Small schools once the norm in Georgia, now long gone

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January 22, 2013

Small schools once the norm in Georgia, now long gone

Becky Taylor CNHI The Tifton Gazette Tue Jan 22, 2013, 09:17 PM EST

TIFTON — Today, the Georgia High School Association’s smallest schools belong to Class A., one of six classes. Fifty years ago, the smallest was Class C, one of five.

In some ways, the classifications are the same. In 1962, the largest size, Class AAA, was for schools with an average daily attendance of 775 and larger. In 2012, Class AAA also had schools with over 775. There just happen to be three larger classifications, topped by AAAAAA, which has Mill Creek and its 2,766.

In 2012, the smallest group has 97 schools. The biggest of which is Irwin County, who averaged 346 students in grades 9 through 11. In 1962, that would have put Irwin in Class B, but barely. You couldn’t average more than 375. Only the tiniest of the tiny were in C, those with less than 250 students. There were 125 schools who qualified then. They were almost to a man rural public schools, spreading from Charlton County to Dade, from West Bainbridge to Toccoa Falls. Of these 125, only 38 are active GHSA schools and two others are in the GISA.

Region 1 was comprised of Attapulgus, Climax, Doerun, Echols County, Georgia Christian, Lanier County, Omega, the all girls Vashti in Thomasville, West Bainbridge and Whigham. Of those 10, only four are still open, two in the GHSA. Echols and Lanier are still out there, still Class A, though Lanier is edging towards AA. Georgia Christian, which less than 10 years earlier had been known as Dasher Bible, switched to the all-private SEAIS (now part of the GISA) in the 1970s and is still active. Vashti, now co-educational, does not belong to any organization, public or private. It dropped out of the GHSA in 1966.

Of the others, four were gone by 1970. Omega lost its high school in 1962, becoming part of the new Tift County High. Attapulgus, Climax and West Bainbridge were swallowed up in 1966, combining with Bainbridge. Doerun was the next to disappear, becoming part of Colquitt County High with Moultrie and Norman Park. The last holdout, Whigham, made it to 1987, when its high school students were sent to Cairo.

The pattern for the rest of the state is similar. Two of the eleven schools in Region 5 are still open. Seven from 7-C exist. Thirteen are gone. The only one to have most of its members still out there is Region 8. Seven are open, four are closed. Two — Dacula and Duluth — have skyrocketed to Class AAAAAA, part of the explosion in metro Atlanta population. Another, Loganville, is AAAAA.

Region 2-C was the hardest hit by the closure of rural schools. Only two of the 17 schools open in 1962 are still there: Lee County and Pacelli. Four others closed in the 1970s and 1980s to be part of combination high schools covering multiple counties, but have returned: Baker County, Marion County, Stewart County and Webster County. Cusseta has also returned, but under the name Chattahoochee County.

Only one region from 1962 sees most of its Class C teams still surviving. In 7-C, seven exist and four have been resigned to history. In this case, metro Atlanta’s boom is the reason for survival. Of the seven, only one is in Class A today: Woody Gap, a school located in the mountain wilderness of southern Union County.

The others are now Class AAA and above. Buford, Dawson County and Jackson County are AAA, Duluth and Loganville are AAAAA and Dacula is now in the highest classification after rocketing in size in the 1980s.

Even one of the schools that closed out of the region has returned. Chestatee is back after a 35-year absence, though now part of the Hall County system whereas it was originally Forsyth County.

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Small schools once the norm in Georgia, now long gone

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