Fuqua School
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fuqua School is a private primary and secondary school located in Farmville, Virginia. It is named after J.B. Fuqua, who made a large contribution to the school in 1992 to save it from financial insolvency.
[edit] History
Fuqua School was founded in 1959 as Prince Edward Academy by land donated from the town of Farmville after it closed the town landfill. The school was established as a segregation academy after the United States Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education as a way for white students who were affected by the school closings to receive an education during the period of massive resistance to desgregration. When the public schools were reopened and integrated, Prince Edward Academy stood as an option for families who did not want to participate in integration. Obviously, it did not accept non-white students, but ended its policy of discrimination with very little fanfare in the mid 1970s. Its association with "old money" and discrimination in the past still causes some tension in the Farmville community, especially amongst non-whites and students of the local public schools.
By the early 1990s, with aging technology, a very small alumni contribution base, and an increasing debt, Prince Edward Academy was nearing financial collapse. In 1992, former local resident and businessman J.B. Fuqua donated about 10 million dollars to pay off debts and install necessary improvements to the school, such as air conditioning and computers. The school was transformed at that point with new administration, new mascot and school colors, in addition to the school name change. Until his passing in 2006, Mr. Fuqua donated thousands of dollars to the school each year and regularly visited the school and its students.
[edit] Life at Fuqua
Fuqua, due to its small size, is unable to provide the student body with a wide range of classes at campus. However, students have the opportunity to enroll for free in any class held at Hampden-Sydney College, and receive both high school and college credit. Classes held at Fuqua are generally between 10-20 students in size and are comparable in difficulty to most good public high schools. Fuqua is well known for its business program started by J.B. Fuqua, which provides on-site college-credit courses in accounting, computer technology, and public speaking.
Fuqua students start school at 8:30 am, much later than many public schools. Consequently, Fuqua ends the school day later than most other schools at 3:05 pm. Middle school students typically have seven classes that run an entire year, while high schoolers have four classes that change every semester. The school has very few disciplinary problems with students, with the exception of dress code violations. The Fuqua dress code has been in existence since its days as Prince Edward Academy, though it has varied from jeans and a tucked-in t-shirt to more formal dress multiple times in its history.
The size of a graduating class at Fuqua is typically very small; graduating class size averages about 40 students. While the class composition has been stereotypically described as white, Protestant, conservative, and affluent, all classes have multiple non-whites and represent a wide variety of religious beliefs. Usually all of a graduating class will attend some sort of college, while about 80% of the class attends a four year college. The graduating class also receives many acceptance letters each year to regional and national institutions of higher learning including MIT, the University of Richmond, the University of Virginia, and Duke University. These facts, along with modest tuition rates, small class sizes, and the perception that the local public schools are of low quality tend to attract students from a wide geographic area in Southern Virginia. Buses run over 50 miles away to pick up students, and it is not uncommon for students living over 60 miles away to attend Fuqua.
