Long-time rancher, remembers one-room Pleasant Valley School
By Marianne McKnight
1999

Pleasant Valley School was once a one-room schoolhouse. It stood on a hill close to where 86-year old Alice Magonigle still lives on Piper Lane off of Pleasant Valley Road. The schoolhouse was over a hundred years old, and it had a bell tower, Alice said. “You could hear the bell all over the valley when it rang.” Alice and her husband Henry were ranchers, their forefathers among the early settlers of Penn Valley and Smartville. The Magonigles raised 200 head of cattle, and they raised three children, who attended the one-room schoolhouse before electricity was ever brought in. “We owned the 300 acres around the one-room school,” said Alice. “Our daughter rode her horse to school; the boys rode their bikes.”

In order to have a one-room school, you had to have seven pupils, Alice said. When Mooney Flat School’s enrollment dropped below the minimum, the remaining children started attending Pleasant Valley School, the old Pleasant Valley schoolhouse, consequently, began bulging at the seams. “We tried putting desks in the anteroom in the back where the coats and lunch buckets were kept,” Alice remembered. Above the sink in the anteroom, each child had his own cup. The children took turns hauling drinking water in a bucket from the nearby creek. Eventually, another room was built adjacent to the original 100-year-old building. Years later, the original building and the addition were incorporated into a residence, which still exists. “Some people wanted to unify all the little school districts” Alice said. While Rough & Ready and Indian Springs schools eventually combined in 1957, forming the Ready Springs School District, the other local districts opted to remain separate. “We wanted our independence,” she said.

During World War II it was sometimes hard to get good teachers, Alice remembered. They once had a teacher who didn’t know how to teach, and one day the kids all ran away from school. “They came here”, said Alice. She promptly encouraged the youngsters to return to school, promising that she would come and spend the next day in the classroom. From what she observed, a change was in order. The following day the teacher was met at the door by Henry, a member of the Pleasant Valley School board of trustees for 25 years. He promptly dismissed her.

Most of the teachers who taught at the one-room schoolhouse, however, were wonderful, Alice said. “The one we had for six years came to see me last week,” she said, beaming. “Mildred Fisher was a mother and teacher and moral corrector.” “That’s why we didn’t want to give up control of the district,” said Alice, who was pleased with the education their children received at the tiny school.

Their oldest son became an engineer. Their daughter worked as a schoolteacher before raising a family. Their youngest son was ranked in the top 5% academically in the nation and was wooed by such universities as Harvard and Yale. Alice couldn’t be more proud.

Pleasant Valley School Today

School, just across the road from our Pleasant Valley campus.Pleasant Valley operates under an expanded middle school configuration, serving our community ‛?s fourth through eighth grade students. The school enjoys a very stable community with values that support our many programs for students. Pleasant Valley School ‛?s vision is one in which the staff, community, and students work together to encourage responsibility, integrity and an enthusiasm for learning. School Leadership. Visit the Pleasant Valley School web site: http://www.pvsdnc.k12.ca.us/pvs/index.html

Then and Now
Penn Valley Courier Vol 1 No. 4 – September 23, 2005
By Lori Woodhall

Although Williams Ranch is not an old school by Nevada County standards (it was 13 years old on Aug. 31), its roots go back in time,. Williams Ranch belongs to the Pleasant Valley School District, which was first recognized as early as 1879 according to county records.

The land that the school occupies also has roots. Purchased from the Williams family around 1990, the family has an interesting story. According to Mr. Larry Colling, 62, of Marysville, his great-grandfather owned what he believed was the 10,000-acre Williams Ranch. “The ranch covered all the way around to the back side of Lake Wildwood,” he says. Ninety-one-year-old Alice Magonigal has lived in Penn Valley for 61 years. Her family purchased the land she still lives on from the Schwartz family, whose property was nearby the Williams’. “People didn’t move around much then,” she says, “just by horse and buggy.”

A poem hangs in the Williams Ranch School office that talks about how, in the 1800s the family came from New York by ship, California-bound. Their destination into a “pleasant valley” was reached by horses and wagon. They built a house, planted crops, raised farm animals and grew an orchard. They raised two daughters and two sons and had a stellar reputation among friends and neighbors of always being willing to help and having warm hospitality. They even helped to build Williams Ranch School.

Williams Ranch, which educates grades K-3 was constructed due to overcrowding at Pleasant Valley School, then a K-8^th school. Many Pleasant Valley teachers were heavily involved in the design of the school. According to 16-year PVSD teacher Pattie Swindling, “We spent a couple years planning the school before we even broke ground.” The school was officially completed on Aug. 31, 1992 and dedicated with a grand opening ceremony on Sept. 2, 1992, with many administrators, teachers, Williams extended family members and even a dignitary from the State present. “It was very exciting,” Swindling recalls.

What were those early days like? Priscilla Mayfield, a PFSD employee for over 30 years, went over to work at the school when it opened. “It was like going back in time, finding your way around all the hallways on your first day of high school,” she says. Swindling remembers the soccer field was originally all dirt. On Aug. 20, 1993, one Saturday the whole field was hydro seeded, helped by Tom Watkins, a well-loved individual who was very involved in community youth soccer programs, Wayne Padover (the superintendent at the time) and Ron Ettlin who owned the landscaping company. When Mr. Watkins died of a heart attack a few years ago, the now lush green field was dedicated to his memory with a plaque.

