One-room schoolhouses preserved for posterity

Four one-room schoolhouses remain in the greater Fallbrook area. Three are still in use as community buildings and one is now a private home.

The Rainbow School, which was built in 1890 and is styled in Victorian, was sold to a private party in 1959 and has been a private residence ever since.

De Luz Schoolhouse

The De Luz Schoolhouse was built in 1926 and was operated as a one-room school until 1967.

Theodora (Teddie) Garnsey, who compiled a detailed history of the school, said, “One teacher taught all eight grades, and this person usually lived with one of the families, as was the rural custom.

“Sometimes, to help with family income and also to keep up the enrollment for average daily attendance, families boarded children who needed foster homes. The county inspected the homes and paid for room and board.

“If teachers had children, that helped the enrollment too.”

The school is now is owned by the Fallbrook Union High School District and has been renamed the De Luz Ecology Center.

In some sessions the building is set up to resemble a one-room schoolhouse around the turn of the century or earlier. The students write on slate boards, churn their own butter, make ice cream and use a washboard. During “recess” they shoot marbles.

“It gives them the flavor of what it is like to study in a one-room schoolhouse,” said Scott Gordon, director.

Gordon earned a degree in outdoor education from Humboldt State University. “I enjoy working with the kids and definitely get taught by them too,” he said.

In 1998, while Gordon was teacher, the center was given an award from the School Board Association of California to honor the wonderful job he does to enhance the classroom curriculum.

The ambiance in the schoolhouse instills in one an attitude of learning. Maybe it is the seclusion and solitude or stimulation of the nearby nature trails and creek. It is a marvelous place for students to learn and to be drawn into an understanding of the natural world.

Bonsall Schoolhouse

The white clapboard schoolhouse on Old River Road was opened on August 26, 1895, only at that time it was called Mt. Fairview School.

In Virginia Funk’s book “The Little Old Bonsall Schoolhouse,” I read that the school clock was purchased for $6.50 and the schoolroom was equipped with eighteen new “Twentieth Century” school desks, which cost $6.50 each.

Today the interior is bare of these purchases; in fact, the only schoolhouse remnants are the blackboards that line the walls.

Mrs. Elsie Averill, the first teacher, was hired at $60 per month and Nettie Dusing was appointed “janitoress” at a salary of $4 per month, according to Funk.

It wasn’t until 1919 that the teacher’s salary was increased to $90 per month and the janitoress was able to earn a monthly salary of $10.

In 1920 Bonsall School’s one-room schoolhouse days came to a close. A school bond election victory made it possible to construct a larger building.

Over the years the Old Bonsall Schoolhouse gradually deteriorated and was scheduled to be demolished in the 1960s. That is when Bonsall School District Superintendent Norm Sullivan, and other school board members, decided to save the school.

However, the district could not afford the restoration, so Mr. Sullivan asked the Bonsall Lions Club to take charge of the project.

The members were enthused and began renovation. The school was to be used for purposes other than a classroom, though.

Club members, and a man named Jim Benson, are the heroes who saved Bonsall’s Schoolhouse.

“There was nothing left but a shell of a building,” said Norm Sullivan. “Even the floor was gone.”

The Bonsall Lions Club members restored the floor with wood strips from the old cafeteria floor, which had been stored in a Bonsall barn for several years.

During the five-year restoration process the bell tower was rebuilt and the bell, which had also been stored in a barn, was replaced. The building was re-roofed, the structure was painted and a kitchen was added.

The interior of the building, which is now used as a multipurpose hall, has only a trace of the old schoolhouse aura but is serving the community well as a historical landmark and multipurpose hall.

Reche Schoolhouse

On a wooded hillside near Live Oak Park sits Reche School, a one-room relic of the past.

In 1886 the school was built on land donated by Vital Reche. That building burned to the ground in 1896 and the present structure replaced the ruined school the same year.

Fall Brook School was the name first given to the school, and in 1933 the name was changed to Reche School.

Reche School was a place where children from grades one to eight came to be taught by one teacher who was initially paid $50 a month.

The school closed its doors in 1939 and Margaret Ray of Fallbrook was in the last graduating class.

The Reche Club is an organization dedicated to preservation of the Reche School, has been in existence since 1933 and is now owner of the property.

In the late 1930s a county dance license was granted to the club for fundraising purposes and dances were held in the schoolhouse until shortly after the end of World War II. Now the Reche Club raises funds by hosting chicken potpie dinners and craft fairs.

The school boasts a fascinating collection of library books. The small library room houses an enviable collection of vintage books such as “Martin Merrivale” by John Trowbridge (1854). Other vintage books include “Rough Riders,” “Treasure Island” and “Jane Eyre.”

The interior of the schoolhouse takes visitors back to the turn of the 19th century where the furnishings are a subtle reminder of how schools have changed. Inkwells are carved into oak desks. A dunce cap sits on a corner stool. Blackboards are still black.

Even the course subjects have changed, and a framed “Handwriting Certificate” from 1936 hangs on the wall. The certificate reads: “James McEuen has completed the course in Correlated Blackboard Writing at Reche Grammar School and is awarded this special Blackboard Writing Certificate. Issued the 28th day of May 1936.”

On the playground visitors will find a strange looking device called “Circle Travel Rings,” a tall circular device with rings hanging from the top – an early form of playground equipment.

It’s a bit rusty but still standing. The equipment was purchased in 1925 for $150, which would be about $1,300 today.

It is unusual for a community to have one single-room schoolhouse, let alone four. It is a tribute to the residents of the community who had the foresight to fight for and preserve these living pieces of the Fallbrook history puzzle.

I trust that the future generations will also be good stewards of our rich historical schoolhouse legacy.