History of Pleasant Grove Elementary

Sourced from: Thompson, E. K. (2016). Historic Photographs of the Whitfield County schools. Dalton, Georgia: Ellen Keith Thompson.

     Pleasant Grove Elementary School was originally established as "Shady Grove" by the community church congregations in 1853. The log structure built just east of present-day Grove Level Baptist Church served as a school, church, and community meeting house. When the Baptist and Methodist congregations built their own churches, the name changed to Pleasant Grove School due to the school meeting outdoors under a grove of trees just south of the Methodist church. The North Georgia Citizen reported in 1880 that a staff of eight teachers and an administrator supervised 90 students. William Martin Sapp, an alumnus of the school, described the eight-hour school day as a combination of studying out loud and working outside under the grove of trees. He wrote:

When protracted services were being held at either of the Churches, the school was required to go in a body to 'preaching'...Spelling matches and athletic contests with neighboring schools were of frequent occurrence. Wrestling, debates, town hall, base ball (sic), foot races, tugs of war, and other games of physical prowess were held, while the admiring young ladies looked on and applauded their respective champions.

     Pleasant Grove School has functioned in its present location for over 50 years. In 1934, several smaller schools were combined with Pleasant Grove to form Pleasant Grove Consolidated High School. Pleasant Grove served first through twelfth-grade students until North Whitfield High School was built in 1954. Pleasant Grove served the first through eighth grades until 1975 when a new high school was built and North Whitfield was converted to a middle school to serve the sixth through eighth-grade students. Pleasant Grove began serving kindergarten students in 1978 and as of 2019 began serving pre-kindergarten students as well as students through fifth-grade.