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In 1913
doctors Eustace and Mary Martin Sloop started a school in
the poverty entrenched mountains of western North Carolina,
because they believed...
The Sloops
trudged on foot and rode horseback on steep dirt trails in
isolated mountain valleys to bring medicine to the people
and convince farmers  to
let their children come to school. Because of poverty and
distance, the Sloop school in Crossnore eventually took in
boarders then built dormitories to accommodate them. It gained
a national reputation for effectiveness in changing lives
and in breaking the cycle of poverty, moonshine and child
marriages of mountain families.
Mary Martin
Sloop spoke at Daughters of the American Revolution rallies
and conferences across the nation, inspiring them with tales
of her life changing mountain school. She eventually put these
tales to paper in her autobiography Miracle in the Hills.
Sculpture named "Rising Above Our Circumstances " purchased for The Crossnore School
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The Sloops built a school, hospital, dental clinic and eventually, a boarding school to give children the basis for an improved life. They brought to Avery County the first electricity, the first telephone, the first paved road and the first boarding school. Through the Sloops' advocacy, public schools flourished in Avery County. By then the Crossnore School facilities were filled with children who, through no fault of their own, could no longer live at home. Roads, growth and common community in schools opened the secrets once harbored by inaccessible hills. Children who were orphaned, neglected, abused and abandoned found shelter at Crossnore. |
 The Crossnore School became a full-fledged residential childcare facility.
Residents attended Avery County public schools. Today, The Crossnore
School residents come from 27 North Carolina counties, and
their special needs are often beyond the ability of traditional
public schools to meet. Therapeutic progress stalls, and even
reverses.
Dr. Crain,
herself once an award winning teacher and superintendent of
Avery County Schools, determined that if Crossnore children
were to get on even footing in life, they needed an educational
program structured for them. She brought the "school" back
to The Crossnore School when she opened Crossnore Academy, a pace
setting Charter School in the North Carolina initiative to
establish 100 innovative schools in the state. With the dedication
in May 2001 of the Wayne Densch Education Building, The Crossnore
School reclaimed the educational foundation beneath its commitment
to give hurting children a chance for a better life.
The school's
highly qualified teachers enable it to meet not only the special
needs of Crossnore residents, but also the needs of area day
students who live at home and whose educational needs are
best met at Crossnore.
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