page_title: Washburn, Missouri
section_title: Public school system
hierarchical_section_title: Washburn, Missouri / Public school system
caption_attribution_description: English: The Washburn school house as it appeared in 1919. The school was built as a result of a 1888 bond issue. The current campus of the Southwest R-V School District occupies the location of this building, which was destroyed by a tornado in the early 1920s.
context_page_description: Washburn is a city in Washburn Township, Barry County, Missouri, United States. The current town encompasses the sites of two communities formerly known as Keetsville and O'Day and is named for local pioneer Samuel C. Washburn. The population was 435 at the 2010 census.
context_section_description: Like most early communities in the Ozark Mountains, public education in Washburn likely started in private homes and churches. By 1888, the idea of a permanent public school district was largely settled and a vote on a bond issue that year resulted in the construction of a new brick school building on land between the town of Washburn and the community of O’Day. The site of that school building continues in use today as the campus of that school's modern predecessor, the Southwest R-V School District. The building that the 1888 bond provided for would provide instruction for Washburn area students up until the eighth grade, though by 1920 it had expanded to offering high school classes.
  In the early years of the school district there was no bus service, so children too far from the school to make it on foot on a daily basis attended various rural schools in the area, including Trents Creek, Maple Grove, Seven Star, Rock Springs, OK, Jacket and others. A tornado in the early 1920s destroyed the earlier building, so in 1924 a brick, single-story building was built to replace it. In the 1930s the Washburn School District instituted bus service, bringing high school students from the outlying communities into town for instruction beyond the eighth grade. This necessitated the addition of a second story to the 1924 structure as well as a gymnasium attached to the back of it. By 1954 the decision was made to close the Seligman School District in neighboring Seligman and bus those students to the larger Washburn campus. This consolidation resulted in the current Southwest R-V School District. Around this time the decision was also made to close the rural schools, most of them being antiquated in resources and limited in size, and use the bus service to bring the younger students to the former high school building in Seligman, while the Washburn building was then used exclusively as a high school. The Washburn building served as the high school and the Seligman building as the elementary for the next 10 years. Then on March 10, 1964 a heavy snowstorm cause the collapse of the Seligman elementary's gymnasium roof. The residents of the school district then voted to build a new elementary school building in Washburn, alongside the 1924 high school building. The 12 classroom elementary building cost $260,000 and was dedicated on August 22, 1965. The new building included classrooms, a multipurpose room, a theater and a cafeteria. The decision to build the new elementary school in Washburn also spurred a short lived revolt against the school district by residents in Seligman, who were upset at losing the school. The residents formed their own unofficial Seligman common school district and sought a legal order to dissolve the Southwest R-V School District and divide the assets. This action was later dismissed.
  On the morning of March 23, 1975, the 1924 high school building caught fire and burned to the ground. The school board quickly set up an election for April 17, 1975 to replace the building on a bond in excess of $200,000. The bond passed with more than the two-thirds majority needed and a new high school building was built and in service the following school year. By 1980 a separate middle school building had also been added to campus and in 1983 a new gymnasium was constructed; in 1982 the gymnasium that had been attached to the 1924 high school building was destroyed by fire. By the end of the 1990s increased enrollment, especially from the rural areas of the district, necessitated the need of a larger and more modern high school. With the construction and opening of this new high school building in the early 2000s, the 1975 high school building became the district's new middle school building and elementary school students occupied both the 1981 middle school building and the 1965 elementary school building, which is currently the oldest building on a campus that dates its original educational origins to the 1888 bond issue.
caption: The Washburn school house as it appeared in 1919. The school was built as a result of an 1888 bond issue. The current campus of the Southwest R-V School District occupies the location of this building, which was destroyed by a tornado in the early 1920s.
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