Howard Academy Elementary and Junior High School was constructed on Second Street in 1957 and later became Howard Academy High School. It operated as an elementary and junior high school until 1959-60, when the facility was expanded to serve Black students in grades 1-12. The school’s establishment led to the closure of many two- and three-room rural schools and provided children with better and safer accommodations, including a spacious library, work areas for specialty classes such as home economics and choral music, a gymnasium, and a football field, facilities not available at the school on Chestnut Street. Combining the grades did not change the administration, as Eddie L. Simpkins and George W. Pittman remained principal and assistant principal. When the district implemented desegregation in the 1970-71 academic year, the site became the district’s only middle school, Howard Middle School.