The students and staff of Emerald State School are justifiably proud of its long history of educating the children of Emerald.
Emerald State School was established on November 3, 1879 on the same site as the present school.
In early days, most of the pupils were the children of railway workers. Emerald remained largely a railway town until the late 1960’s and early 1970’s when the Fairbairn Dam was built and cotton farms were established. Further growth in the late 1970’s occurred when the Gregory Mine opened and 19 classes were crowded into the school! The situation was relieved when Emerald North State School opened in 1980. When more mines brought hundreds of families to town in the mid 1990’s, the school again reached 550 pupils and the opening of Denison State School in 1997 helped by halving the numbers.
Today we have a student body of 325 students from Prep to Year 6 with a range of cultural and social backgrounds.