During the late 1960s, the Rockingham County School Board was faced with the question of what to do with three aging elementary buildings on the northern end of the county: Broadway, Timberville and Tenth Legion. In 1968 the school board voted to build a large elementary school at Timberville to replace the three older schools. A New School Study Committee was formed to develop educational specifications for the new school. The committee included teachers, administrators, parents and students. The committee studied and visited a number of buildings with innovative designs and, in 1969, presented their report to the School Board. It was the feeling of the committee that the building should be flexible in design to accommodate newer instructional methods which included learning-center based instruction and team teaching. The School Board employed the architectural firm of Davis and McClintock to design the facility. The ground was broken for the new facility in the spring of 1971 and Lantz Construction Company of Broadway was chosen as the contractor for the new building, which would cost approximately one million dollars. The design featured six open-space "pods" with an gymnasium and cafeteria connected by the office area and a main central hallway. In September of 1971, Tenth Legion principal Larry R. Huffman was chosen to head the new school, scheduled to open in the fall of 1972. An Open Space Planning Committee was formed to develop an educational plan for the school which would incorporate elements of the British Primary program. One of these features was multi-age grouping where each of the instructional "pods" would contain a team of teachers with children of different grade levels. After teachers were selected for the new school, a variety of in-service training programs were provided.
Plains Elementary school opened in the fall of 1972 with nearly 1000 students in grades 1-6. The parents and community were generally enthusiastic about the new school and the innovative programs and the school enjoyed a high level of public support. However, by 1976, some of the innovations were beginning to go out of favor and some parents and school board members began to question the concepts on which the school was based and began to insist on a more traditional closed classroom. In 1977 and 1978, the two groups, those favoring changes to a more traditional model and those favoring the continuation of the more open concept, clashed in a series of public meetings. The end result, adopted by the school board in the summer of 1978, included, as a compromise measure, the addition of moveable walls to partially enclosed the instructional areas. The compromise appeared to satisfy both sides and some elements of the "open" model were preserved as well as the opportunity for more traditional approaches.
Also in 1976, the sixth grade was shifted to the middle school and the kindergarten program was started. Also during this time period, the large "crawl space", a large basement area, was converted to instructional usage. The population at the school continued to fluctuate, dropping from the original 1000 students to about 750 students in the mid 1980s. As the school entered the late 1980s, the population started to rise again and by 1987 the enrollment again reached over 800. In 1987, the School Board decided to build a new school at Lacey Spring which would move approximately 200 students from Plains. In the fall of 1989, Lacey Spring opened its doors and Larry Huffman, who had been the first principal at Plains in 1972, left to become the first principal at the new Lacey Spring Elementary School. Long time Assistant Principal Johnny Funkhouser, who had been at the school since its construction, also left to become the principal at Fulks Run. W. Marshall Price was named the new principal at Plains. Under Mr. Price's leadership, permanent walls were installed between classrooms in the early 1990s and the school's first computer lab was opened.
After another population shift when Lacey Spring became overcrowded, about 125 students from Lacey Spring were moved back to Plains in the fall of 1995. In the fall of 1997, Marshall Price left Plains to become principal at Elkton and Nancy Lantz became principal, a position she held until 2000. Lynn Sprouse became principal in 2000. Under Mr. Sprouse's leadership, school playground facilities were upgraded and a construction project authorized to add permanent classroom doors, bringing the building up to current building and fire codes in the process. The Pod R area of the school was renovated during this project creating 2 new computer labs and new Art and Challenge classrooms. Mr. Sprouse held the principal position at Plains until the summer of 2008, when he left to become the principal at Stone Spring Elementary (in the Harrisonburg City School System). On July 22, 2008, Mr. J. W. Kile became the new principal at Plains Elementary School, and holds the position at this time.
History of Rockingham County Public Schools