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| The Brown School near Sodom |
The first school session held in what is now Darby Township in Union County was taught in the Mitchell Settlement by John Robinson. This is near the present-day Mitchell Cemetery. Another early school was located in the Robinson Settlement further down the Big Darby Creek. It is estimated that the first school built in the Robinson neighborhood held classes by 1820 with Miss Henrietta Millington the first teacher. By 1883 there were 12 one-room schools in the township. There was also one parochial school in the township, St. John Lutheran School. This school is still in existence today with over 200 students in grades preschool through 8th grade. A Lutheran parochial school was built at Chuckery in 1892. over the years the enrollment has stayed around 50 students.
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| The Darby Township Schools in Unionville Center |
By 1937, consolidations had divided the township into two school districts. The Darby Rural School was centralized in Unionville Center. The Darby Rural School held classes for students in grades 1-12 in a building that was built in 1925. Chuckery Special Rural School was located in the southern part of Darby Township in the tiny village of Chuckery. The Chuckery School was built in 1905, and for a time contained classes for chidren in grades 1-12. By the time the Chuckery school was consolidated with the Darby school, the Chuckery school held classes for grades 1-8 only, with high school students travelling to Darby Rural School in Unionville Center.
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| Darby Township School |
The Chuckery Special School was actually located next to the St. Paul Lutheran School. Students from St. Paul Lutheran School attended school from grades 1-7, and they would attend 8th grade at the Chuckery Special School The brick building that housed Chuckery Special School was erected in 1905. The last year that the Chuckery Special School held classes was 1937. The school then consolidated with Darby Rural School in Unionville Center to form the Chuckery-Darby School, and this district was centralized in Unionville Center. The Chuckery school was then sold to the St. Paul Lutheran Church in Chuckery for the sum of $730. The building was used for some time as a school building and fellowship hall. It was later razed.
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| Chuckery Special School |
The Chuckery-Darby School was consolidated with the Union Rural School District in Milford Center to form the Fairbanks Local School district in 1962. The Fairbanks Local School maintained the Unionville Center school building as an elementary until 1983. A highschool was erected at Bridgeport, just across from the Streng Road and Orchard Road intersection along State Route 38. And, the Milford Center school building was maintained as a junior highschool, middle school, and later an elementary school. The Milford Center building was demolished in 2010. Currently, all Fairbanks Schools are located on the same property at Bridgeport.
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