School days won't be the same

For the last year or so, Belinda and Bryson have attended a one-room schoolhouse maintained by the neighboring Crabtree family.  While they have no doubt learned a lot and enjoyed coming to that school, even in Heaven things come to an end.

Starting next fall, they will be transferred from that school to a new one, the Barefoot Family Primary School.  All 21 students will carry the Barefoot last name, and can trace their ancestry to Handy Barefoot Sr., who lived just after the American Civil War.  For example, Belinda is Handy's great-great-great-great-granddaughter, and Bryson is Handy's great-great-great-grandson-in-law.  Other students are cousins, aunts, and uncles to Belinda and Bryson; eight of the aunts and uncles come from Labell and Allene Barefoot, who have a total of 20(!) children.  (More on them in a future post.)  As before, this will be a one-room schoolhouse for first- to eighth-grade students.

Classes will be taught by Noah Barefoot Jr., grandson of Handy and Parlia.  Noah, reset to 38 years old, was a teacher for over two decades in various schools of the Johnston County school district in North Carolina.  He also taught as a Christian missionary in Brazil.

One source of family concern is how this will be perceived to outsiders, especially since at least two of the students at the Crabtree school - Oliver "Poo Poo" Brayboy and Braylor McPatter - are African-Americans.  This, on the surface, is reminiscent of "white flight" in the 1960s, which involved white families, and even some upper-class minority ones, leaving inner city cores for suburban areas.  In response, it should be pointed out that black families have also agreed to their own family schools that they are to run themselves, and that extracurricular activities will be open to all students regardless of ethnicity.  Nonetheless, Bryson is worried about not seeing Poo Poo again on a regular basis.  "We were such good friends," he cried upon hearing about the planned change in schools.  As a loving brother, I made sure to console him by saying that Brayboy will always be welcomed in his treehouse.

Belinda is also worried that she will not get the same quality of education from the family than she got from Shirley Mae Crabtree.  "I don't want to go to a place that makes me feel dumb!" she said once she heard of the new arrangements.  Her mom Jennifer was blunt: "It's like going from Harvard to the local community college."

In response, Noah Jr. insists that the quality of education will be of the same high class, only the family atmosphere will change.  "This won't be a community college, that's for sure," he said in directly addressing Jennifer.

(Avatar: Mary ?, a cousin of D.H. in picture taken at 2012 McMillon family reunion in Atlanta)