The East Galena School admitted students regardless of race. When the school became overcrowded, Superintendent R. E. Long hired Mildred Grigsby, a Black teacher, to teach all the Black children in a separate room. The students were pulled from their grade-specific classrooms and lumped together in a mixed-age class. Despite this, school officials argued that Grigsby’s classroom was clean, sanitary, and equal. W. E. Woolridge, and other Black parents, sued Superintendent Long and the local Board of Education in the Kansas Supreme Court. The parents wanted to compel Long and the Board to admit their children to their corresponding grades, refrain from requiring the Black students to attend a separate school, and refrain from discriminating against the students on account of race. The school officials held that the separation was not made on account of race but overcrowding. Woolridge, however, proved that other schools in the district had overcrowding issues but did not separate their Black and white children. The Court ruled in Woolridge’s favor, finding that the Board and Superintendent did not have the legal authority to separate the children by race.