And then there were six
Editor’s note: This is one in a series of articles marking the 50th Anniversary of Hartselle City Schools.
The March 21, 1991 issue of the Hartselle Enquirer features an article entitled “Four Schools Offer Sound Basis for Student Success.” F.E. Burleson Elementary, Crestline Elementary, Hartselle Junior High School, and Hartselle High School are featured in the article which provides a little bit of history about each school.
At the time the article was published, Stewart Bennett was Principal of FEB and had been since 1976. “If you include the years when I was a student here,” he claims, “I’ve spent thirty years of my life at Burleson.” He went on to point out that the school was named Hartselle Elementary School until the mid-60s when it was renamed for Professor Forrest Emory Burleson. Burleson had been the school’s Principal for over forty years and was still alive at the time of its dedication.
In the same article, Crestline’s then-Principal Loy Greenhill spoke with the knowledge of a leader who had sat behind “the big desk” for 26 years. Since the school’s construction in 1965, “additions [had] been made to the original building six times” in order for it to reach its 1991 size. Its highest enrollment had come in the 1973-1974 school year when it served 894 students.
Hartselle Junior High School on its Petain Street campus is referred to as “the baby of Hartselle schools” in the article because it opened its doors in 1969. “This was the first year middle schools were created in Alabama,” per its 1991 Principal Frank Parker.
Long time HHS leader Jerry Reeves was in his third year as Principal at the time of the article which boasts of campus improvements with “Today’s Hartselle High School is as modern in 1991 as the first school was modern in 1909.” Today, Hartselle City Schools has six campuses serving students in grades PK through 12, and “the baby of Hartselle’s schools” is Crestline Elementary which is operating in its first full school year. Hartselle remains committed to modernizing its campuses, but this is not because the district is seeking some sort of bragging rights. Modern campuses better accommodate modern tools and resources, and modern tools and resources are the ones students will more likely use in the future. The future is what HCS is called to prepare them for.
That being said, characterbuilding the other leg of the preparation the school district is called to offer requires no special tools and only special people with firm commitments to students.
Before and since its formation as an independent school system, HCS leaders and board members have conscientiously worked to balance the spending of school district funds among structures, people, and tools or resources. The task is an important one, and leaders recognize the gravity of the choices they make on behalf of the city’s youngest.
The goal? Just as it was in 1991, it is to build a sound basis for student success.
