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Atlanta University Laboratory School Building |
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Opened in September 1930, the Atlanta University Laboratory School merged the preparatory programs of Spelman College, Morehouse College, and Atlanta University. The elementary grades were taught at Oglethorpe School, founded in 1904, on the Atlanta University campus, and the secondary school was housed at Giles Hall on the Spelman College campus. The “Lab School” would serve as a site of student teaching for Atlanta University’s Department of Education, even though W. E. B. Du Bois, in May 1939, would complain that little teacher training was done and that it suffered from too few teachers and insufficient funding (Du Bois, 1939). This criticism may be due to the traditional tensions between an experimental school and a laboratory-student teaching school. Laboratory High School was more college-oriented than other black secondary schools, and the socio-economic and educational status of the families of its students was not representative of the general public (Freeman, 1942; Smith, W., 1942). In essence, those Atlanta University students who engaged in student teaching at this school were not working with the general population, nor would they have been following traditional curricula in use at other black secondary schools. The high school would close in 1942, thus ending its involvement with the Secondary School Study; the elementary school continued serving as a laboratory setting for the university. Thirteen secondary school teachers worked directly with 200 students, grades 7-12. William A. Robinson served as principal from 1931 through 1940 (while also directing the Study during his final year as principal). |
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