Geoffrey Burrows: 75th anniversary of Sandwich Central School is milestone

To The Daily Sun,

In the 1946 report, School Superintendent Almon Bushnell identified several issues the town of Sandwich needed to “fix” to move past the archaic education in place: overcrowding, need for a junior high school, a centralized school program and the need for a modern central school.

Mr. Bushnell wrote, ”For the past several years our one room schools have been closed one by one... until only one, North Sandwich (12 pupils), remained in session. The rest of the pupils (28 primary; 24 grammar; grades 1 to 8) attended the two room building at Center Sandwich. (Today’s Child Care Center). This school... became too crowded for successful work...”

An experiment to transfer all seventh and and eighth grade pupils to the Lower Corner School “has not been an unqualified success, largely because the building is too small for satisfactory work with 20 pupils... the buildings used for these three groups are woefully inadequate according to any modern standard of lighting, sanitation, heating, ventilation and work facilities.”

A committee was created by vote of the district “to consider the feasibility of a central school for Sandwich. The district’s vote in 1948 to build a new central school," Mr. Bushnell wrote ”...gives hope that we may not need to wait too long for improved conditions... I believe the people of Sandwich will not continue to see their children less cared for than those of other communities.”

A lot for the new school was purchased from the William Heard estate for $1,000. The school was open for business in September 1950 with 98 students in four rooms, grades one through eight, two classes to a room with four teachers. “The building, with its modern facilities and pleasant surroundings, is proving a joy to teachers and pupils alike... I believe the boys and girls of Sandwich deserve the best that we can give them,” Mr. Bushnell wrote.

In 1963 Quimby School closed when Sandwich joined the Inter-Lakes Cooperative School District. Sandwich high school students went to Inter-Lakes in the fall of 1963. Seventh and eighth grades continued at Sandwich Central for the 1963-64 and 1964-65 school year, then to Meredith.

The years after the end of World War II were monumental for the improvement of education in the town of Sandwich. This school year Sandwich Central School is 75 years old. This milestone should be acknowledged and celebrated.

Geoffrey Burrows

Center Sandwich