Opened in 1945, Pennsylvania Avenue School was built as a response to the growth of school-age population that accompanied the influx of shipyard workers and their families during World War II. Overcrowded classrooms were the first challenge faced by the new school and its teachers, a problem compounded several years later with the arrival of the “baby boom” generation. By the 1950s, the number of classrooms grew from twelve to seventeen, effectively reducing class size.
The good times that students of fifty years ago recall include the Halloween Carnival and dancing around the May Pole, as well as the 1946 City Championship in football won by the sixth-grade boys. Students also remember teachers who created a positive learning environment. One second grade class in the 1950s studied rhythm by keeping time with sticks, triangles, cymbals and bells, and quickly learned to differentiate between a march and a dance. Studying the culture of Native Americans became more meaningful by building a mock Indian village in the classroom.
With desegregation of all Savannah-Chatham County Public Schools in 1971, the enrollment at previously all-white Pennsylvania Avenue School dropped by more than a third and rumors circulated that it might close in the late 1970s. As the aging school became more and more expensive to maintain for a declining number of students, the Board of Education finally decided to close Pennsylvania Avenue School in 1992. For two generations of eastside families, “Penn Avenue,” as it was affectionately called, had been a member of the family.
Pennsylvania Avenue School
Photograph by Geoff L. Johnson.
Courtesy of the City of Savannah, Department of Cultural Affairs.
Pennsylvania Avenue School thrived because of active community involvement, especially during the early years. A number of the teachers lived in nearby neighborhoods and volunteer mothers from the PTA helped to staff the library and the lunchroom. Even the administration of Savannah Gardens housing complex, directly across the street from the school, leased its playground for the use of pupils because the “Penn Avenue” had no playground of its own.
1945 Class Picture, Pennsylvania Avenue School
Courtesy of Joe Page.
Mary Crout’s first fifth class at Pennsylvania Avenue School assembles for a class portrait in 1945.
1952 Class Picture, Pennsylvania Avenue School
Courtesy of Angela Sergi.
Shy second-graders gather on the steps of Pennsylvania Avenue School under the watchful gaze of their teacher.
Making Books at Pennsylvania Avenue School
Savannah Morning News, 19 November 1974, 18
Courtesy of the Savannah Morning News.
In 1974, fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-graders at Penn Avenue published their own books. They wrote and edited stories, illustrated them with their own art work, and bound the books with cloth.
