Tecumseh Local School District
[2][3][4] The district thereby serves residents of the city of New Carlisle, the village of Donnelsville, the unincorporated communities of Medway, Park Layne, and Crystal Lakes, plus adjacent rural land.
This land was inhabited by Indian tribes, but a boundary set in 1785 by the Treaty of Greenville relegated the natives to the northern and western parts of this "Old Northwest" Territory.
Several other states' competing claims to this area were resolved by 1787, enabling the formal designation of the bulk of the entire region, including Indian land, as the new Northwest Territory.
Tens of thousands of settlers that soon poured into the surrounding area; by 1800, there were 45,000 residents scattered throughout the eastern and southern parts of the territory, plus about 100 to 150 settlers within a 40 square mile radius of the settlement of Urbana—an area which includes a settlement established in 1790 by John Paul at the forks of Honey Creek, about one mile northeast of what is now New Carlisle.
Once settlers cleared the land, built homes, and planted crops, they fashioned institutions that were to bring civilization to the wilderness.
Nevertheless, as early as 1805, according to Beers 1881 History, a schoolhouse was erected on the farm of Captain McPherson, located on Section 21, near the present site of Tecumseh High School.
Apparently, John Layton, an early settler to the area, taught in a shanty at the foot of Minnick's hill in 1808.
The early efforts in establishing a free common school system for all in Ohio were haphazard and met with resistance.
The law committed the state to the idea of taxation, but it was permissive, not compulsory, and not designed to make "free public schools".
By the conclusion of the Civil War, public opinion, in general, was positive and more progressive toward providing for schooling needs of our youth.
Citizens were giving more willingly of their resources for the erection of buildings, the provision of furniture, educational materials, and the salaries of teachers.
In 1880, after considerable opposition, a room was set aside in the Olive Branch building for the purpose of establishing a centralized High School for the township.
New Carlisle had already established a centralized school in 1869, some eleven years earlier when they took over the old Linden Hill Academy from the Cincinnati United Methodist Conference.
Beginning in the 1980–1981 school year, corporal punishment (paddling) was abolished in the district, in favor of the detention system, considered more contemporary and less cruel.
