Antrim School District
Named
after the teacher, Enoch Brown School was the first school built in
Antrim Township. Early settlers erected the school and paid itinerant
teachers to educate their children for during several seasonal terms
each year. Weather and farming tasks dictated pupil attendance. In 1764,
Indians massacred Brown and 10 of his students during the Pontiac War
which prompted the education of children to return to its previous
method in which teachers taught in the homes of children whose parents
could pay the tuition.
In 1789 Brown's Mill School
opened in a small, square log building with itinerant teachers
instructing the area’s students. During the era of the one-room school,
Antrim Township boasted 31, some of which remained in use until 1955.
The
passage of the School Act of 1934 gave incentives to Pennsylvania's
citizens to improve their schools. Residents of the Browns Mill
community raised enough money to replace the log building with a larger
native stone building built in 1836 that would continue as a tuition
school until it was incorporated into Antrim School District's system of
free public schools. Students attended this school for the next 85
years until the Brown's Mill Consolidated School was built in 1921.
Greencastle School District
In
Greencastle the earliest schools were private, and parents paid tuition
charges, The first pubic school was a one-story log building built in
1807 located on North Washington Street. Several other one-story log
buildings were in operation as early as 1854. A new building was built
on South Washington Street in 1868 to house the grade schools. In 1875 a
three-year high school was added marking the beginning of secondary
education in the community, allowing children to continue their
education beyond the eighth grade. The first high school provided a
three-year program with a college preparatory curriculum. Township
students were admitted on a tuition basis and in 1910 it became a
four-year program.
In 1916 a two-story brick
building was built to house elementary and high school students at the
site of the 1868 building. The number of students doubled between 1916
and 1925 and in 1928 a five-room building was built. An auditorium and
gymnasium were added in 1934. As each year passed, the need for more
space grew along with increased enrollment and expanded curriculum. A
home economics room was built in 1948 completing the Greencastle School
System facilities. Antrim Township school directors and citizens planned
to develop and construct new buildings and move towards a joint school
arrangement with Greencastle.
Greencastle-Antrim School District
In
1954 a union was formed to run the school operation of both Antrim and
Greencastle, and on July 1, 1965 Greencastle and Antrim came together to
form one school district.