CAVE SPRING, Ga. (BP) – Losing a school that has been stitched into a community for generations is unthinkable for a town, until it happens.
Formal education in what was then the village of Cave Spring began in January 1839 in a store building. Acreage acquired here and there led to the establishment of Lott Hearn Manual Labor School in 1856, later renamed Hearn Academy in honor of the donor who provided a $12,500 endowment and “established by the Baptists,” according to the local historical society.
Hearn Academy closed in 1925. Cave Spring School followed in 1927 as the first free public school not only in the area, but Floyd County. Its student body went through 12th grade and consistently served approximately 500 students.
Ben Jackson, class of ’76 and still a Cave Spring resident, said Floyd County Schools’ decision to cut the upper grades in 1984 did not come through a lack of enrollment or local economic downturn, but as a simple cost-cutting measure of the board.
“It was a bad decision and highly unpopular around here,” he said.
Renamed Cave Spring Elementary School, students attended through fifth grade. It, too, was closed after the 2021-22 school year.
“That was a significant emotional blow for the community,” said Jarrod Kinsey, pastor of First Baptist Church. “It was kind of the lifeblood of the town, and closing it was pretty traumatic.”
Kinsey’s two oldest children attended Cave Spring Elementary before it closed. Congregants of his church were also personally impacted, of course, through their children and grandchildren.
The church joined others in the aftermath to provide two years of instruction. Lately, those efforts culminated in the announcement that it is ever-closer to bringing back free public education on a level not seen in half a century.
Charting the path
A group, the Cave Spring Community Coalition, approached Kinsey during the elementary school’s final year to join them in efforts to save the elementary school. After it became apparent that it wasn’t an option, their sights turned to starting a new school altogether.
As those plans came together, First Baptist Church agreed to serve as a hub for students who had signed up through Georgia Cyber Academy, an online public school option. With GCA providing the education, the Community Coalition group renovated the church’s bottom floor instead of renting the space for two years, an intentional time frame. Monday through Friday, 60 students learned as church members paid by the Coalition assisted at what was named the Cave Spring Learning Center.
Attention soon turned to establishing a charter school.
“Many people in our church, about 80 percent, were personally connected to Cave Spring Elementary,” said Kinsey. “One couple who is very passionate about seeing this town have a school personally paid for a consultant to come and walk us through the charter school process.”
The most recent step was identifying a facility, the biggest news to go with the project.
Full circle
With approximately 1,200 residents, Cave Spring sits on the well-traveled highway 411, filled with semi-trucks, Georgians on their way to Weiss Lake in nearby Centre, Ala., and Alabamians on their way to shop in Rome, Ga., or watch the Rome Emperors, a High-A affiliate of the Atlanta Braves. Antique shops and restaurants dot the town square. Tourists explore the cave and draw drinking water from the natural springs inside it (hence the town’s name) and swim in chilly Rolater Lake, a football-field-sized concrete pool fed by a creek that has barely seen daylight.
It is also home to the Georgia School for the Deaf. Recently, news broke that the proposed charter would have the opportunity to lease a building on the private, gated campus located barely a mile outside of town, pending final approval as the Northwest Georgia Charter Academy on July 30.
“A cool part of that is First Baptist, in its beginning, met in what was going to be a school building,” said Kinsey. “We helped found the Hearn Academy in our infancy. So now this comes full circle. We get to be a part of continuing education in Cave Spring.”
Classes are scheduled to begin in the fall of 2026 with 134 students in grades K-5. That will increase through the ninth grade by year five to accommodate 321 students. In your eight, a K-12 school is expected to serve 539 students.
The impact will not only be felt in community pride, but among those families who are now placing children on school buses as early as 6 a.m. to get to a school in another part of the county.
“This effort is an example of how God can take a very difficult situation and make it an opportunity to serve people and meet a need that leads to the flourishing of the church and spread the gospel,” Kinsey said. “Losing the school was painful for the community, but the church saw the mission and brought others to our doorstep.”
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