Norfolk’s first consolidated school was the Center School, built in 1914. Designed by Ehrick Rossiter, architect of the Music Shed and several school buildings on the Hotchkiss campus, Center School accommodated children in kindergarten through 8th grade. It had eight spacious classrooms, a teachers’ room, lavatories, a book room and a large playroom. The school was intended to replace the one-room schoolhouses that served children in outlying areas of town. Remarkably, in spite of the upgraded facility, some parents objected to the closing of the district schoolhouses and the busing of their children to Center School. The parents of students in the North Middle School (now the Little Red Schoolhouse) on Ashpohtag Road took the school board to court in 1922, protesting that the children would have to wait for the bus in an unheated schoolhouse. The judge decided in favor of the school board. Center School stood just north of the intersection of Greenwoods and Shepard Roads, where Meadowbrook Senior Housing was later built. The children in this circa-1917 photograph are sitting on the fountain dedicated to Frederick Shepard, who gave generously to make the school possible.
Ann Havemeyer

Photo Copyright Norfolk Historical Society.