WASHINGTON 鈥� In January 1977, the 9-year-old daughter of newly inaugurated President Jimmy Carter started classes in a three-story brick school in downtown D.C., improbably nestled between a maze of concrete-and-glass office buildings.
This was no posh private school.
While the children of high-ranking Washington officials customarily attended leafy, cloistered institutions in the District’s toniest enclaves,聽Jimmy Carter and first lady Rosalynn Carter took a different path: public school.
The Carters’ decision to enroll Amy in the Thaddeus Stevens School 鈥� a historic African-American public elementary school whose attendance zone the Executive Mansion just happened to fall in 鈥� became the subject of intense media scrutiny.
After all, only one other president 鈥� Theodore Roosevelt in 1902 鈥� had ever sent a first child to public school before. (And no president since, including fellow Democrats Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, has emulated Carter’s decision).
President Donald Trump is also taking a page from the establishment playbook. His 聽that his son, Barron, will attend the nearly $40,000-a-year St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Potomac, Maryland, this fall.
With Barron Trump beginning his own unique back-to-school moment next month, 草莓传媒 is revisiting the fascinating history behind the D.C. public school that opened its doors to a president’s child 40 years ago and the pioneering educators who made it happen.
The Carters’ choice of schools turned modest Stevens elementary into one of the most famous schools in America seemingly overnight. But by all accounts, the president and first lady were not interested in making a splash.
“The Carters were just nice everyday kind of people,” recalled Jane Jackson Harley, the longtime school counselor at Stevens, now 79, in an interview with 草莓传媒.
Fourth-grade teacher Verona Meeder recalled an after-school White House visit the day Amy joined her class at Stevens. Just treat her like any other student, the president told her. And if she gives you any trouble, you give me a call.
“To me, it seemed like just another family moved into the area,鈥� Meeder, now 86, told 草莓传媒.
At first a frenzy, but 鈥楢my made it feel normal鈥�
The first day of school for a new student usually brings at least a few jitters. In this case, it also brought a Secret Service detail and a crush of TV and newspaper reporters.
Photographs and video of Amy鈥檚 first day of school, just a few days after her father鈥檚 inauguration, show a pensive girl in jeans and a stocking cap walking past a rope line of furiously shuttering cameras.
鈥淚t was like the red carpet at the Grammys,鈥� recalled Juan Herron, who was then a third-grader at Stevens.
During those first few weeks, reporters covered school field trips and the cafeteria鈥檚 lunch menu, and tour buses filled with sightseers crawled past the school aiming to catch a glimpse of the blond, bespectacled 9-year-old at recess.
But things eventually settled down.
鈥淲e probably didn’t understand the significance of that being the president’s daughter 鈥� even though we knew who she was,鈥� Herron, now 49, recalled.
She was just Amy.
鈥淎my made it feel normal, because she would do her work and then read her book,鈥� Meeder said. 鈥淪he always had a book on the corner of her desk. She never asked me what she could do. She just read.鈥�
Other teachers describe her as a quiet, unassuming fourth-grader.
“Amy was very, just, normal,鈥� recalled Rebecca Medrano, who taught Spanish for an after-school program at Stevens. “She was … not somebody who was going to be in your face and talk about being the president’s daughter. It wasn’t that important to her. There were other things she was thinking about 鈥� you know, being a kid.”
A kid trailed by two Secret Service agents at all times.
The agents even turned a second-floor closet next to Meeder鈥檚 classroom into a makeshift office to watch the comings and goings. But they gave the first daughter space in the classroom.
“At first, I wasn’t aware of them,鈥� Medrano said. 鈥淎nd I was like, ‘This is strange.鈥� I thought I would’ve had to go through a high-security clearance. Here I am taking a pi帽ata in; it could’ve had a bomb, you know!鈥�
Amy made friends easily, inviting some to slumber parties at the White House. In fact, she seemed to get along with everyone, even the bullies.
鈥淭here’s a whole lot of mean boys in this school,鈥� Herron, an 8-year-old on the school safety patrol, told a Washington Post reporter in a . 鈥淏ut nobody messes with Amy.鈥�
‘We were about to close down’: History of a historic school
Aside from the roaming Secret Service detail, the most abnormal thing about the school may have been the late hours it stayed open thanks to an innovative 鈥渆xtended day鈥� program.
The program 鈥� the first offered at a D.C. school 鈥� allowed parents who worked late in nearby office buildings to drop off their children early in the morning for a hot breakfast and pick them up as late as 6 p.m. in the evening.
Today, such extended-day programs are common in urban school districts. In D.C., 30 public schools currently offer extended hours. But back then, such a program was unique. “I should’ve trademarked the name,” said Harley, the school counselor who developed the program.
Amy, who arrived several months after Stevens’ program rolled out, stayed late most days to take part in the extra classes, which included photography, computer lessons and Spanish.
Harley said she wasn鈥檛 necessarily trying to be cutting edge. She was trying to keep the school from closing its doors.
“We were having problems keeping the school open because there were no children in the area,鈥� Harley said. 鈥淲e were about to close down. We were in trouble.”
The school had once been the cornerstone of D.C.鈥檚 historically African-American West End community and a symbol of progress and achievement. Constructed in 1868 and named for the crusading abolitionist Senator Thaddeus Stevens, the school was the first in D.C. built with public funds to educate black children. Opened amid the height of Reconstruction in the South, its classrooms swelled with students as D.C.’s population surged with the migration north of newly freed slaves.
