The old Girard Elementary School has been added to the National Register of Historic Places. The school, constructed in 1955, is located slightly northwest of Girard, Georgia. The building’s one-story floor plan includes four classrooms, a library, and a combined cafeteria and auditorium as well as support spaces that include a kitchen, administrative offices, and a clinic. In the 1950s and 1960s, in an effort to maintain a racially segregated educational system, southern states built new schools termed “equalization schools” for African American and White students. Georgia’s Minimum Foundation Program for Education funded the construction of the schools throughout the state.

Equalization schools were larger and more technologically advanced than most comparable educational facilities up until that time. Communities embraced the schools with pride. The schools were architect-designed almost exclusively in the International Style. Girard Elementary School exhibits character-defining features of the International Style, including a low, horizontal form, a flat roof, expansive banks of multi-light steel windows, and a lack of ornament.