From the Bryant Room

Institutions and Organizations

Roslyn Goes to School

By Carol L. Clarke
September/October 2016

The Roslyn School District was first organized in 1813 as Hempstead Harbor District #3. It was one of six school districts formed by the Town of North Hempstead under New York State’s 1812 Common School Law, which authorized communities to form common school districts to provide a basic education to children in a specific geographic area. The Hempstead Harbor district provided children throughout the Roslyn area with a grammar (elementary) education focused on reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, and geography. Common schools were open to all children. However, public funding was limited and it was necessary for the Town to bill students. As a result, many children whose parents who could not afford the rate bills did not attend school. Since common school districts were not authorized to provide a high school education, students who aspired to advanced instruction attended private academies or seminaries. Forty years later, in 1853, the State enacted the Union Free School Act that provided for creation of Union Free School Districts, administered by school boards, and permitted to operate high schools in addition to grammar schools. Roslyn Public Schools reorganized as a Union Free School District in 1864. Although a one year “supplementary or high school class” was offered beginning in 1885, Roslyn did not add a High School Department until 1904.

Few details are known about the location of Roslyn’s earliest public school building. Like most common schools, it was most likely a one-room schoolhouse. A four-room elementary school was erected on School Street (now Old Northern Boulevard) in 1863. Added to over subsequent years, the District #3 School (or Village School) was destroyed by fire in 1897.  Rebuilt on the same site, the second Village School was also destroyed by fire in 1927.  A section of the original stone wall that surrounded the school building is still visible at the rear of the parking lot next to the Kyma Restaurant (formerly the Hewlett-Remsen Garage). A new Village School was erected the following year on a hillside site on Remsen Avenue. Between 1868 and 1913, African American children in grades K-8 attended the “Colored School“, a one-room wood-frame building located on Tower Street, across from the Clock Tower.

To accommodate children who lived outside of the village proper, additional schools were built in the early 1900s. The Highlands School, a small one-room schoolhouse, was built on Warner Avenue in 1906 to serve the children who lived in the Heights area. It was closed when the Roslyn Heights School on Willow Street opened in 1914.  The North Roslyn School was built to serve children in the Greenvale area in 1912. Recognizing the increased need for secondary education, the Roslyn Junior-Senior High School building was erected on Roslyn Road in 1925 on an eight-acre hilltop site donated by Mr. and Mrs. Clarence H. Mackay.

Roslyn School District #3 experienced a population surge in the years following World War II. The Roslyn Highlands Neighborhood School, for children in Kindergarten through grade four, opened in 1950 in Roslyn Heights. The East Hills School opened in 1951, followed by Flower Hill School in 1952. The Roslyn Junior High School opened for seventh and eighth graders in 1957, relieving overcrowding in the high school building. The last elementary school built was the Harbor Hill School in 1962.

Roslyn’s school population peaked in 1967 but soon began to decline, resulting in the closure of four schools between 1970 and 1980. The Highlands School closed in 1972, followed by the North Roslyn School in 1975 and the Village School in 1976. The Flower Hill School was the last to close in 1980.  Today, the educational needs of Roslyn students are met by the remaining three elementary schools (East Hills, Harbor Hill and Heights), Roslyn Middle School and Roslyn High School. 

Category: Places and Events