History of Site
Rogers Clark Ballard School plays a significant role in the history of Louisville, Kentucky. As an historical site, Ballard School dates back to 1914 when it replaced four one-room country schoolhouses scattered from Pipe Line Lane (now Zorn Avenue) to Prospect. The four schools had long served the children that lived between River Road and the Old Brownsboro Road. The property for this new school was donated by Mr. and Mrs. S. Thruston Ballard. In honoring their generosity, the Jefferson County School Board named the school Rogers Clark Ballard Memorial School in memory of the Ballard’s young son who died in 1909 while a student at one of those one-room schoolhouses. In 1928, 2 buildings were added to the campus. The Cottage provides a classroom for students; the upper building included 4 classrooms and the Funroom gymnasium.

In 1959, the Ballard student body moved to a new public school in the area and the building became the new home of Chance School, founded by pioneer educator Virginia Thomas Chance in 1953. While Chance started as a preschool and kindergarten, it grew to include children through third grade in 1978, and then fifth grade in 1996. Philanthropist Jane Morton Norton made a gift that enabled the purchase of the building in 1985, and a successful restoration project renovated the building and created the Treehouse classrooms. In 1994, a long time supporter of the Chance philosophy and advocate of early childhood education, Jane Delaney Newton, made a gift of twenty-six acres of land on the east side of Lime Kiln Lane. During the following year, the building was expanded to create the Lodge classrooms.