National One-Room School Group Celebrates First Anniversary

PRLog (Press Release) – Jun 12, 2007 – After all these years, the classic image of American education is still the little red or white one-room school. Even the federal Department of Education has tacitly acknowledged this by constructing an image of not one, but two little red school houses on the front of their headquarters in Washington, D.C. As fewer and fewer Americans actually attended a one-room school, a national organization has formed to join together people interesting in preserving and memorializing the country school.

   The Country School Association of America (CSAA) is celebrating their first anniversary this month at this year’s annual conference hosted by Rivier College in Nashua, New Hampshire. While a loose network of interested people have made sure a national conference was held somewhere in the country for the past six years, it was only last year that the national organization was formally established. The Country School Association of America was founded at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois, in June of 2006. Its mission is to foster a deeper understanding and appreciation of the country schooling experience.

   An annual conference on one-room schools, also known as country schools or rural schools, brings together individuals (museum staff, volunteers, teachers / faculty / students, preservationists, historians, and interested citizens) to exchange ideas and resources. http://www.countryschoolassociation.org/

   A listserv devoted to country schooling has been developed to facilitate networking. The listserv is aimed at one-room school museums, researchers, and people who are interested in the history of one-room schools. People involved with active one-room or two-room schools or the small school movement also are welcome. Pre-dating the national organization, the listserv was founded in 2005 and now boasts 79 members. You can preview and join the listserv at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/oneroom/

   An electronic newsletter is published and distributed monthly keeping everyone up on the latest news and introducing articles on a wide variety of topics and viewpoints about country schooling. http://csaa.typepad.com/country_school_associatio/

   Membership is open to anyone interested in one-room schools. Please visit any of the three websites above for more information or print out a membership form from http://www.trundlebedtales.com/CSAABrochure07[1].pdf