But by the 1960s, the tectonic plates of gentrification began to shift, and the neighborhood鈥檚 row houses and modest dwellings were razed to make way for office buildings and parking garages.
By 1976, the area surrounding Stevens 鈥渉ad become virtually an asphalt neighborhood,鈥� according to a 1980s-era oral history of the school on file at the Charles Sumner School Museum and Archives.
Harley鈥檚 extended-day program turned the historically African-American neighborhood school into a sort of magnet school for the children of downtown office workers, and it boosted enrollment back into safe territory.
“The enrollment went up. … It just zipped, especially when they heard the president’s daughter was there,” Harley said. “That was it. The school was saved.”
And having the president’s daughter signed up for D.C.’s first extended school-day program did have its perks.
When red tape threatened the program during its second year, parents packed a school meeting with the D.C. official responsible for doling out funding. One concerned mother in attendance: Rosalynn Carter. Within two days, funding was sorted out, according to a March 1978 Washington Post article.
A political stunt? 鈥楾he Carters were not those kind of people鈥�
The intersection of presidential privilege and a historically black public school could鈥檝e been tricky territory. A few years earlier, President Richard Nixon鈥檚 20-something daughter, Tricia, courted controversy attempting to 鈥渄o something constructive,鈥� when she tutored two black schoolchildren at the White House.
At the time, D.C. school board member Julius Hobson blasted the seemingly well-meaning gesture as 鈥渨elfare colonialism,鈥� and : “I’m going to find out who in hell gave permission for her to take two black children from the school system.鈥�
Did parents and teachers think the Carters鈥� choice to send Amy to a predominantly black school was a political stunt? No, Harley said. 鈥淭he Carters were not those kind of people,” she said.
Many parents and teachers saw it as Carter living up to his ideals.
During his acceptance speech at the 1976 Democratic National Committee, Carter denounced the political elite who, from afar, shaped decisions that affected other people鈥檚 lives. 鈥淲hen the public schools are inferior or torn by strife, their children go to expensive private schools,鈥� he said.
Not that quiet Stevens Elementary was torn by strife, but Carter wanted to be clear: Public school was good enough for a president鈥檚 daughter.
Still, Amy was living in a mansion down the street while about a third of her classmates qualified for free lunches.
Medrano recalled a tense exchange one afternoon during Spanish class. “Some kid was talking about: ‘Oh, well, Amy has a pool because she’s the president’s daughter. She’s just got everything. And we don’t have anything.”
Medrano sat the other students down for a discussion. 鈥淪he’s just like you,鈥� she told them. 鈥淭his is not about being rich or being the president’s daughter. This is a program for all of you. And everybody’s special, not just Amy.”
But being a classmate of Amy Carter鈥檚 did come with some special opportunities, including a memorable field trip to the White House for the whole class for its very own Easter Egg Roll. The White House chef grilled up hot dogs and hamburgers. Later, Amy and her classmates roamed the grounds for a hands-on tour of her treehouse hideaway near the White House鈥檚 West Wing.
A photo in Meeder鈥檚 collection of scrapbooks captures the moment Amy and her Stevens classmates gathered for a class photo on the south lawn of the White House.
Amy’s off to the side 鈥� she always shunned center stage 鈥� grinning into the glare of the April sunlight alongside her classmates. For at least that day, just another Stevens student.
Where are they now?
Amy Carter transferred to a D.C. public middle school 鈥� Rose Hardy Middle School 鈥� after two years at Stevens. After her father left the White House in 1981, she moved back to Georgia, attended Brown University, got arrested protesting the CIA and, eventually, got an art degree. She married in 1996 and has a teenage son. Famously press shy, she rarely gives interviews and, through a representative for the Carter Center, declined to be interviewed for this article.
Herron, the 8-year-old on the school safety patrol, went on to join the Marines and served during Desert Storm. Now, 49, he lives in D.C.
A few months before she was hired to teach Spanish for Stevens鈥� extended-day program, Medrano, along with her husband, founded a small theater company out of their row house in Adams Morgan. They focused on featuring Latin American performers and playwrights. Now working out of a lavish space in the restored Tivoli Theater on 14th Street in Columbia Heights, GALA Hispanic Theater is one of the premiere Latino theaters in the U.S.
Harley, the counselor who spearheaded the extended-day program at Stevens, retired from the D.C. schools in the 1980s after an injury. The daughter of legendary radio DJ and concert promoter Hal Jackson, she went back into the family business, taking up as a talent scout and helping shuttle performers from the D.C. area to the famed Apollo Theater in New York. Among her discoveries: a teenage Dave Chappelle, whom she accompanied on his first stand-up gig at the Harlem theater.
Meeder, 86, lives in Columbia, Maryland, at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac. She retired from teaching in 1992 after 25 years of teaching in D.C. public schools, all but one of them at Stevens.
Stevens Elementary still sits near the corner of 21st and L streets in downtown D.C. But it hasn鈥檛 seen any students strolling its halls for nearly a decade. And it’s now facing an uncertain future.
Perpetually bedeviled by low enrollment, Stevens officially closed in 2008 鈥斅燼 victim of then-schools chancellor Michelle Rhee鈥檚 controversial school reforms. Its student body merged with nearby Francis-Stevens middle school.
After years standing vacant, the D.C. Council in 2014 approved a nearly $20 million plan allowing developers to renovate Stevens and to build a new 10-story 鈥渢rophy-class鈥� office on its playground.
But a plan to move a private special-needs school into the building fell apart earlier this year.
At a community meeting last month, an official with D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office told community leaders that聽 is now the mayor’s top choice for the historic site.
