The School Calendar

CSAA May Need Your Schoolhouse Photo

The CSAA has submitted a proposal to Tide-Mark Press in Connecticut to be considered for a 2010 Schoolhouse Calendar! Board member Bill Sherman suggested the idea at last year's annual conference and researched possible publishers. You may be interested to know how we're promoting the idea with Tide-Mark, so we have included the actual proposal below. We are also asking that you begin sifting through your favorite photographs. Your schoolhouse could be one of the lucky twelve chosen! Tide-Mark requires 30-40 images that fit the concept. We'll let you know as soon as Tide-Mark makes their decision, and following that we'll solicit entires. Below is a portion of the proposal submitted this week:

Photo above: only a sample

Calendar Proposal: The One-Room Schoolhouse

.........The Country School Association of America’s focus is on the preservation of One-Room (Country) Schools in America, a vanishing icon, but one that has gained steadfast supporters in recent years. The remaining schoolhouses are symbols of the vital role education played in our national heritage and evoke powerful images of the hopes of the American people. Currently, these one-room schools dot our landscape in varying stages of rehabilitation and restoration, and many are used as museum schools for the continued enjoyment of schoolchildren across the country. They are cherished and beloved and boast thousands of caretakers nationwide.

These schoolhouses are unique to their locales, are situated in some very interesting surroundings, come in a variety of styles and colors, and survive today due to sturdy construction. They have picturesque names, come with and without bell towers, rest in fields, in woods, aside graveyards, and on busy streets, but all have one thing in common. They symbolize EDUCATION, a shared experience of America’s population. One-room schools are easily recognizable, they possess a historical “charm” that other monuments may not, and they transport us back to a simpler time and simpler values.

The curators of these schoolhouses would love to share their photos and images with educators, students, former attendees of one-room schools, historical societies and one-room school enthusiasts. A calendar would be a perfect vehicle to remind us daily of the contributions made within the walls of our country’s one-room schools.

We have formed a national association, the Country School Association of America, dedicated to the promotion and survival of country schools. You will find a description of the CSAA attached. We are in contact with over 3,500 country schoolhouse preservation groups and sponsoring historical societies throughout the Unites States, and our numbers/contacts grow daily. We maintain a website and an electronic newsletter, and we mass e-mail important information on a regular basis. Most of our contacts and readers are in a continuous drive to raise funds for the maintenance of their schools. The sale of a schoolhouse calendar would greatly help their cause. Schoolhouse calendars would also be popular with teachers and children across the country.

The CSAA will solicit all the photos and follow all guidelines as listed on your website. We will operate in a timely and cooperative manner. Many of our CSAA members photograph schoolhouses on a regular basis and already possess colorful and nostalgic images. All we need do is ask, and we are sure our members and readers will submit a fabulous cross-section of photos. Our board members are skilled organizers and are dedicated to their cause to preserve schoolhouses. This calendar project is an effort we would relish.

Comments

[Cindy Tjeerdema]

I would be greatly interested in the opportunity to use the sale of this calendar, if it is approved, to support the maintenance of Wooden Valley School in Napa, CA. Wooden Valley School is believed to be the oldest continually operating one room school in California.

[Cindy Tjeerdema]

I would like to add to my previous comment that Wooden Valley School is threatened with closure if we do not come up with a plan to raise approximately $20,000 annually to offset the deficit in the school's budget. Currently the school serves 25 students in grades K-5 in a rural area surrounded by vineyards and cattle ranches. The NVUSD is considering closure in light of severe budget cuts from the state.