Historically speaking
It is not just recently that education has taken center stage for the Sparta community. The school system has been a constant hot topic from the early days of the municipality. Education has always been important to the people of Sparta. The House of Assembly passed an act on Feb. 11, 1817, to create a fund for the support of free schools. But Sparta already had several years experience in providing education for its children. It is difficult to ascertain exactly where the first school was located. In the early years it may have been that the church building served as a school, which was usually the case. We do know that early on there came to be a separate school building on Main Street in Sparta somewhere between the present Town Hall and Presbyterian Church. In 1902 there were a number of schools within the township: Sparta, Ogdensburg, Hopewell (which is the present Church of the Nazarene on Glen Road), East Mountain, Edison, Pullis (near Fox Hollow Farms) and House Corner. The total enrollment in 1902 was 444 students. These early and primarily one-room schools remained in operation until 1915 when a school (now the Municipal building) was built to house all schools. In 1935 the Mohawk Avenue School was opened. In those days, teachers did not have to be college trained, so efforts were made to make certain they remained more intelligent than their pupils. It is also of interest to note teachers pay for those years. Female teachers were paid an average of $45 per month, and male teachers, $80. In 1925 a Sparta one-room schoolhouse had an average of 20 pupils in eight grades. One of the advantages of a one-room school as recalled by Myrtle Kimble Lothrop, who taught for several years at House Corners School, was that having so many ages and grade levels together, the older pupils were constantly being reviewed and they helped with the younger ones in many ways. She also remembered having to do the menial jobs because of not having a janitor. She and her dad would build a fire in the furnace-like stove on Sunday to be ready for the week. The boys took turns sweeping the oiled floors and carried water from a nearby well to fill the fountain in the hall. Students found school much different from today. The teacher’s authority was unquestioned. Even though the schools were spread throughout the township, the more distant students had to walk over two miles each way in all kinds of weather. The school census usually rose in late fall, when the harvest was done, and fell when spring planting began. In 1958 the Helen Morgan School was constructed. One addition to this school was completed in 1960 and another in 1974. Sparta Alpine, another elementary school, was completed in 1965, with additions in 1967 and 1974. Sparta students had gone to Newton High School since it opened. They had to go by train and later by bus. In the 1950s, Newton decided it could no longer accept Sparta students due to Sparta’s rapid growth and Newton High’s overcrowding. Sparta High School was opened in 1959, with an addition in 1973. The Mohawk Avenue School was converted to Junior High School in 1965. Patricia Giantonio, Trustee of the Sparta Historical Society