History

Woodward School         

By 1916, the village of Rochester had five hundred and twenty-three students enrolled in a two-story brick and stone building called the union school.  The students and sixteen teachers were cramped in the building.  By 1926, even with thirty teachers and the addition of many more rooms, another school was needed to relieve the over-crowding (enrollment at that time had reached 875 students).  In that year, a small brick unit school was built on the corner of Pine and Sugar Street (now Woodward Avenue).  The total cost of construction was $28,000 and included two rooms that would hold four grades, kindergarten through third.

The small school was named after Lysander Woodward because he had sold his farmland to the Rochester Development Company who in turn used the land to construct the school.  It was intended for younger children who lived in the northern part of the village and helped relieve some of the over-crowding in the schools.  The Woodward School was the village's only school outside the central system until after World War II.  The first teachers in the school were Betty Frank Arscott, who taught kindergarten through first grade, and Lucille Christensen Roy who taught the second and third grades.

As enrollment increased, two more classrooms were added at a cost of $12,000 in 1928.  In 1932, Lucille Gilbert (1932-1945) became the Woodward School's first principal and also taught first through third grades.  The small school underwent changes once again in 1958 when four more rooms and a gymnasium were added.  In 1965-66, the student enrollment reached 400.  It was determined that the playground needed to be enlarged.  The school bought three homes on Ferndale Street, demolished them, and the playground was enlarged.  In 1967, a new library, bathrooms, a teacher's lounge, and activities room were also added.

The small brick school was still in use in the early 1980s when a new computer room was added. The Woodward School did not remain open to its students for long, however. On June 17, 1983, students attended the final day of the school year. It was also the last day the school would hold classes. After the school was closed, it became The Older Person's Commission and served the community until October 2003 when it was demolished. Today, private homes occupy the site where the school was stood.