As you approach Hood Street Elementary School on Fort Jackson, you might notice the huge banner on the outside, or the big welcome mat right in front of the main doors, or even the large paned windows that line the front of the building. As you walk inside, you may even duck your head because of the low ceilings. What you won’t notice is the amount of history contained in the school.
Hood Street Elementary School, built in 1963 as Fort Jackson Elementary, has experienced success and excellence over the years. Now it’s less than four months away from being closed because of declining enrollment. When the doors shut in the summer, a history that started 44 years ago will come full circle.
The school had just been finished, built in only 90 days, when the school opened for the 1963-1964 school year. It opened its doors to 210 children and 10 staff members. There were eight teachers, several of whom were military wives and retired educators, who were lead by a then 27-year-old principal, Dr. Thomas Silvester.
“When we opened that school, not everything was ready. The cafeteria wasn’t. But that wasn’t anything big. The kids brought brown bags and sat in the cafeteria, but the kitchen wasn’t operable,” Silvester remembered.
Dr. Silvester has since become part of the school’s history. He was the first principal and he also taught music and physical education. Silvester later became superintendent of all schools on Fort Jackson in 1974, a position he held until his retirement in 2004. He admits, though, he was skeptical about Fort Jackson Elementary.
“I really didn’t think I had a shot at getting that job. But for whatever reason it was offered to me. So, I had to then begin to build a faculty, based on what little knowledge I had about how to do that, but it all worked out. And as I said to someone the other day, this was a family from the get-go. That whole faculty was, the whole community was, and all the kids were. So you compile that and look at it all together and that’s the word that comes to mind. It was a family atmosphere almost from the first day. Everybody was proud to have all their kids who were living on that installation in the same school,” Silvester said.
Hood Street was able to develop that family atmosphere at a time when community was hard to come by. According to The Leader, Fort Jackson’s newspaper, all Department of Defense schools on military installations would be integrated no later than September 1, 1955. So, Hood Street was the first school in the Columbia area and one of the first in the state of South Carolina to be integrated.
Since the military was already integrated, being an integrated school was an easy task, according to Silvester.
“On the very first day of school in 1963, kids were going out to recess and white kids had their arms around black kids and black kids had their arms around white kids. In other words, there was no difference in their minds at all because that’s the lifestyle they had to live,” said Silvester.
Hood Street would maintain an objective of excellence and “kids, community, and teaching,” as Dr. Silvester calls it, into the 1996-1997 school year when it was awarded the National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence award, for sustained high achievement. Hood Street was one of the first Department of Defense Domestic Dependent Elementary and Secondary Schools (DDESS) to be granted with the award in the nation, according to Silvester.
And now, 10 years later, Hood Street is about to be closed down. The school now has an enrollment of 139 students, eight classroom teachers teaching just second and third grades, and a staff of about 32. Cynthia Francis, a second grade teacher who has spent 25 years at Hood Street Elementary, says that the future of the building is uncertain. Francis also mentioned the possibility of getting Hood Street recognized as a national or state historical landmark does exist.
A ceremony is being planned to honor the school’s achievements. It will involve current and former teachers, faculty, and staff, as well as former and current students, according to Francis.
“[Hood Street] is a great school…it’s student friendly…and it’s just an ideal situation,” Francis commented.
“I truly enjoyed being around those kids,” Silvester said. “It’s the end of an era to see that school close.”
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