Education - Bowling Green & Warren County Schools

In 1855 Kentucky\u27s Superintendent of Public Instruction reported to the General Assembly that, on an average, 31% of Warren County\u27s 3,575 white children attended school. That year the state allotment of $2,502.50 was shared among the county\u27s 61 common schools. Only four of these schools offered more than a three-month session. A lack of financial support, textbooks, courses of study and qualified teachers plagued Kentucky\u27s educational system during much of the nineteenth century. In Bowling Green, a number of private schools opened after the Civil War. The first graded, separate public elementary schools were established for black and white children in the town in the 1882. Kentucky\u27s educational system improved with the 1908 School Law which provided for universal public education, an increased school tax, teacher certification, textbooks, quality schoolhouses and a system of county high schools. In 1909 Bowling Green and Warren County jointly opened a public high school available to all white children at the Center Street School. African-American children attended high school at the State Street School. See also Historic Schools of Warren County, Kentucky. In 1894 Bowling Green Public Schools report card of Lonnie Shelton, primary student at College Street School. Margaret Calvert was his 3rd grade teacher.https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/exhibit_1997/1031/thumbnail.jp