Ferguson School Celebrates 130 Years of Learning (MO)

May 19, 2011

James Williams recently visited Central Elementary School in Ferguson. He brought in a couple of old spelling textbooks that he used when he was a student in 1940.

“I found them at home and thought they’d like to have them,” Williams, 82, said. “I know they’ve got their anniversary going on. I’m glad to see the school is still around.”

So are a lot of other people.

Central Elementary, 201 Wesle y Avenue, is celebrating its 130th anniversary. With its current enrollment of 300 students, the school, built in 1880, maintains its longtime educational mission.

That’s why organizers held off celebrating until the end of this school year. They didn’t want to divert attention from the Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) tests, and also wanted to give new students a chance to learn about Central’s history.

It’s not unusual for alumni to drop by and take a look at the brick facade and visit their former teachers, Principal Ron Stedman said.

“People come by to see the building,” he said. “We’ve had visitors who graduated from Central, whose mother graduated from Central and whose grandmother graduated from here. This is the oldest school in North County and we’ve all got a lot of pride in it.”

Central has seen a lot of changes since it was first built as a four-room brick structure. It served both as a town hall and as a school. Over the years, it’s seen classrooms added on as the area’s population and the school’s enrollment grew. Central has been an elementary school, a high school, and went back to being an elementary school. In 1984, it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places by the U.S. Department of the Interior.

The school has been the center of Old Ferguson West, an area where many homes were built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The community grew around the school, Stedman said.

As a child, Florissant resident Bruce Smith lived nearby and walked to school every day. Now the athletic director at McCluer North High, he has many fond memories.

“The basement was the cafeteria and the band room was made out of the custodian’s office,” Smith, 50, said. “I remember the bannisters on the stairs and the wooden floors. It’s good that it’s still around.”

As with any old building, it has i ts aches and pains.

“If you put a ball bearing on the floor of the library, it will roll to one end,” said first-grade teacher Tonya Evers, 57, who has been at Central for 32 years. “Parts of the floor dip. It has a lot of steps. Before we got air-conditioning, we’d come back from summer vacation and the crayons would be melted.”

Yet, she and many teachers speak fondly of the old building, warts and all.

“There’s all kinds of nooks and crannies here,” special education teacher Yvonne Williams said. “We’ve coped with all of it.”

Stedman summed up a common attitude: “This school has soul. It’s unique because of its history and the way it’s grown. People forget negative things and remember the school. They attach themselves to it.”

Despite its age, the most important thing is that Central still is a very viable education facility, said Charles Seris, 64, who has taught art for 25 years at Central.

“The sustaining thing is people want to come here. The district wants to keep it clean and comfortable,” Seris said. “There’s a solidity to this building. When the tornado came through (on Apr. 22), a lot of homes were damaged around here, but there was nothing wrong with the school.”

The school’s history is a part of the everyday routine, second-grade teacher Karen Schlein, 65, said.

“I think you’re always aware just by looking at the building,” she said. “How many kids have gone through here? It’s got to be in the thousands.”

Sixth-grader Jasmyne Pinkston, 12, defends the building’s look.

“It doesn’t look old to me,” she said. “I think it’s okay.”

Although he, too, likes Central, sixth-grader Lawrence Herron, 12, had a swift reply when asked if he could imagine anything 130-years-old: “No !”

Finally, with a building that old, are there ghosts?

“There’s no evidence,” Stedman said. “The closest thing is we would have critters in the bell tower. People would hear them and think they were ghosts.”