Andrew P. Haywood papers

Andrew P. “Sam” Haywood was born to Edward Allie and Katherine Whatley Haywood on September 6, 1933, in Randolph County, North Carolina. He attended public schools, and later graduated from High Point College. He earned a master’s degree from Western Carolina College, and an Ed.D. from UNC-Chapel Hill. He spent a few years serving in the US Navy. Once out of the service, he taught school prior to becoming principal at four Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina Schools: Tuckaseegee, Coulwood, Independence, and West Charlotte. Later, he became an Area Superintendent. Haywood assisted in leading the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools through the turbulent years of desegregation. In 1959, he married Shirley Matheson Haywood, and with her had one daughter Anne Matheson Dirr. Haywood was very much interested in educational reform and alternate methods of education. In the 1970s, he along with several of his colleagues studied the idea of the “open school” system of education, accumulating a wide assortment of papers on the topic. In 1970, Haywood was presented an Oak Leaf Award from the North Carolina PTA. Haywood retired from education in 1992, but continued to serve on committees and support groups within the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School system, as well as for the North Carolina Board of Education. In 1998, he earned the esteemed Order of the Long Leaf Pine award. Sam Haywood died in Charlotte, on February 1, 2006, at the age of seventy-two.

The idea of the “open school” system was one that was popular in the early 1970s. There were various manifestations of this theme, but most could be thought of as “schools without walls,” and generally allowed for a system that was less structured than conventional schools. Many of these open schools did not have grades, and many abandoned the usual grading evaluation system. By the late 1970s, school systems had by-and-large given up on this approach to education.