Mapleton Local Schools

Origins:

Polk School
The land for the first school house in Polk was donated by village founder, John Kuhn. The first school house was a one-room building and it burned the winter of 1872. A two-room school was built on the same site. It suffered the same demise as the first building, burning on November 20, 1903. During the remainder of that school year, the lower grades met above the Post Office and the upper grades met in the Polk Armory while a new building was constructed. The next building remained and was renovated and added to in 1922, 1948 and 1961. 1st through 12th grades attended classes in the Polk building until the consolidation. The students at Polk were the Presidents, Prexies for short. Their colors were black and orange.

Nankin School
In 1900 the Nankin school was opened. It was a one-story brick structure of 6300 square feet of classroom space. In 1950 a two-story addition was constructed adding offices, more classrooms a kitchen and a cafeteria. The building served grades first through eighth until the consolidation era. Nankin's school colors were red and gray. They were the Warriors.

Ruggles-Troy School
In the early years, there were schools at Nova and Ruggles. Later, the high school students for the area attended at Nova and younger ones were housed at Ruggles. When Ruggles and Nova consolidated to become Ruggles-Troy, the Nova building was expanded and grades 1-12 attended. Ruggles-Troy's colors were gold and green. They were the Golden Flashes. Before Ruggles-Troy, Ruggles' colors were dark red and blue. They were the Rangers. Troy students were called the Trojans. Their colors were maroon and white.

The Consolidated District
After the consolidation, various alignments of the building were tried. The beginning of the first year of the new Mapleton District saw all the district high school students housed at the Ruggles-Troy building, and then later in the year, in the new building. The 7th and 8th grades from R-T were bused to Polk to allow room at R-T for the Nankin and Polk high school students to come in. When the new Mapleton High School building was completed, all high school students attended classes for the first time on January 19, 1963. The R-T junior high students went back to Nova. The next year, the Nankin junior high students were bused to Nova and the Polk junior high students stayed at Polk; in 1968, the Polk 7th and 8th graders were bused to Nova too.

Over the years, Ruggles-Troy 6th grader came to Polk for a while, and other conformations were tried. The final redistricting before the new buildings were constructed put grades k & 1 at the Nankin building; grades 2-4 at the Polk building and Ruggles-Tryo housed grades 5-8.

The first board of education had purchased 122.6 acres from Carl and Olive Baughman where the original high school was constructed. In the late 1990's efforts were made to redistrict again and begin a program to build new buildings at the high school site; eventually bringing all students in the Mapleton district together for the first time in 2004 and 2005. The old, original village school buildings were razed and the properties turned over to the communities.