Scrabble school featured in documentary
The historic Scrabble School, a Rosenwald School in Castleton, will be the subject of yet another documentary to be released in May 2021, this time in cooperation with Education Week, an independent news organization that has covered education since 1981.
Late last month, Education Week sent a video producer to the school site to document the Scrabble story. The producer sat with one alumna, Jane Carpenter Pollard, now a resident of Culpeper, to discuss the times, teaching technique and teachers during her years at Scrabble. Pollard and her six siblings attended Scrabble during their formative years. Pollard went on to complete her high school education at George Washington Carver High School which served African American students in the four-county Rapidan region before integration. Pollard went on to the Virginia State College (now Virginia State University) in Petersburg, Virginia. Pollard is now retired a er an outstanding career as an educator in the Culpeper County school system.
Video Producer Brooke Saias said that the video will serve as a companion piece to the campaign for the Julius Rosenwald National Park, currently under study a er legislation was passed by Congress late last year. Rosenwald, a Jewish philanthropist, was best known as the founder of Sears, Roebuck, and Co. In cooperation with Booker T. Washington, the founder of Tuskegee Institute (now University), Rosenwald built over 5,000 schools for African American students in the rural south, including Scrabble and three others in Rappahannock beginning in the early 1900s. Rosenwald established a fund for the schools and local families contributed matching dollars. In some instances, a portion of the monies came from the local school systems as well.