Peachtree Elementary School history

In 1926, the school was renamed for Mr.

When the new structure opened for classes in 1950, it received an architectural award for excellence in design and was featured in Time Magazine.

Like the Arter mansion in 1958, the Lion sculpture was a gift worth about $100,000.

Peachtree City was chartered March 9, 1959.

Angel Handing Man the Book of Knowledge (1961) is relief-mounted on the façade of the Grasselli Library & Breen Learning Center, at John Carroll University.

There too one finds the monumental bronze Winston Churchill (1966), generally viewed as McVey’s most important sculpture.

On January 6, 1971, Peachtree Elementary School opened at a site along that path at Peachtree Corners in Norcross, at 5995 Crooked Creek Road.

For the lobby of Orange School, which had been thoroughly rebuilt in 1973, the animal “sits straight and tall, with clean modern lines,” and even in one’s imagination, “an MGM lion’s roar from him is out of the question.”

Or perhaps they knew that in 1975 McVey had created a very stylized Lion sculpture for Orange High School in Pepper Pike, again as an embodiment of a school mascot.

Rachel Haddon joined the staff as the first music teacher in 1976.

His death occurred on January 2, 1977, during open-heart surgery.

In 1978, the six classes of fifth graders were housed at Summerour Middle School to relieve overcrowding.

Dan Osburn, the only male lunchroom supervisor in Gwinnett County at the time, was at Peachtree from its opening until 1979.

A former Peachtree teacher, Jerrilyn Berrong, became the principal in the fall of 1981.

The following year, 1982, the six fifth-grade classes were shuttle-bused to Norcross Elementary to relieve severe overcrowding.

The opening of Berkeley Lake Elementary in the fall of 1983 returned Peachtree’s enrollment to under the 698 students for which the school was designed.

In June of 1984, Jerri Berrong announced that she would be leaving Peachtree for a year’s sabbatical.

By December of 1986, the new kindergarten building was completed, and a delighted group of students and teachers moved into their new home after the winter holidays.

Fraker and her staff, which now included Judi Rogers, the new assistant principal, the school was ready for all 1,100 children the first day of the 1987–88 school year.

In 1993, another new school opened, Simpson Elementary, which relieved some of the overcrowding at Peachtree.

A new gymnasium, media center, classrooms and administrative offices were added in 1994.

A renovation of the cafeteria, auditorium, and classroom wings (including new HVAC and electrical systems) was completed in the fall of 1999.

In the fall of 2001, E. Rivers completed its “Field of Dreams” – the result of tremendous generosity and collaboration between E. Rivers families, faculty, neighbors, business partners and Atlanta Public Schools.

Loethen-Payne served as principal of Peachtree until 2009 when she was tapped to open a new elementary school in Gwinnett County.