To many people, the one-room country schoolhouse is a relic of the past – a traditional institution rendered obsolete by the insatiable forces of progress, modernity and technology.
But the indomitable spirit, timeless values and proven ideas underlying the one-room country schoolhouse live on today in Addison Township at a little place called Kingsbury School.
Located at the intersection of Hosner and Oakwood roads, the private, independent school – which educates junior kindergarteners through eighth-graders – celebrated its 50th anniversary Saturday.
Past and present faculty, students, parents, alumni, school board members and friends gathered at the campus to celebrate five decades of Kingsbury education, fellowship and success.
“I love this place very, very much,” said John Diebboll, Class of 1970, to the assembled crowd. “I went to other schools after, but nothing has meant more to me than Kingsbury.”
“At moments like this my heart is very full because this is a great school, it is a great family and I was lucky to be here at the beginning,” said Jocelyn Scofield, former teacher and interim head of school and board member. “It’s a wonderful to see an institution like this being carried on so faithfully and so well.”
The celebration began with the Metamora Hunt embarking from the school on an exciting cross-country event.
Dick Halsey, who served as Head of School from 1971 to 1998, explained the significance of the Metamora Hunt to Kingsbury.
For 70 years prior to Kingsbury’s opening as a private school, the one-room schoolhouse – located on the northeast corner of Oakwood and Hosner roads – operated as a public learning institution for the local farmers’ children.
“We can say we’re really celebrating 120 years of Kingsbury education,” Halsey said.
However, Halsey said “the fox hunt put the public Kingsbury out of business.”
“When the Gross Pointe and Bloomfield hunts ran out of room in their own areas, they came out here and bought up all the farms to create the Metamora Hunt,” Halsey explained.
As the farmers and their families moved away, Halsey said the one-room schoolhouse “wasn’t needed any more” and closed in 1934.
Kingsbury remained closed for nearly two decades until Carlton and Annette Higbie reopened the school in 1953 as a branch of the Isabel Buckley Schools, a group of independent schools in California. It was the only branch that wasn’t located in California.
“I just want you to know that I know (the Higbies) are so incredibly proud of what’s been accomplished here,” said Stephen Higbie, son of the founders and member of Kingsbury Class of 1956.
When the independent Kingsbury School opened, Halsey said it consisted of 13 students and two rooms.
By the late 1980s, Halsey said Kingsbury reached the “high water enrollment mark” with 176 students. Today, 129 students are enrolled in the school.
Over its half-century existence, Halsey estimated the independent Kingsbury graduated between 1,000 and 1,300 students.
“I’m proud to tell you that I’ve played a little part in the development of some of these people,” he said. “And I’m always excited to see them whenever I run into them now because universally I’m proud to say that I contributed to a small part of their lives.”
As student body size increased, so did the size of Kingsbury’s facilities.
In 1975, Kingsbury expanded its campus with a new building on the southwest corner of Oakwood and Hosner roads, where it continues to expand today.
Former Kingsbury student Diebboll is the architect who designed further additions to the school including the 1997 addition and remodeling of the upper school on Oakwood Road; the facia of the Justin A. Schwartz Center; and the 2000 addition to the lower school on Hosner Road.
“As the architect of the new building, the challenge I really faced was how to keep that (one-room school house) character in line with the new building; how to transfer the spirit of that original building across the road and into these new structures. I hope you feel they’ve succeeded in doing that,” he told the crowd.
“Even though they’re grander, they’re larger, there’s something about them that carries that spirit even today and hopefully in the future when we build more structures somewhere out there,” Diebboll added.
Halsey noted how northern Oakland County’s growth has fueled the changes at Kingsbury.
“When I first came to the school (in 1971), most of the students (there were 45 then) lived right around the school and most of them were country kids,” he said. “Now the school covers a much bigger geographic area and the suburbs are coming this way. I remember when I first came out here, the suburbs ended at Rochester, now the suburbs end at Lakeville Road and they’re on their way.”
Despite the growth, Halsey said “Kingsbury’s always been a country school and it will stay a country school” because the school’s board of trustees had the “foresight” to purchase a lot of acreage and “we have neighbors who appreciate acreage.”
“But it may be a country school with a lot of suburban kids going here,” Halsey added.
In addition to changes in enrollment and campus size, Halsey noted the school’s curriculum has “changed significantly.”
“This has been a very progressive school in the best sense,” he said. “It’s still traditional, still structured, but always able to take advantage of the best of the new ideas for education.”
In spite of all the changes a half-century of growth has wrought, the “more important” things have remained the same, Halsey said.
“Universally, people tell me what good students (Kingsbury alumni) are,” he said. “Not necessarily that they get the highest grades, but that they are hard-working, good students, who do the best that they can do.”
Halsey said Kingbury “always had a good balance between being child-centered (which focuses on children’s “personal development) and academic-centered (good grades and awards).”
“Kingsbury was always a place where the child was very important and the academics were as important,” Halsey said. “And to me, that’s the way all schools should be.”
Another thing that hasn’t changed is Kingsbury “has always been one place.”
“Even when we moved into two locations across the road from each other, it was still one place,” Halsey said. “This has always been one school. People have always gone to Kingsbury, not Kingsbury lower school or Kingsbury middle school, but to Kingsbury School.”
“That’s hard to find. There are schools now where kids are only in that school for second and third grade and go to a different school for fourth grade and middle school’s in a different building, high school a different building,” Halsey added.
Halsey said that spirit of oneness can still be found today when you see “eighth-graders working with kindergartners.”
The core of the Kingsbury experience, which is a “personal education,” has endured for 50 years and will continue to do so, he said.
“Many of the principles of the one-room schoolhouse – the idea that every child is on a different page, that every child requires different ideas about learning – have stayed with Kingsbury, not only when it was a public school, but throughout its history.” Halsey said. “The school has changed in enrollment and in size, but it is still a small school.”
“I’m proud to have been part of the school,” Halsey said. “I’m proud of the people who are here now. I’m glad to say that Kingsbury School is looking forward to 50 more great years.”