the Knights of Pythias Lodge Hall on the cor- ner of Northwest Fourth Street and Fourth Ave. Later schools included Sunland Park Elementary, at 919 N.W. 13 Ave., and Lincoln Park El- ementary, at 600 N.W. 19 Ave. Lin- coln Park, a neighborhood facility, is located on the site of the former school.5 In Pompano, the first school for African-American students opened in the early 1920s in a two-room wooden building located in the 400 block of Hammondville Road. When it was destroyed in the 1926 hurricane, classes were held nearby in Psalters Temple A.M.E. Church. The Broward Board of Public In- struction provided a new location in 1927-28 with the Pompano Col- ored School, located at 718 N.W. Sixth St. In 1954, it was renamed Coleman Elementary School, in honor of the Rev. James Emanuel Coleman, pastor of Mount Calvary Baptist Church. With the opening of Blanche Ely High School in 1952, Pompano’s black high school students no longer had to go out of town to graduate. Following the early 1940s opening of the Pom- pano Migratory Labor Camp on Hammondville Road, a one-room school was established off State Road 7, south of today’s Coconut Creek Parkway. The 1960s saw Charles Drew Elementary estab- lished to serve the Pompano subdi- vision of Collier City. Later, Sand- ers Park Elementary, the Pompano Project Elementary and Markham 1938 Map of Broward County Schools, from a report of Florida State Department of Park Elementary were added.6 Public Instruction. Broward County Historical Commission. 6 • Broward Legacy Pompano Colored School, later known as Coleman. Courtesy of the Pompano Beach Historical Society. Math teacher at Attucks. Courtesy of the Fort Lauderdale Historical Society, photograph by Gene Hyde. Broward Legacy • 7 Carver Ranches Elementary School today. Broward County Historical Commission. ROSENWALD SCHOOLS the construction of six small schools Broward County had four Rosen- in rural Alabama, which were con- wald schools: Braithwaite in According to the website of the structed and opened in 1913 and Deerfield, Liberia, Hallandale and National Trust for Historic Pres- 1914. Pleased with the results, Pompano. None of the structures ervation the Rosenwald School Rosenwald then agreed to fund a that housed the four schools exists Building Program has been called larger program for schoolhouse today.8 Pompano Colored School, the “most influential philanthropic construction based at Tuskegee. In located at 728 N.W.