Freeport Public Schools

Freeport's public education system dates from circa 1820;[1] by 1853, the system had over 200 students.[1] In 1890 it became a Union Free School District and in 1892, when the Village of Freeport was incorporated, there were 528 students.[1][2] The next year the wooden schoolhouse (the village's second) burned, and was replaced by their first brick schoolhouse;[1] that building at the corner of Pine and Grove Streets opened March 9, 1894.[1] 1894 also saw the system's first kindergarten, but an 1895 count shows enrollment down to 445.[1]

The school administration building at the corner of Ocean and Seaman Avenues was originally Public School No. 2, built in 1907. That name can still be seen over the door in this photo.

Freeport High School was founded as part of the system in 1899 and graduated its first class in 1901.[1] The class of 1905 adopted the school colors, red and white.[1] In 1907, a second school building was built at the corner of Ocean and Seaman Avenues,[1] and the Archer street school, still a K-4 school in the 2020s opened in 1909, followed by the Columbus Avenue School in 1915.[1]

1918 saw school district's first female board member, Agnes Earon, and the advent of vocational education, with a night school teaching boatbuilding.[1] Three years later, another innovation was Saturday "continuation classes" for 14- and 15-year-olds who were already in the workforce.[1]

This school building, built 1894 and shown here as the district's high school in a 1909 drawing or etching, can be seen at the corner of Pine and Grove just right of center in this 1909 birds-eye view of Freeport. It served several different purposes, the last being as a recreation center, before succumbing to a fire in 1966; Part of the fire-damaged building can be seen here.

A new high school was constructed[1] immediately east of the old one in 1922-1925.[1] 1925 was also the beginning of John W. Dodd's tenure as superintendent of Freeport schools; he would serve in that office until 1961.[1] In 1931, the Cleveland Avenue School opened and the Columbus Avenue School was enlarged.[1]

A 1928 directory of the school system shows a five-member Board of Education with three distinct committees, meeting twice a month. Adele Miller is listed both as clerk to the Board and secretary to Superintendent Dodd. There is an attendance officer, a medical inspector, a school nurse, and a building superintendent. Thirteen individuals, the majority female, are identified as "supervisors and special teachers," supervising areas ranging from the arts to sewing to sheet metal work.[3]

The following schools are shown at that date: a high school with 41 teachers, including Caroline G. Atkinson, an English teacher[3] who would later have an elementary school named after her; Grove Street School; Seaman Avenue School (the old Public School No. 2); Archer Street School; and Columbus Avenue School.[3]

The directory also lists numerous annual prizes honor civic, academic, and artistic achievements by students of various ages, as well as numerous competitive college scholarships, many of which are allocated by Assembly District rather than being specific to Freeport. A scholarship to Princeton University is to be awarded annually to "candidates from the Schools of Nassau County, N. Y., preferably those of Freeport, N. Y." High school students are separated into grades based on the number of credits completed rather than by age and, "No credit my be allowed for graduation for less than two full years of a foreign language." Allowance is made to grant a high school diploma to a student "regularly and faithfully pursued [a required] subject for full double time and has been present 90 percent of the time" but still has not been able to achieve a passing grade.[3]

The community kept growing. By 1937, Freeport's population exceeded 20,000, and it was the largest "village" in Nassau County.[4] In 1941, ther were 1,779 students in seventh grade or higher.[1]

• Freeport Public Schools