The baby boom generation led to a massive expansion of schools in Broome County
At the end of World War II in 1945, there was an enormous number of returning veterans to the Triple Cities area. The same thing was occurring across the nation.
Imagine that during the four years that the United States participated in World War II, over 18,000 men and women from Broome County served. Many of those veterans returned back to form a new life in the area.
There were thousands of people seeking housing, coming back to previous jobs or finding new ones. Pushing out many women who had performed those jobs during the war. Relationships forming or reforming after a cataclysmic upheaval in the world order.
As life would have it, about nine months after the return of those veterans, new life also occurred in increasing numbers of births as the start of the baby boom began.
Some resources have the beginning of the baby boomer period as 1945, while most use 1946 as the “official” start of the baby boomer period, as the number of births began to increase almost exponentially. The baby boomer period lasted until about 1964, when population increases dwindled. However, during this period, thousands of babies arrived in maternity wards across the region.
Within a few years, those new arrivals to life in the Southern Tier were old enough to attend school, and that is when the problems began to occur in each school district.
The school buildings in Broome County by 1950 had already seen much use. In Binghamton, most of the elementary schools dated to two different periods — some built in the 1890's, and others built in the 1920's. By 1950, my former high school, Chenango Forks, had already added one addition to the original late 1920's building. Similar stories could be told across the area.
But none of them was truly prepared for the onslaught of increasing number of kindergarten and first-grade students that began to arrive by 1949. Only four years after the end of the war, those born during the war were old enough to attend. A newspaper article from 1949 indicates that every district except Binghamton saw a significant rise in the total number of students enrolled. The increase was nearly 800 students in one year.
It hit the rural districts especially hard, as both space and money were stretched. In some schools, such as Nimmonsburg, they split class time during the day. In Oakdale, classes were being held in the auditorium and the kitchen. Several districts had already erected additions, such as Deposit and Whitney Point. It was, however, only the beginning of the baby boomer explosion of children.
By 1951, the Vestal school district created an addition at a cost of $245,000 that would hold six new classrooms. They were still laying the floor just days before school was open. Eventually, it would include nine classrooms and an auditorium. By 1952, every district was seeing an increase — some as much as 100 more than the previous year. At Thomas Jefferson School, they turned an auditorium into two classrooms.
By 1958, Chenango Forks doubled the size of its building with a two-story addition that had a large gymnasium and many classrooms. Despite the addition, discussion began that a new high school was necessary. That new school would open in the fall of 1967, and it was only one of several new high schools built within a decade. Imagine the construction of new high schools in Susquehanna Valley, Chenango Valley, Chenango Forks, Maine Endwell, Windsor and Whitney Point. By the late 1960's, the size of graduating senior classes were at an all-time high.
Of course, that height meant the size of classes would slowly begin to decline after that period, but for the thousands of baby boomers, it was a period of all new memoires. I will be speaking about growing up in the baby boomers period for the Friends of the Kilmer Mansion at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 13. I am also speaking about the life of George F. Johnson for the Friends of the George F. Johnson Library at 2 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 4 for their annual meeting. Two good causes for this aging baby boomer.
Gerald Smith is a former Broome County historian. Email him at historysmiths@stny.rr.com.
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This article originally appeared on Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin: Baby boom in Broome County led to a massive expansion of schools
