R.D. White Elementary PTA celebrates 100 years

Less than a year after R.D. White Elementary opened its doors to students in 1915, the school’s Parent Teachers Assn. was established, making it among the oldest PTAs in Glendale.

Back then, the school had just two teachers and was known as the Doran Street School, not yet the namesake of Richardson D. White, Glendale Unified’s superintendent from 1913 through 1921 and again from 1931 through 1936.

To mark the 100 years since the PTA was established, parents, teachers and students including at least one born in the 1920s and many in the new millennium — came together for a celebration of the school and parents’ service to it over the decades.

Months ago, the school’s current PTA President, Kara Sergile, culled through the school’s records, along with fellow parents, to discover old yearbooks and minutes from past PTA meetings, which she and others referred to as they portrayed what life was like in Glendale and at R.D. White over the years, during a celebration held at the school last week.

Some of those records revealed that the school’s PTA met three days before the attack on Pearl Harbor, and later in the 1940s, the PTA would raise money for war bonds, square dances and adding machines.

In the 1970s, when Glendale gained both the Ventura (134) Freeway and the Glendale Galleria, the PTA members oversaw drives to collect aluminum, made their own cookbooks for fundraisers, served pot roast during events such as spelling bees and grew their own pumpkins for the school’s fall festival.

By 1985, the PTA was purchasing both typewriters and computers. In the next decade, it was grappling with Glendale’s population growth and an increased enrollment.

Today, the school has nearly 1,000 students, and alumni as local leaders including Glendale School board member Christine Walters and Glendale City Clerk Ardy Kassakhian.

Longtime R.D. White teacher Doris McKently, who taught at R.D. White from 1967 to 1987, returned to the school for last Thursday’s PTA celebration.

“It was a thrill to be back,” she said after the event. “Everybody was so courteous and welcoming and appreciative. To me, it was rewarding to see and realize how much teaching meant to me. I was proud of the things that we did and inspired by the things they’re doing now.”