Education

Education. City of Sanibel Heritage Trail. , First Sanibel School , Confederate widow Laetitia Nutt and her daughters, offered the first school for island children in their home, The Gables, in 1889. Sanibel's first tax-supported school opened in 1892. Located on Bailey Road, the schoolhouse was a small facility that cost $75 to construct. In 1903, a new school was built on Periwinkle Way. The schoolhouse closed its doors in 1963 and was converted to the Pirate's Playhouse, a local community theater. The building was relocated to the Sanibel Historical Village and Museum in 2004 and is on display for public viewing. , , School for Black Children , Black children of Sanibel did not have access to formal education on the island until 1927, when sharecropper Isaac Johnson converted an abandoned Baptist church to a schoolhouse. Lee County purchased the building two years later and agreed to operate it as a school for black children, as long as no less than seven children were enrolled. In the 1940s, the island's black population dwindled because of the country's involvement in World War Il and as a result, the school was forced to close from 1940 to 1946. Until 1964, all black students on Sanibel took a separate ferry and bus to a segregated school in Fort Myers, as they were not allowed to share transportation with white children. , , Sanibel School First to be Integrated , In 1963, the Sanibel School was built. In the following year, it became the first racially integrated public school in Lee County. Today, the Sanibel School is a National Blue Ribbon School, recognized by the U.S. Department of Education for its academic excellence. , (captions) , Sanibel School in 1911 , , Sanibel School for Black Children