Teachers, retirees, students, parents and anyone else with a fondness for Raleigh Court Elementary or Ruffner Middle School gathered last Sunday for a trip down memory lane. Students will be sent to other city schools this fall; declining attendance and a budget crunch helped hasten the demise the schools.
Open houses at both soon-to-be-closed schools featured old yearbooks, faded photos, slide shows and plenty of memories, not to mention more than a few hugs from old friends that hadn’t seen each other in some time.
Most seemed resigned to their school’s fate and ready to move on. At Raleigh Court, several people mentioned that the 49-year-old outdated facility had outlived its usefulness, although the school’s function as a community center will be a loss.
Roanoke City Schools superintendent Dr. Rita Bishop said she had “not received a single nasty e-mail,” about the closings from those that worked at Raleigh Court. “They have been real professional from the first moment they heard about it. These are great teachers.”
Bishop also said students have been “great” about the changes that will send them to other schools.
While a kitchen at Raleigh Court may be used for a culinary program, Bishop can envision part of that space being turned back into parkland. “Perpetual roof leaks” and “bad buildings” made patching up Raleigh Court unfeasible. Roanoke City, not the school system, owns the buildings.
Ruth Bova taught at Raleigh Court for 33 years and has volunteered for the past 14 after retirement. Bova said she will remember, “the families, the students and the neighborhood camaraderie. It’s just been a joy to be here.” Bova called the closing of Raleigh Court “very sad. I wish they had kept it up.”
Principal Babette Cribbs wasn’t sure last Sunday where she would wind up after five years at the helm. “The positive energy that goes around the Raleigh Court area,” is something she will remember. The school has done well on SOL testing every year and Cribbs is treating students to a day at Smith Mountain Lake before the end comes next week. “We’re going to have it be positive,” she vows.
Meanwhile, at Ruffner Middle School, Roanoke City Councilwoman Anita Price was among those looking through old scrapbooks. Price would like to see Ruffner continue in some fashion as a community center, with the gym and auditorium perhaps used by local groups and recreation leagues.
Despite being 39 years old, Ruffner appears to be in decent shape (there were some renovations made along the way), and has been considered as a possible new home for the school system’s central administration. A community center that “can help maintain the integrity of Northwest [Roanoke],” is what Price wants to see the shuttered school become and perhaps a vocational education hub, as well.
Ruffner principal Dr. Melva Belcher, on the job for only a year, said most who worked at the school are looking forward, realizing that “change is the only constant. For this school, this is its time [to close].” Belcher said she just wanted to get through the next nine days before thinking about her future.
Former Ruffner student Anisah Rasheed came down from Maryland to visit friends and her old school.
“I just wanted to see it. The memories, seeing the yearbook and my friends – it just hit home. It felt really good,” Rasheed said.
Music teacher Susan Matney was there when Ruffner opened 39 years ago and will fully retire now, going out with the school’s closing. She has headed up the choral program and overseen the piano lab for 7-12 graders. Ruffner used to be a magnet school for the performing arts before the city abandoned the concept.
A smaller version of the piano lab will move to Fleming. Matney called the program “a well kept secret,” over the years. Many wind up after school at the Music Lab, now located downtown at Jefferson Center.
What will she miss the most? “The kids, the personalities, getting to know them,” said Matney, who has taught the children, and even the grandchildren, of her early students.
