ATHENS, Ga. — Two Athens elementary schools are being renamed after former teachers who helped integrate faculty in Clarke County, according to the school district.
A rededication ceremony is planned at the schools on Friday.
Clarke County School District said Chase Street Elementary would be renamed Johnnie Lay Burkes Elementary, and Alps Road Elementary School is changing to Bettye Henderson Holston Elementary.
A service for Johnnie Lay Burkes Elementary is scheduled for 10 a.m., and the ceremony for Bettye Henderson Holston Elementary starts at 1 p.m.
More about Johnnie Lay Burkes
A native of Barrow County, Ms. Burks graduated from Glenwood High School in Winder as valedictorian and class president in 1958 and attended Clark College (now Clark Atlanta University), where she received a bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences and Psychology. She began her teaching career at Northside Elementary School in Ila, Madison County and, in 1963, moved to the all-Black East Athens School, where she taught fifth-graders. During her third year there in 1966, she was one of five Black educators whom then-Clarke County School District Superintendent Samuel W. Wood approached about integrating the faculties of five all-white schools in Athens. After initially being assigned to Alps Road Elementary, she began teaching fifth grade at Chase Street Elementary in September 1966.
After her time at Chase Street, Ms. Burks took the next step toward her ultimate career goal of being a counselor by accepting a counselor position at Clarke Middle School and furthered her own education, receiving her masters and education specialist degrees in counseling from the University of Georgia. She would later become chair of the counseling department at CMS for 17 years and was named CCSD’s Counselor of the Year in 1986.
"’Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.’ Lincoln's Gettysburg Address delivered Nov. 19, 1863, taught to all Bethlehem Elementary students by Principal Grace Lay, was not an empty promise,” said Ms. Burks. “Superintendent Wood hired me to teach in the Clarke County School District 100 years later in August 1963, and now, in November 2023, a school is renamed Johnnie Lay Burks Elementary. The American experiment is still alive and well.”
More about Bettye Henderson Holston
A native of Monticello, Ms. Holston developed a passion for teaching and education at an early age and was inspired by her mother and aunt, both of whom taught Black children in rural communities. After graduating from Fort Valley State University with a bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education, she taught nine years in public schools in Walton, Barrow, and Newton counties.
Not long after moving to Athens, she applied for a position with the Clarke County School District and was assigned to the segregated Alps Road Elementary for the start of the 1966-67 school year — part of the initial group of Black teachers who integrated the Clarke County teaching staff that year. She would later transfer to Chase Street Elementary, where she won Teacher of the Year in 1975, and she retired from a distinguished teaching career in Clarke County in 1989 at Timothy Road Elementary.
Ms. Holston is a past president of the Athens Area Retired Educators Association, was a local Girl Scout leader, and has been involved with and served on several community organizations and boards. She also has held several leadership positions at Greater Bethel A.M.E. Church since joining in 1963. In all of these roles, she remained dedicated to service and making a difference in the lives of others.
“Teachers are important because they change lives, inspire dreams, and they imbue students with the knowledge they will use throughout their lives,” said Ms. Holston. “Teaching can be rewarding, and while I always wanted to do work which was rewarding, I found greater purpose in making history live for people who came after me, and in that way, being the change I wished to see in the world.
“A good teacher is like a candle – you light the way for others. I hope I have done just that.”
Two Athens elementary schools being renamed after prominent teachers in community
