1925 Clay Co Educational Directory

The County Superintendent of School published an annual directory of all the schools in the county. The small booklet was crammed with information that was informative at the time, but is informative, very interesting and valuable today.

This is the directory for the 1925-1926 school year by Fannie R. Haylett, the Clay County Superintendent of Schools. The booklet gave considerable background information about the county schools and a map of all the schools (this was prior to when the navy carved out a chunk of the west half of the county). The part that is usually most interesting to us is the data about the individual school districts.

We learn the identity of the teaches and school board members, plus the professional qualifications of all teachers.

The columns of the main pages are labeled: "Dist." - the district number; teachers' names; "AD" - teachers' address - abbreviations; "Salary" - monthly; "EXP" - years of teaching experience; "ENR." enrollment in the school; "CEN." School census information - I think that is the number of 5-21 year olds in the district; "SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER"; "AD" - addresses of the board members, abbreviated; and "NAME" the name of the school.

My observation, and I'd appreciate feedback on this, is that in some general sense, the people toward the north half of Clay County tended to refer to their school by District number while those in the south preferred to use the school name. I went to District #16 and did not know it was the "Nuss" school until years later. Cousins down by Highway 74 went to the "Prairie View" school and did not use the number for District 53. Or am I wrong?