School Highlights

One of the hallmarks of the student experience at Greer is the focus the school places on embracing diversity and building community. This work begins each year prior to the start of school, when all teachers leave the building to visit the homes of the students they will be teaching that year. This allows teachers to begin building positive relationships with their students and their families; respond to concerns and questions about such issues as school transportation; ensure that they have the best contact information for families; and find out something special about each child prior to the first day of school.

Home visits also allow the Greer staff to develop an understanding of and appreciation for the varied cultural backgrounds students bring to the school. Cultural diversity continues to be celebrated throughout the school year through monthly community events, such as potluck dinners and a Cultural Heritage Night, that always are well-attended by students and parents.

When students arrive at school for the year, teachers continue to get to know them and to build a strong community within the school through faithful adherence to the tenets of the Responsive Classroom program. All staff know that they must impact both students’ academic learning as well as their social and emotional well-being to see true growth and success.

Outside of the classroom, the school strives to provide many different enrichment opportunities for kids through community partnerships, such as with the Charlottesville Ballet and the McGuffey Reading Center, as well as a strong relationship with the Virginia Film Festival.

About Mary C. Greer

The value of education has played an integral role in the history of the Carr family. Like her sisters and brother, Mary Carr attended the Union Ridge Graded School, a primary school established shortly after Emancipation, which later became the Albemarle Training School after Union Ridge burned in 1893. Mary Carr taught school locally for several years before attending Virginia Normal and Industrial Institute in Petersburg, Virginia, now known as Virginia State University. Upon returning from college, she joined the faculty at Albemarle Training School, located within sight of her home at River View Farm.

In December 1913, she married Conly Greer, who took over the responsibilities of River View Farm, and who later became Albemarle County's first black agent of the Virginia Agricultural Extension Division. They had one child, Louise Evangeline, who also pursued and worked in higher education.

In 1931, after teaching domestic science at ATS for 15 years, Mary Carr Greer became its third principal and oversaw a period of both physical and academic expansion and growth.

During her tenure, she initiated a formal four-year high school curriculum and pushed for the merging of the Albemarle Training School with the Charlottesville-Albemarle school system. A year after her retirement in 1950, ATS merged with the newly opened Jackson P. Burley comprehensive high school in Charlottesville. In 1974, Albemarle County memorialized her dedication to education with the opening of the Mary Carr Greer Elementary School on Lambs Road.

Mrs. Greer is buried in the family cemetery at the Ivy Creek Natural Area