Stafford Training School, also known as H.H. Poole Junior High School, H.H. Poole High School: Stafford Vocational Annex, Rowser Educational Center, and the Rowser Building, is a historic

school A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compuls ...

building for African American students located at

Stafford Stafford () is a market town and the county town of Staffordshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It lies about north of Wolverhampton, south of Stoke-on-Trent and northwest of Birmingham. The town had a population of 70,145 in t ...

Stafford County, Virginia Stafford County is located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is a suburb outside of Washington D.C. It is approximately south of D.C. It is part of the Northern Virginia region, and the D.C area. It is one of the fastest growing, and highest ...

. The original section was built in 1939, and enlarged in 1943, 1954, 1958, and 1960. After the 1954 addition, the facility consisted of: eight standard classrooms, a principal's office, a clinic and teacher's lounge, library, homemaking department, cafeteria kitchen, combination auditorium-gymnasium, and modern (at the time) rest rooms. Total enrollment for the 1955-1956 session was 228 and the value of the school plant was $200,000. Stafford Training School Historical Plaque

Stafford Training School Historical Plaque

The 1954 enlargement cost more than $100,000 and was funded with a State School Construction Funds grant and cash appropriated from the County Board of Supervisors. The 1960 enlargement added the two story cafeteria and home economics department and was built by Stafford school bus drivers. It consists of a one-story, three bay, rectangular main block, flanked by one-story brick wings in the

Colonial Revival The Colonial Revival architectural style seeks to revive elements of American colonial architecture. The beginnings of the Colonial Revival style are often attributed to the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, which reawakened Americans to the archi ...

style. It is built of cinderblock clad in brick veneer and covered with a standing-seam metal roof. Also on the property are the contributing baseball field (c. 1940) and a diversionary drainage ditch (1939). The school was built by the

Public Works Administration The Public Works Administration (PWA), part of the New Deal of 1933, was a large-scale public works construction agency in the United States headed by Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes. It was created by the National Industrial Recove ...

and was the only African American high school in Stafford County operating during the Civil Rights Movement. an
''Accompanying five photos''
/ref> For a number of years, before the 1950 expansions, 11th and 12th grade students were transported to The Walker-Grant High School in Fredericksburg, because the other high school in the county was for whites only. The Stafford County School Board paid tuition and transportation to attend this accredited high school at Fredericksburg. Two students from the school, Doretha and Cynthia Montague, entered Stafford Elementary School, an all-white institution, on September 5, 1961; this was the beginning of the desegregation of school systems in the Fredericksburg area. The former school building was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 2013. On June 18, 2013, an historical plaque was unveiled providing a brief history of the building. It is displayed inside. Another sign, this one a state historic marker, was erected in front of the building by the

Virginia Department of Historic Resources The Virginia Department of Historic Resources is the State Historic Preservation Office for the Commonwealth of Virginia. The agency maintains the Virginia Landmarks Register (the first step for properties and districts in Virginia seeking listin ...

in 2014.

References

African-American history of Virginia Public Works Administration in Virginia School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia School buildings completed in 1939 Colonial Revival architecture in Virginia Schools in Stafford County, Virginia National Register of Historic Places in Stafford County, Virginia {{StaffordCountyVA-NRHP-stub