The Story of Bennington County’s One-Room Schools.
Presented by Beverly Petrelis.
Ada Paresky Education Center of the Bennington Museum.
Free and Open to the Public.

One-room schools were commonplace throughout Bennington County until the 1960s when the growing number of baby-boomers made them inefficient.  All students met in a single room where one teacher taught reading, writing, and arithmetic to several grades of children at the same time.  Many of these schools were heated with potbellied stoves during the winter and had no indoor plumbing.  While none of the original twenty-nine schoolhouses are in operation today, many of them still exist throughout the area, often repurposed as homes.

Join retired Bennington school teacher and Bennington Historical Society board member, Beverly Petrelis, as she tells the stories of some of these schools and the students who attended them.  She will focus especially on the years between 1930 and 1960 and through a series of photographs and personal anecdotes bring this bygone era to life once again.  All Bennington Historical Society Meetings are free and open to the public.