This is an entry that first saw the light of day as an article in the Bovina Community Newsletter, produced by the Bovina UP Church, in 2006. It ties to some of the census information I've been providing lately, so this seemed like a good time to share this.
In 1820, the year Bovina was founded, one third of the town's population of over 1200 was made up of children aged five to fifteen. A little over half of these children actually attended school in one of the town's five school districts that year.
By the 1850s, Bovina had thirteen districts. Some of these districts were joint districts, overlapping with Delhi, Andes or Middletown. The number of school-aged children was close to 600.
After the 1860s, as the town's population dropped, so did the number of school children. In 1878, 282 out of the 360 school-aged children in Bovina were being taught in the town. By 1909, ten of Bovina's eleven school districts were still operating their schoolhouses, but the number of children attending was down to 180 students.
In 1936, Bovina was down to nine districts, with two of these contracting their children out to other schools. Bovina had 127 children attending school through the 8th grade that year. Part of the reduction in school districts was caused by the creation of central school districts in Andes, Delhi, South Kortright and Margaretville. At the end of the 1930s, only seven districts were still in existence in Bovina.
The last school to operate in Bovina was Bovina District Number 4, which is now the public library. That school closed after the completion of school in June 1961. (I missed attending school here by one year - I started school in the fall of 1961 in Delhi.)
If you want to see some pictures of Bovina's one-room schools, go to my Flickr page. And if you have pictures you would like to share, please let me know. And stayed tuned for future blog entries about Bovina schools.
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