The Mica,or Mt. Zion School in Charles City County, Virginia was built in 1915 for African American students within a segregated county school system. The school’s origins lie with the Home Mission Society of the nearby Mount Zion Church, which purchased the land in 1899 to establish a school. The society sold the parcel to the county school system in1915. The county received a grant for the school from the Rosenwald Fund in1917. Built during the period when the Rosenwald Fund operated at Tuskegee, the school does not conform to any of the later Rosenwald standard plans. Despite the fact it was owned and operated by the county, local citizens continued to contribute funds and physical labor to support the school's operation and physical plant. The School League at Mica School is documented as installing sheetrock and painting the school interior in the 1940s.
This modest, one-teacher school was closed in 1951 during a period of school consolidation as improvements were made to the remaining Black schools in an equalization campaign to forestall integration.
After the school's closure, the building served as an informal community center for church and social functions, was later leased as a hunting lodge, and is currently vacant. The Historic Mt. Zion School Foundation of Charles City has been established to designate, restore, and interpret the school building. The Mica School is a testament to the initiative,dedication, and sacrifice made by African Americans to secure educational opportunities for their children in early twentieth-century Charles City County.
Hanbury Preservation Consulting prepared the nomination for the school as part of a project to nominate two Rosenwald Schools in Charles City County to the National Register of Historic Places. It was listed in February 2025