Because the new college opened in the tradition of the Normal School, i.e. a school for teacher preparation, a Demonstration School was considered an essential part of the institution. The pairing of a Teachers' College and a small school for children was a pattern throughout the country. Normal Colleges used actual classrooms as laboratories for their education courses. Of course, Nacogdoches leaders wanted their new college to parallel the national model. And local families were happy to have their children a part of the program that promised excellence in education. Community support for the demonstration school was actually an extension of the strong support given the entire college initiative.

In 1923, an article in The Sentinel described SFA's Demonstration School.

"The Demonstration School is one of the divisions of instructional service of the Teachers College. Its purpose is first, to instruct the children, and, second, to afford college students the opportunity of observing the organization, conduct, and control of a modern public school, and provide for them actual practice and experience in teaching under expert direction. Each room is handled directly by a critic teacher who is responsible for the children and devotes all her time to them. She teaches them except for the few minutes each day they are taught by practice teachers. The students who do practice teaching are first, students of at least one sophomore standing; second, students who have had at least four theory courses in education; third, students who have made some definite study of children and who have had careful training in making of acceptable plans. All practice teaching is done in the presence of the critic teacher who is responsible for the instruction of her children and the criticism and training of the students. The first unit of the Demonstration School is now in operation. The room is in the charge of Miss Grace Bailey, who comes to this city from the Waco city schools."

Much later, in the special edition of The Sentinel on SFA in 1948, Miss Valine Hobbs provided the following account of the school's history.

"The primary Demonstration School was housed in one room in the southwest corner of Central Grammar School, where it remained until the Austin Building was completed on the SFA campus in May, 1924. Although crowded, the Demonstration School was in the Austin Building until it moved into the present quarters in Rusk Building in the fall of 1926...more grades were added each year until the school was composed of seven grades when it was moved into the Rusk Building. With a staff consisting of a director, a supervisor, and ten teachers, high school work was begun in 1926, with the addition of grades eight and nine. At that time there were only eleven grades in the public schools of Texas, and tenth and eleven grade work at SFA was cared for in the Sub-college department. (Sub-colleges were operated by many colleges to accommodate students from rural areas where schools only went through the ninth grade. The Sub-colleges offered two years of study so that students could complete high school requirements then begin regular college studies.) Tenth-grade work was removed from the Sub-college and placed in the Demonstration School in the fall of 1930, and eleventh grade was added in the same way in the fall of 1931."

After Texas added a 12th grade to its public schools in l940, the Demonstration School was adjusted to provide the 12th grade. The School continued in this format until the entire School was discontinued in l950.

The first teacher for the School was Miss Hazel Gloyd, who was the supervisor of the school and of practice teaching. In the fall of 1925, H. I. Lowman became principal, serving two years in that role. Mr. J. J. Wilson, a member of the education department of the College became the director in l927, serving until 1947. Dr. Ellerbrook followed Mr. Wilson, filling the leadership role until the School was closed. Among others who taught in the school were Hazel Floyd, Grace Bailey, Barbara Birdwell, Marie Martin, and Edna Phillips.

The school began with 24 students, (12 first graders and 12 second graders,) but it grew rapidly. By l935, there were 247 in the student body, and the number continued to grow until the demise of the school. During the first years family names among the children were Adis, Bailey, Beck, Birdwell, Blakey, Booth, Borwn, Bowline, Cunningham, Ferguson, Hagan, Holbrook, Holland, Humpreys, Jenkins, Maltom, Price, Schott, Spies, Weeks, Williams, and Wilson.

The Demonstration School produced a number of "firsts": first parent-teacher organization in Nacogdoches (l924), first high school in East Texas to offer Spanish, and one of the first high school bands in East Texas (l927). In the early years, Sub-College Commencements were referred to as Demonstration School Commencements; however, the first commencement for students who had eleven years at the school was held in May l932 with 42 students graduating.

The notion of a model school operated for the training of teachers has come full-circle to the present time, for the State Legislature has recently established a system of Charter Schools. Today a Campus Charter School, created in collaboration with the local public schools, has opened on the SFA campus. Such a school comes very close to mirroring the plan of the Demonstration School to provide excellence in education through a model program.