On this very place the sexton’s (lat. Custos, the guardian) house was built in 1578. In accordance with a village’s standards at the time it could be considered a quite remarkable building. The ground floor was built from stone, the other parts were built from wood. The building was already covered by a tiled roof, while the parish property still had thatched roofs. Next to a large classroom, there was a small chamber. Apart from that, the ground floor comprised a small kitchen, a stable, an entrance hall and a wood shed. On the first floor there was a living room with chambers.

Due to its proximity to the church, at first, it served the sexton as a residential building. In the beginning the sexton only taught catechism (education about the basic questions of the Christian faith) to the children. This automatically led to the need of the children to learn reading and writing. Because of this, soon, reading, writing and calculating became part of the teaching schedule. More subjects were to follow later. Georg Zimmermann, born in 1556 in Ruppendorf, became the first known schoolmaster of our village in 1576. He died in 1614 after an outstanding service to his office for 36 years and 8 weeks.

During the big fire in 1639 at the time of the Thirty Years’ War only the house was damaged. With the beginning of 1662 more and more repair work became necessary. This is why a new house was built on the same place which was consecrated in 1793. In 1878 school started in the newly built school on “Freiberger Straße 14” (cf. Information board 9). As a consequence, the municipality purchased the old school building and installed a community home. On the 20^th of June in 1954 the first day-care center was opened in this building. During a thunderstorm on the 20^th of July in 1968 the old lime tree fell onto the roof of the center. The children were napping at the time and nobody got injured. In 1993 the day-care center moved into the nursery building “Alter Schulweg 7”. The house of Ruppendorf’s first school became a private property, was modernized and today serves as a residential building.