Battlefield Park Elementary School

Battlefield Park School (1955)

Battlefield Park Elementary School (2017)

Site Name: Battlefield Park Elementary School (formerly Battlefield Park School)

Date of Construction: 1936

Reason for Construction: Combined elementary and high school (all grades of school at the time).

Site History: Battlefield Park was originally built as a school intended for elementary and high school students (as "middle school" did not exist at the time, and the population was not yet large enough to necessitate dividing by age). It is also important to note that it was built in the middle of the Jim Crow era, and it was originally an all-white school. The school's population took a dip in 1959 upon the construction of Lee-Davis High School after a classroom expansion in 1956, but it continued to grow with the county's population. By 1982, the building gained a two-story west wing and an east wing, each full of classrooms and new kinds of amenities like a media center. Through this construction, though, the school's demographics changed even more drastically. Battlefield Park was integrated along with the rest of Hanover County in 1969, five years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and altered its grade capacity to third through seventh. In 1983, it absorbed kindergarten through the second grade with the closing of East End Elementary (the original K-2 school), and by 1990, the sixth and seventh grades moved to the new Stonewall Jackson Middle School. Since then, besides minimal redistricting, it has remained relatively the same.

Area History: Education during the late nineteenth century was devoid of any solid structure or requirements. There was no mandatory attendance or quality control. However, with the advent of the Progressive Movement, this began to change at the turn of the century. The degree of structure and bureaucracy involved in the public education system saw a trend of rapid increase over the course of the twentieth century. Within the realm of general cultural change, the issue of race and segregation of education was particularly important in the area. Virginia was North-situated enough to adopt Progressive, reform-minded policies when it came to education, but associated deeply enough with the South that Jim Crow loomed over every decision made from the turn of the century to the 50s, when resistance to the increasing disparity between white and black schools gained traction. Any reforms made to white schools - for example, better quality facilities, salary increases for teachers, and higher quality curricula - would "eventually" make it to black schools, but this turned out to be an unsustainable promise, as the advancement of whites far outpaced the rate of advancement of blacks, most clear in the salary disparity. However, upon integration of schools throughout the sixties and seventies, this issue was hoped to be fixed in the long run.

What about the site has changed?: The literal size of the building has increased with more attention to quality of education and increased ability to provide it with advances in technology. For example, a media center - containing multiple stations for computers - did not exist in 1956, was simply a library in 1986, and was unable to be a proper "media center" without computers in 2016. The increase in population also necessitated more construction while also dividing up the age demographics attending - a dramatic enough spike that tens more classrooms were added while six grade levels were removed. The desegregation of Virginia schools and resulting white and black "flight" reshaped the racial demographics, but they hardly stayed the same for any significant period of time until well after initial desegregation. Ultimately, the social and technological progress of society paired with increased bureaucratization of education reshaped even the visible face of the school itself.

What about the surrounding area changed?: Like Battlefield Park individually, Hanover County and the surrounding, suburban-yet-"backwater" counties experienced population growth not as dramatic as seen in cities and their metropolitan areas, but still a notable increase over the course of decades. As the culture shifted slightly away from the traditional Southern agrarian society towards something more resembling Northern suburbia (though still retaining plenty of the South through and through), so did social attitudes towards topics like race and desegregation (to an extent) and the role of government in areas like education.

Reflection: This project showed me tangibly the change a building that seemed so static to me as a child - my own elementary school - visibly went through in my own parents' lifetimes. Having the physical difference put plainly before me, realizing that the inside of the building may not even be recognizable to me now at this point, and taking a step back to consider the social implications was an experience I would not have gleaned so clearly through general reading alone. The process of research, rephotography, and then reflecting on what I photographed before writing up the analysis was vital to my understanding the speed at which society has changed, even in a county that might as well set "The South Will Rise Again" as its official motto to clear up any confusion a passerby may have. The fact that my focus was a place that always felt so benign really hit home with how much I took the time period in which I was born for granted.

Sources:

Virginia Historical Society. "Education in Virginia." Virginia Historical Society. Accessed March 20, 2017. 
       http://www.vahistorical.org/collections-and-resources/virginia-history-explorer/education-virginia.

"Battlefield Park Elementary." Hanover County Public Schools. Accessed March 20, 2017. http://hcps.us/bpes/history.htm.

"Hanover County School Board Meeting Minutes." Old Dominion University Libraries Digital Collections. Accessed March 20, 2017.

       http://dc.lib.odu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/dove/id/239

"2016 School Profile: Battlefield Park Elementary." Hanover County Public Schools. Accessed March 20, 2017.

       http://hanover.k12.va.us/profiles/bpes.pdf

Land and Community Associates of Charlottesville, Virginia. "Survery of Historic Resources: Hanover County, Virginia Phases I & 

       II." Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Published March, 1992. Accessed March 20, 2017. 

       http://dhr.virginia.gov/pdf_files/SpecialCollections/HN-019_Survey_Historic_Resources_Hanover_PH_I&II_1992_LCA_

       report.pdf

Author: Alex Dowdy