‘School of second chances.’ Kentucky school keeps helping at-risk kids after 50 years.
The 50th year of the David School has been a good one.
The school, founded in a former coal camp in Floyd County, marked 50 years in early 2024 of helping disadvantaged kids who were at risk of not finishing high school.
The school needs donations to operate, and last spring an out-of-state donor provided one of the biggest in recent years, for $250,000.
Ned Pillersdorf, chair of the school’s board, said part of his job is “crisis manager” because of the constant need to raise money, so the money was a welcome shot in the arm for what those involved with the school regard as a mission.
“We’re a school of second chances,” said Pillersdorf, a Prestonsburg attorney.
Pillersdorf said the school used the money to raise teacher salaries and make some investments to improve its finances.
The school saw a number of other changes in its 50th year as well, including the return of a music teacher and the addition of a nurse through an agreement with Mountain Comprehensive Care Center.
The school began working to re-establish its boys basketball team; the archery team qualified to compete in the state, national and world championships; and test scores were encouraging last school year.
“There’s a lot of good things happening this year,” said Bryan Lafferty, the principal.
‘Make a difference’
The town of David was founded in 1940 by a coal company to serve its mines. It was named for a company executive and owned by the company.
The town flourished for awhile, but the company, Princess Elkhorn, ultimately lost a market for its relatively high-sulfur coal and closed in 1968, selling the town, according to a local history and residents.
The town dwindled because of the loss of jobs and problems with its water and sewer systems that the landlord didn’t address, according to the history by author Mary A. Pineau.
Eastern Kentucky, like much of Central Appalachia, was relatively poor when Daniel Greene, a college freshman from Brooklyn, visited in the late 1960s.
Greene, like many other idealistic young people at the time, said he felt “called to come back and really make a difference” in the region after college, he told the Herald-Leader in a 1989 interview.
Greene and others started the David School in the former coal-company commissary building with 10 students in early 1974.
The school later built its current building in a secluded hollow nearby, with classrooms, a cafeteria, offices and a half-size basketball court.
‘More like home’
The David School helps high school students who have struggled in larger public schools for various reasons, including bullying or feeling like they didn’t fit in.
The region is poor, with one measure of income, per capita market income, at $21,817 in Floyd County in 2022, compared to a national level of $53,462, according to the Appalachian Regional Commission.
Most of the students at the school are economically poor as well, and some have faced difficult situations at home.
They benefit from a more close-knit atmosphere at the school, teachers said.
Two resident dogs who roam the halls — an Australian Shepherd named Maggie and a shepherd mix named Iris — help with the family feel, and students help with chores such as cleaning.
With 59 students expected next semester, classes are smaller than in many public schools and teachers can spend more time working with students individually, Lafferty said.
“That’s the goal — transform this area one kid at a time,” Lafferty said.
Roy Reynolds, who teaches math, said teachers have the time to reach kids who would likely fall through the cracks at a larger public school.
“Some of these kids here would never get a high-school education if they weren’t here,” Reynolds said.
Brayden Johnson, a 15-year-old freshman, said there were “a lot of bullies and fighting” at the larger public school system he attended earlier, but there’s none of that drama at the David School.
“I love it up here,” he said while helping clean a classroom. “If you want respect, you gotta give respect back.”
Breonna Mullett, an 18-year-old senior on the archery team, said she feels more comfortable at the school than the one she attended before and has “opened up a lot.”
“It just feels more like home,” she said.
‘We’ve got the need’
Lafferty said the school had 23 students when he started working there in 2019, so enrollment has since more than doubled.
There were 16 graduates last May, and there will be 19 seniors in the upcoming semester. That would top the largest graduating class Lafferty has been able to document.
The school gets about $35,000 in federal funding and receives money from a charitable bingo game, but donations remain a key source of keeping the school going, Lafferty said.
So while the $250,000 donation earlier this year was a tremendous help, the school remains in a “constant search” for funding, he said.
“We’ve got the need, we just need the means,” Lafferty said.
This story was originally published December 24, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
