Heading back to school is always an exciting time for students, staff and teachers. This year will be no different. Many people are heading to classrooms that lack the familiarity of past years.

Students at Warren High School walked out of the building last spring that was as old as I am (that’s old) and will walk into a brand-new school on Thursday. Because I have been working on a book on the school all summer, I have visited the school often. I walked the hall in April to get photos of the old school, then I watched as giant track hoes bit away at those very halls all summer. I will be there Thursday to experience the first day of school before putting the finishing touches on “Warren Warriors” and getting the book to the printer. It will arrive back sometime toward the end of September.

The district kept two of the buildings. The building containing the gym and auditorium will live on, as will the building furthest from the school.

Finding new uses for old schools can be tricky. They are, like many buildings, built for a very specific purpose. The easiest thing to convert a school into is another school. This has been the case with many old schools in Marietta. Others have been torn down.

I moved to Marietta just in time to miss the elementary years. I arrived in town a few days before eighth grade, which was at the Junior High School, a building that had been the high school and is now an elementary school, one of three that the district has open.

In the early 1970s there were ten elementary schools in the Marietta City School District.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but the friendships formed in grade schools became the groups that my classmates hung out with in junior high.

They formed the neighborhood hubs all over town.

Norwood School was the first Marietta school I can recall being dropped from the district. It would become the home of Head Start.

Oak Grove found new life after it closed as a private school, as did Marion School that transitioned directly to the new home of St. Mary’s School. A historical photo of Marion School appears on page two of today’s Times. St Mary’s had been where the Ely Chapman Center is now located, which was originally built to be Marietta High School prior to the High School being located where the “new” elementary school is now located. Confused yet?

Fairview Elementary sat in the middle of a lovely neighborhood on Harmar Hill. After it quit being a grade school, Washington Tech, which is now Washington State Community College, used it for its nursing program. For one summer it was the Washington County Public Library, which moved part of its collection there during a renovation of its main branch. It is now the home of Veritas Academy.

When Reno School closed it became a community center, which it remains today.

The building that contained North Hills Elementary was removed after it closed. At some point the land will be redeveloped.

The board of education once had its own building as well, occupying a large home at Third and Sacra Via. Years ago, they sold the “White House” and moved into the VoAg Building at the High School. I took health class at the same location where the administration now works.

The Marietta School System once again has a surplus of buildings. For the first time in more than 60 years there will be no first day of school at Harmar or Putnam schools this fall. Their eventual use is not yet clear.

Around the county there are dozens of other examples of closed schools. The countryside was once dotted with one-room schoolhouses. Some of which remain at the edge of farms. In Watertown, a large construction business is now in what was Watertown School. Both Barlow High School and Beverly High School remain with their buildings used for other purposes. Center Elementary, once part of the Fort Frye district is now a unique home.

If the population continues to change and the educational needs of residents change, we will continue to have different building needs for our schools.

Art Smith is online manager of The Times. He can be reached at

asmith@mariettatimes.com.