Capturing the History of Henrico County Public Schools

About the Program

Category: Arts, Culture and Historic Preservation (Best in Category)

Year: 2012

Capturing the History of Henrico County Public Schools Henrico County, VA Population: 280,581 For the first time in Henrico County history, a division-wide project to capture and digitally maintain the past and present history of Henrico County Public Schools was established. The program began with a meeting of 69 school principals each appointing a historian to work with an Education Specialist from the Central Office. The historian worked with administrative staff and school organizations to collect oral histories, documents, photographs, school registers, school newsletters and yearbooks. This was done in collaboration with historical organizations to compile a comprehensive overview of the schools’ histories. The completed historic information on all 69 public schools in the county were put on Rack cards produced by the Henrico County Public Schools Communications & Community Outreach Department and over 2,000 per school made available for distribution to potential parents of county public school students, businesses and community members. Plaques were also created for the schools that were found to be 50 years old or more. Two informational brochures were developed as well. One brochure provided information on current schools and contact information. The second brochure indicates all African-American schools from 1801-1869 with their historic information.