Section 4: Schools

Work Prioritized Over Education

Free, public education wasn’t established in Virginia until 1869, with the passage of The Virginia Constitution. The resulting education system was decentralized; there was no standardized curriculum, no attendance requirements, and no teacher certifications.

Construction and maintenance of school buildings was often funded by members of the community. Local government covered the cost of teacher salaries and materials but little else. Primary courses included spelling, reading, and math. The majority of students stopped attending school before the age of 14. Most 19th century Stafford schools were one or two-room wooden frame structures, with no plumbing or electricity, and heated by wood stoves. By the 1870s, Stafford had its first two black schools with a total of 99 students and by 1883, there were eight one-room schools for blacks.

In 1896, Stafford schools were officially segregated by race under the Supreme Court’s Plessy v. Ferguson doctrine of “separate but equal.” Based on the 1900 U.S. Census data, only 50% of white children and 16% of black children between the ages of 7 and 17 attended school in the northern part of Stafford.

Stafford County’s began to integrate its schools in 1961, a process it completed in 1964, becoming the first integrated school system in the region. In 2021, 93.2% of Stafford County adult residents were high school graduates.