Third-grad teacher Kathy Jones recalls the “low tech” approach she and other teachrs Chrissy Loveton Joelle Lake and their own kids used to help install the computer system about a year after the school was built. “We pulled open cabinets, manholes and the closet off the boys bathroom. “Here are a bunch of pipes. Where does this tube (conduit) go? Go down to the kindergarten pod and try to hear me. Can you hear me? OK. Here comes the fish tape. Tie the string on and I’ll pull it back. Yuck. It is all wet and muddy.’ We made cables. We pulled wire. We connected the office, the pods, the portables all to the computer lab. We were ASTOUNDED when it worked!” Since those early days the school has grown to employ 15 teachers, who nurture 251 students. The school also operates Kiddie Corral, a pre-K program and hosts a 4-H after-school care program.

The school’s mission which it shares with Pleasant Valley School, was adopted in April of 2000 and reads in part: “to provide a safe atmosphere of learning that meets the challenges of educating all students.” Says principal Sam Schug: “We are ready and excited for another great year with our old and new friends (students) here at Williams Ranch.”

As early as 1855 county records indicate that public schools were organized n Penn Valley. Prior to that, kids went to private schools *if they went at all) whose tuition was paid by parents who could afford it. Back then, a teacher’s pay averaged $77/month of men, $64/month for women. Attendance was scattered at best, partly due to the distance between schools. In 1859 it was reported that only one-third of school children in the county had attended during that year, “while the other two-thirds are growing up in ignorance.”

In 1879 report by the Nevada County Superintendent of Schools, of the 32 kids registered at Pleasant Valley’s one-room school, 15 were under the age of 5, and the average daily attendance was just nine kids! In this same report, school expenses for Pleasant Valley for that year were a grand total of $79.05, and total value of the school property, including books was $700. The original one-room school building still stands, now a residence, just off Pleasant Valley Road on the left before Bitney Springs. The Pleasant Valley School District was officially established on March 4, 1868, according to county Historical Society Bulletins. Very few records exist for Pleasant Valley School for the first half of the 20^th centrury, except that for the school year of 1905-06 “Miss Jeanette Uphoff was the teacher and Mr. Charles Schwartz was the clerk.” Rumor has it that Bret Harte, the famous western writer was a Pleasant Valley employee at one time.

In 1971 bonds were voted and approved for the new school to be built on the site where it stands today. It was completed and occupied by 1972. In 1973 there were 43 kids attending. Priscilla Mayfield, the longest continuing employee in the PVSD was there from the beginning. She recalls, “There were only two teachers, a husband and wife, Tom and Sheila Randall. He also was the principal, and I was the aide.” There was just one building which is the current staff room. The original bell made its way from the old schoolhouse and has its own stories to tell. Mayfield said they used to ring it to start school. It was housed on a platform out near the playground.

According to teacher Jeff Miller, “The yard duty used to let the kids ring the bell to come in from recess. One day they rang it and it fell off its stand.” Luckily, no one was hurt. It now has a special stand in front of the school. Mayfield says back then the school was so small the library came in a small motor home and the nurse came pulling a small trailer, her office. “The milkman came every day and we had no lunch program,” she adds. From 1973-1980 the district had a little 15-seat bus. “We called it ‘The Corn Can,’” Mayfield recalls. “If the kids were from Bitney Springs or Mooney Flat,” she ads, “they had to do the whole route, and it took them more than an hour to get home. The bus driver would often stop at the Driftwood and buy the kids that were left on the bus a coke because it was such a long ride.” In 1980 the district sold the bus to a local person for $1.

Mayfield has two daughters: Holly, who was in Pleasant Valley’s first graduating class of 8^th-graders (five in her class) in 1976, and Jill, who graduated two years later, with 15 in her class.

Current 5^th-grade teacher Michael Schmidt has been at Pleasant Valley since 1979. “Coming from a large city, I was in culture shock to teach in such a rural school that had so few supplies and equipment,” he remembers. He has also seen many changes. In 1979, he says, “there were about 250 kids and only two permanent buildings. No gym. The Viking Center was just being built. The rest of the classes were all in portables “The baseball field wasn’t there either. I coached basketball, and we practiced at an outdoor court where the Wildwood parking lot turnaround now is.” Over the years the school has grown to 422 students in grads 4-8. There are 15 general education teachers, one technology teacher and 2 special ed. Teachers. The school boasts sports teams, after-school activities and a patriotic spirit. Principal Cling Johnson observes, “For a small school I think Pleasant Valley does a good job of teaching the whole child.”

Williams Ranch School Today

With a cooperative spirit, Williams Ranch School's staff, students and community strive to foster integrity, respect, responsibility and lifelong love of learning. Our mission is to promote the academic and personal growth of our students and staff through involvement in effective educational experiences. Visit the Williams Ranch School web site: http://www.pvsdnc.k12.ca.us/wrs/index.html