In 1899, the Ridgeway school was scheduled to open on September 4. Superintendent Mark Burrows placed an advertisement in the Ridgeway Journal on August 31, 1899 touting all the improvements that had been made to the school and what students could expect from their education: “The High School course of study has been extended into a full four years' course. Over $200 has been spent in improving the library.” The state had increased the requirements for teacher certificates so that a student who wanted to become a teacher needed to take literature and algebra to be able to earn a second grade teaching certificate. To earn a first grade certificate, the student also had to take a one branch of science, which may be either botany, zoology, physics, or physical geography; and in one branch of history, either ancient, mediaeval, modern, or English.”
The students had to pay $1.75 per month for their tuition which was “lower than that of any school offering equal advantages.” The article went on to describe the subjects that a student could expect to study over the course of the four years which would enable prospective teachers the knowledge they needed to pass the certification exam to teach.
