Savannah's Innovative Teachers: Ramona Riley

This week I continue following the innovative women educators of Savannah. Today I will look at Ramona Riley who was on the cusp of progressive education. Ramona Riley was born in 1873 in Augusta which would have made her contemporaneous with Nina Pape. Riley would be called “Miss Ramona.” She taught in the public schools in Savannah. When the Great Depression hit she was concerned by the amount of children who came to school hungry. Realizing that gnawing hunger did not make for great learners she introduced what has become the free lunch program. This was the recognition by early progressive educators realizing that schools needed to become more than teachers of the mind but also tending to the physical detriments students faced to their learning. She co-authored several articles on education with the most famous being “Have the Public Schools ‘Had It’?”

She became a principal of the Waters Avenue School and began to explore what were some of the prime objectives she wanted to instill in her students; with the assistance of her teachers she decided a new curriculum based on good citizenship, civic virtue, accountability, respect for each other, and other virtues were important. She called a meeting of the teachers and students. The students decided that the best model for developing civic virtue was to follow the City of Savannah. They then proceeded to hold elections for Mayor, Alders, Public Health, Safety Patrol, Fire Marshall and so on. The students and teachers shared leadership in the school. And the school was run as a city with committees to address issues and students worked in groups to complete work and help each other with their assignments and make the school a city of learning. She wrote, “We feel that children must also grow and develop in those skills and abilities which will permit them to take an active and enlightened part in the affairs of the (school). These skills are more or less useless if developed apart from actual contact with the end in view. It is our conviction that it is better to teach Mary and Johnny through arithmetic than to teach arithmetic to Mary and Johnny.” Thus in 1928 the famed Riley Leadership Program was born.  

Miss Ramona was one of those folks who thought they could retire. But the first time she retired, she accepted a position as principal of the Independent Presbyterian Church School in Savannah. Her second retirement ended as quickly as she tutored students in her home with her sister before she died.

​The Waters Avenue School was renamed the Ramona Riley School in her honor. Ramona Riley died in 1963 and is buried in Bonaventure Cemetery. Her tombstone has this biblical quote on it from the Book of Daniel (12:3): "And they that be teachers shall shine with the brightness of the firmament.”  

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