Mays High School
Arthur & Polly Mays 6-12 Conservatory of the Arts
1800 - 1960
1800’s – Polly Tanner was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on April 26, 1886. Arthur Mays, a Negro, was born in Floville, Georgia on April 25, 1887.
1900’s – Arthur Mays and Polly Tanner were married. They had two children, Charles and Willie Arthur. The couple moved to Naranja, Florida, built their home, and became citrus crop growers.
1914 – Mays organized Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church.
1920’s – The church doors were opened for the purpose of educating youths. The school had one teacher, Mrs. Eunice Tanner and eighty-two students. As enrollment continued to increase it became necessary to move to the school.
1930’s – Mr. Talmadge Roux, the P.T.A. president, was very instrumental in the development of the first permanent school. Mr. Roux along with Mr. Dorsett approached the general supervisor to have the school relocated.
1935 – A new school was established. It was called Goulds Elementary and Junior High School.
1939 – Mr. Roby George became the principal. He began with a staff of nine teachers, and there were approximately thirty-eight students per class. Students completed grades one through nine.
1940’s – Vocational, agricultural and mechanical repair programs were available in evening sessions for the veterans.
1951 – A new building was dedicated and named Arthur and Polly Mays Elementary-Junior High School. The school contained twenty-six classrooms, office space, three corridors, a kitchen, crematorium, storage space, light lavatories, and clinic rooms.
1951 – Grade ten was added.
1952 – Grade eleven was added.
1953 – Grade twelve was added. The senior class selected the RAM as the school mascot.
1954 – Commencement exercises were held, twenty-nine seniors marched.
1957 – The school’s auditorium was constructed.
1959 – Mr. George passed after a long bout with cancer. Mr. Elmo Sparks presided as interim principal for one year.
1960 – Mays was converted into a Junior-Senior High School due to the opening of Pine Villa Elementary. Mr. James E. Simmons became principal. The school operated on three shifts.
1960 – Silver Knight Award winners. Diversified Cooperative Training and Upward Bound programs were implemented.
1964 - 2022
1964 – Mr. Wells became principal. His administration was plagued by boundary changes. Several students were participants in a program which afforded them the opportunity to act as Pages in Congress in Washington, D.C.
1968 – Mr. Nelson Bethel was appointed principal.
1969 – Mays Junior-Senior High was phased out as a senior high school. Thus it became known as Mays Junior High School.
1972 – Mr. John H. Pinckney was assigned as principal to Mays Junior High School. Paula De Armas represented the school in the county and state spelling bee contest. She went as far as national representative where she was defeated. Mays operated on two shifts.
1976 – Over crowding was eliminated due to the opening of Centennial Junior High. Students were sent to Cutler Ridge Junior High due to boundary changes. Eight hundred students were enrolled. The Mays Chapter I – New Century Reading Program was a model for other schools in the county.
1979 – Mr. Victor Lopez, principal at Miami Senior High School, was “Mays Teacher of the Year” who went on to become “Florida’s State Teacher of the Year.”
1983 – Mr. Robert Stinson became principal. During his administration, Mays Junior High was renamed Mays Middle School. Under his administration the school became the first school in Dade County to have two magnet programs. Humanities was added in 1988 with visual and performing arts added in 1990.
Project Hope- Substance Education, Crime Watch, Career Education programs and four community agencies which are holding group counseling sessions at Mays Junior High as well as Juvenile Justice Support Program and Gifted Programs were added.
1996 – Mr. Timothy Dawson became principal. During his administration he updated the existing technology to provide teachers and students with the tools necessary to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century.
1997 – Mr. Kenneth S. Cooper became the principal. During his administration he oversaw the implementation of block scheduling. In addition, he was very instrumental in the development of programs such as: School Improvement Plan, America Reads Program, FCAT Tutorial Program, and Saturday School to meet the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT). Under Mr. Cooper’s leadership, the school achieved the greatest accomplishment of moving from a “D” school to a “C” school, for two consecutive years, according to Governor Jeb Bush’s “A+ Plan.” Mr. Cooper assisted in the initiation of evening classed of Florida Memorial College. Under the auspices of Community School, the South Dade Adolescent Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Program and Community Health Involvement, who provide assistance to students and families in the Goulds Community, were added. The Arthur and Polly Mays Middle Community School continues to strive for excellence as a Full Service School.
2009 – Mr. Martin T Reid became principal. The originator of “Ram Pride Baby”, took Mays Middle into the new era of learning.
2011 – With the support of Miami-Dade County Public Schools and the Mays Alumni Association and under principal Reid’s leadership Mays Middle school became Arthur & Polly Mays Conservatory of the Arts. It would phase into both a 6-12 grade, 100% magnet school.
2014 – Arthur & Polly Mays Conservatory of the Arts became 100% Magnet.
2015 – Arthur & Polly Mays Conservatory of the Arts had it’s first graduating class.
2018 – Arthur & Polly Mays Conservatory of the Arts is designated a National Certification “Demonstration School” from Magnet Schools of America. The school not only meet certification standards, but exceeded them.
2019 – Arthur & Polly Mays Achieves the “A” school grade again.
2021 – In November, Dr. Carmen Jones-Carey becomes the first woman principal of Arthur & Polly Mays Conservatory of the Arts. Her montra borrowed from Aristotle is “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
2022 – Arthur & Polly Mays Conservatory of the adopts a school crest created by 11th grade magnet art student Patricia Pichardo.
2022 – Arthur & Polly Mays Conservatory becomes an official Community Partnership with a signed Memorandum Of Agreement (MOU) between The School Board of Miami-Dade County Public Schools, Children’s Home Society of Florida, The Florida International University Board of Trustees, and Variety Children’s Hospital D/B/A Nicklaus Children’s Hospital.