Michael Pillagalli was a second-grader at Paoli Pike School in 1957 when his teacher, Mrs. Atzrott, told the class to pack their belongings into paper grocery bags.

Pillagalli and 274 other students then walked from the overcrowded Paoli Pike building to the brand-new Fern Hill Elementary School on Fern Hill Road and Lincoln Avenue. Nearly 70 years later, Pillagalli, chair of the West Goshen Township Historical Commission, published a first-person account of that day and the broader story of how three elementary schools rose to meet the township's postwar population boom.

The account, posted Monday, Sept. 14, on the township website, traces the arc from one-room schoolhouses to the modern West Chester Area School District, which serves more than 12,000 students across 11 elementary schools, three middle schools and three high schools, according to the district's website.

A $56,000 schoolhouse

Paoli Pike Elementary, the oldest of the three, was built in 1924 on 2.82 acres. Originally called West Goshen Consolidated School, the three-room cinder-block building replaced every one-room schoolhouse in the township.

It cost $56,000.

By the mid-1950s, Paoli Pike was bursting. The cafeteria doubled as a classroom, and students ate lunch at their desks. West Goshen's population jumped from 3,542 in 1950 to 8,214 by 1960.

The district bought 20 acres between Fern Hill Road and Lincoln Avenue in 1955 for $20,000. Fern Hill Elementary was completed by March 1957 with 12 classrooms, a lunchroom, a nurse's office and space for a principal. Construction cost $450,000.

Paper bags and a long walk

David Morgan, a West Goshen resident who taught fourth and fifth grade at Paoli Pike, became Fern Hill's first head teacher. After spring break in 1957, Morgan and several Paoli Pike teachers led 275 students on the walk to their new school, each child carrying a paper grocery bag stuffed with desk and cubby belongings.

"I was one of those students in second grade carrying my paper bag contents, along with my classmates and our teacher, Mrs. Atzrott," Pillagalli wrote.

Morgan went on to become Fern Hill's principal in 1959. His daughter teaches at the school, according to Pillagalli's account.

Fern Hill exceeded its 360-student capacity by 1961. Ten classrooms were added, and another expansion followed in 1988. The school remains active, serving kindergarten through fifth grade.

Glen Acres and beyond

Glen Acres Elementary School opened Jan. 15, 1967, just off West Chester Pike, built to serve families south of that corridor. The 20-classroom building cost $825,000, and Wayne Neal served as its first principal. Overcrowding soon followed there, too. Three portable classrooms were added; two became permanent.

Paoli Pike School closed in 1982 and was converted to administrative offices. When enrollment surged again in the late 1980s, reopening it as a school was considered but deemed too costly.

The West Chester Area School District operates on a $345 million budget for the 2026-27 school year. From a three-room schoolhouse that cost $56,000, West Goshen's school footprint grew to three campuses by 1967, and Pillagalli's account notes a fourth elementary school joined the township's roster within the past six years.

Previous historical accounts from the West Goshen Township Historical Commission are available on the township website.