Around 1900, about 16 one-room schoolhouses stood in and around Parkin, many on plantations for the children of sharecroppers and farm workers. Built around 1910, the Northern Ohio School likewise served the children of the Coldren plantation and the Northern Ohio Cooperage and Lumber Company for 38 years. It educated students through two World Wars, the Great Depression, the Flood of 1927, and segregation. As an African-American school, it offered only up to 8th grade in Parkin, but students studied hard, earned high marks, and some moved away to continue at African-American high schools elsewhere in the state. In 1948, the school was consolidated into Central Elementary School in Parkin.