Southview
Built in 1950; Sold in 2006; now a private home
Southview was a small neighborhood school tucked away on a long driveway leading north off 20th Street between Dewey and Southview avenues. It was built in 1950 for $73,718 and only housed kindergarten through third grade classes. The school had elaborate May Day celebrations and family picnic days on its shady grounds. In 1985 its students were sent to the new Richard Kane Elementary and the building then housed programs for pre-schoolers with special needs, such as Headstart and Early Childhood Education Services.
Children often participated in the preschool programs at both Southview and at Bellringer. Bellringer School was a preschool program for children with multiple needs that began in 1967 under the sponsorship of the Mental Health Association. It first operated at Jefferson, then in a small house on Howard Street owned by a small group of physicians, and later at the Will Rogers Complex. That independent school closed in 2000 due to reduced enrollments and funding.
In May 2003 the board of education voted to relocate the special needs preschool services to the Will Rogers Complex and put Southview up for sale as part of a district budget reduction. The school was finally sold in September 2006 to Horace Mitchell for $160,000.
Miss Bledsoe's First Grade class circa 1965