Lee-Scott Academy

Lee-Scott Academy

Education; Lee County, AL; Lee-Scott Academy; Lee Academy; Scott Preparatory; Auburn, AL; Private School; Civil Rights Era; Desegregation; White Flight; Presbyterian Day School; Scott, I.J.; Opelika-Auburn News; Nixon, Richard; Reconstruction

Presbyterian Day School, a private academy, was founded in Auburn in 1965 and was renamed Lee Academy several years later. In 1970, a contingent of white Opelikans, displeased with pending implementation of the court-mandated integration of the city school system, founded the private school Scott Preparatory. In a September 3, 1970 Opelika-Auburn News article, Scott Preparatory co-founder I. J. Scott referred to federal desegregation as a “conspiracy” between federal agencies and President Richard Nixon (to whom he referred in the article as “Tricky Dick”) aimed at completing the objectives of the nineteenth-century Reconstruction regimes. The enrollment at both private schools increased as the unconstitutionality of “Freedom of Choice” schools left little doubt that Lee County’s public schools would soon be integrated. From 1967 to 1971 (the period when court orders forced Lee County schools to fully integrate), Lee Academy’s enrollment climbed from 47 to 208. Scott Preparatory’s opening-day enrollment in August 1971 totaled 350 students. The two county private schools merged in 1981 to form Lee-Scott Academy on the site of the old Lee Academy. For many years, neither Lee Academy, Scott Preparatory, nor the combined Lee-Scott Academy enrolled or received applications from black students. However, Lee-Scott Academy is now desegregated; during the 2006-2007 school year, 5 of the 549 students enrolled were African American. Growing enrollment allowed the Board of Trustees to build a new facility, and in 1996 the assimilated private school relocated to its current home at 1601 Academy Drive in Auburn. The academy’s resource base grew during the 1980s and 1990s. In 1984, donations allowed the school to open its first computer lab. Other endowments allowed for the foundation of two others during the 1990s.

Taylor McGaughy

Image Source: http://www.aais-schools.org/page.cfm?p=373

Text Sources: Joseph M. Bagley, A Meaningful Reality: The Integration of the Opelika, Alabama City School System, 1965-1972 (MA Thesis, Auburn University, 2007), 67-74, 83.

The Heritage of Lee County Book Committee, The Heritage of Lee County, Alabama (Clanton, AL: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2000), 78.

Lee-Scott Academy: http://www.lee-scott.org/page.cfm?p=505.

Alabama Cultural Resource Survey

2014-11-26

Taylor McGaughy

JPEG and Text

English

Still Image and Text