Thesis (M.A.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1990. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 97-105). Also available via the Internet.

This study was conducted to obtain information from a rural population regarding what makes a good elementary school. A random telephone sample of 100 participants was selected with a total of 83 participants responding to the telephone interview. The interview requested participants to respond to an open-ended question as to the qualities necessary for a good elementary school grades K-7. The interview also was designed to gain information regarding demographic variables of participants in an effort to identify patterns of responses. In addition, a comparison of participants' responses to the research of Ron Edmonds was conducted. Participants identified qualities related to teachers, principals, curriculum, and environmental conditions -as properties of a good elementary school. An overwhelming number of participants indicated teachers who demonstrated care, concern, understanding, patience, and who provided learning experiences that promote success as necessary to a good school. A comparison of participants' responses to the research of Edmonds revealed little consistency between the perceptions of lay people in and the findings of researchers regarding qualities of a good elementary school. Finally, participant demographic variables were examined as they related to the characteristics of teachers, principals, curriculum, and environmental conditions. None of the demographic variables were found to be significantly related to the qualities of a good elementary school. / Ed. D.

Scale 1 inch = 1.9 Statute Miles. Indicates churches, schoolhouses, mills, and homes. Includes an enlarged map of the town of Stuart. Drawn in 1976 for the Patrick County - Stuart Chamber of Commerce by Eugene M. Scheel of Waterford, Va. / https://dc.etsu.edu/rare-maps/1121/thumbnail.jpg

In 1860, Patrick County. like the rest of Virginia and much of the South. wavered uneasily on the brink of secession. In a county where large planters were few, secession was not overwhelmingly popular. Slaveholding families, however, constituted almost one quarter of the white population in Patrick, as they did across the South, and when Virginia seceded. Patrick Countians flocked to serve in the Confederate Army. Although situated in Virginia, Patrick managed to escape physical decimation from war. In fact, no battles occurred in the county and Federal troops only invaded the county once in four years. Nevertheless, the Civil War came home to Patrick in a variety of ways: men were killed, livestock and crops impressed, and farms destroyed. With its prosperity of the 1850's disrupted by the war. Patrick's agricultural output dramatically decreased, industry failed, and labor shortages ensued. Despite the changes the Civil War brought to Patrick, the highest echelon of Patrick's social structure changed little. Those white men who had been well off before the war continued to flourish and continued to own the most and most valuable real estate. Small farmers before the war generally remained small farmers. Free blacks did not gain much status over the decades, and freedmen owned scarcely any land nor personal property; neither group by 1880 had achieved literacy. In Patrick County the rich stayed rich and the planters remained the most influential. / Master of Arts