Highland Home School

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Out here in Waller County, there stands a small white frame schoolhouse, erected in the 1890s, and if walls could talk, these particular walls would have a whole lot to say. It started out as Boyd School, named for D.

R. Boyd, the man on whose land it was built. Simple enough beginning for a place that was about to become the center of a rural community's world.

Somewhere along the way, it picked up a new name, and Highland Home School is what folks came to call it. One teacher. Grades one through seven.

Every age, every lesson, every scraped knee and arithmetic struggle, all under one roof. And that roof did double duty, because this schoolhouse wasn't just for book learnin'. It was where the community gathered, full stop.

Whatever needed doing together, this was the place people did it. Now, anyone who knows early rural Texas knows how this story tends to go. Communities grow, districts consolidate, and the little schoolhouses that held everything together start to fade.

In 1929, Highland Home School closed its doors after it was consolidated with the Waller Independent School District. That small white frame building had carried a community through the better part of four decades. Some endings aren't sad so much as they are earned.

What the marker says

A small white frame schoolhouse, erected here in the 1890s, served families in this rural area until 1929. Initially called Boyd School for D. R. Boyd, on whose land it was built, it later became known as Highland Home School. Children in grades one through seven were taught by one teacher, and the schoolhouse also served as a community gathering place. As was the case with many early rural Texas schools, Highland Home School closed in 1929 after it was consolidated with the Waller Independent School District.