Yesterday I had a meeting at Tacoma Community College (TCC) and while there I stopped at the library. It had a wonderful, comfortable ambiance with plenty of study carrels, tables and of course resources.
http://www.tacomacc.edu/library/
The mascot of Lowell Elementary at 810 North 13th Street is the leopard. Per Lowel’s website, it is the oldest school in the district and began as a log cabin in 1869 at N. 28th and Starr Street. It burnt down in 1875 and was rebuilt in 1885, and named Lowell in 1890. In 1892 a new building was constructed and the 1885 building became the annex. In 1949 an earthquake hit the region, killing one Lowell student and making the building unusable. In 950 the most recent Lowell and the one current being used was constructed and in 1961 the primary unit was built. I was especially impressed with the mural on the side of an outbuilding on the site.
Gray Middle School was one of six intermediate schools placed under contract in Tacoma in 1924. Constructed in It was originally called Captain Robert Gray Junior High School, named after the American naval officer and explorer who, in May 1792, was the first to sail a ship into the Columbia River, as well as Gray’s Harbor.
http://www0.tacoma.k12.wa.us/schools/websites/optionalsections.asp?id=201
Geiger School at 621 South Jackson Ave, Tacoma, WA 98465 is slated for demolition and the new Geiger School will be constructed on the site. While the construction is underway, the school program will be housed at the old Hunt Middle School Building (now empty) at 6501 S. 10th St., Tacoma. The mascot for Geiger is an orca whale.
The original school was built in 1949 and named after William F. Geiger who served as the Tacoma School District’s superintendent for 20 years. Geiger has been transitioning into a public Montessori program and as of this fall the Preschool through the 3rd grade will have that style of education.
SAMI is a Tacoma Public School located in the lovely Point Defiance Park. The facility itself isn’t much to speak off, though there are some nice artistic touches. SAMI’s website says “The Science and Math Institute creates an inclusive high school learning community that provides integrated, inquiry-based experiences utilizing our natural and community resources, combining science, mathematics, and the arts.
The Science and Math Institute opens in the fall of 2009 as Tacoma School District’s newest public high school for students beginning their ninth grade year. SAMI will grow into a full four year high school with the 2009-2010 freshmen class.”
http://www0.tacoma.k12.wa.us/schools/hsx/sami/
The Old Madison School at 3101 South 43rd St., Tacoma, WA has apparently been at 3102 South 43rd at some time in the past. According to Tacoma Public Library “The six-room school, designed by architects Hill & Mock, was completed in October of 1924 at a cost of approximately $35,000. It had replaced two portable buildings on the same site. The school doubled in size in 1957 and improvements made in 1967 and 1979. Madison is no longer an elementary school but currently houses Headstart and Early Childhood Education programs.” That information, as well as a historical photo of the building can be found here http://search.tacomapubliclibrary.org/images/dt6n.asp?un=1&pg=1&krequest=Madison+Elementary+School&stemming=On&phonic=&fuzzy=&maxfiles=5000
Currently the administrative offices for Headstart are located in the Madison Building. Headstart is a preschool program designed to promote school readiness by enhancing the social and cognitive development of children through the provision of educational, health, nutritional, social and other services to enrolled children and families.
Currently there is a proposal to move the Headstart offices to the building currently housing Bryant Montessori and to vacant the Madison Building.
Bryant Montessori, located at 717 S. Grant Ave., Tacoma, WA 98405 is one of the Tacoma Schools that might be flux. In 1998, this school received a grant to become a public school using the Montessori method. It now provides preschool to 8th grade education.
The original Bryant building was constructed in 1891 and was named after William Cullen Bryant who is remembered for writing Thanatopsis (alright I don’t actually know that poem, but here it is)
https://www.msu.edu/~cloudsar/thanatop.htm
The original building was lovely and held elementary through high school classes and also housed the school board offices and administration. High school students in the late 1800s paid tuition fees and in 1897 it was reduced from $2.50 to $1.50 per month. In any case after 70 years, the building was demolished and the “new” Bryant opened in 1962. A photograph of the original building can be found here. http://search.tacomapubliclibrary.org/buildings/bldg1image.asp?j=2&o=2&n=15872&i=3774#text
The district proposal currently on the table is to close nearby Franklin Elementary School and use that building to house the Bryant program. Originally the intent had been to house the entire Bryant program at Franklin, but now it is looking more likely that the elementary portion of the Bryant program will move to Franklin and the middle school program would join Geiger Montessori which will move to the vacated Hunt Middle School. This would allow at least some of the Franklin students to at least have the option of staying in the Franklin Building if they wanted a Montessori style of education. Per the newspaper article below “A variety of programs, including Head Start and others, would move from the old Madison School site to the Bryant Elementary site”. Everybody clear?
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/03/10/1579446/tacoma-district-leans-toward-closing.html
Update 7/11 Bryant Montessori is staying put.
Read more about possible school closures at : http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/01/19/1509242/foss-students-fret-over-possible.html#ixzz1Bn2OnEp6
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/01/26/1517312/school-cuts-worry-parents.html
Today’s school is Wainwright Elementary at 130 Alameda Avenue. Their mascot is the wildcat. The original school opened in 1911 and was called Regents Park. There was one teacher, Mrs. C.D. Bangs and she taught 1st through 3rd grades there. The one room school closed in 1914 because of lack of students. But it reopened in 1915. It almost closed in 1917, when there were 13 students. A new school opened there in 1924 and was named FIrcrest. In 1948 the school wa added on to and renamed Wainwright after a famous general in World War II. General Wainwright traveled from Texas to Fircrest to be at the school’s dedication. The school was again added on to in 1957 adn remodeling was done in 1971. In 1984 the school had a student population of 292 students and the Citizen’s Committee for School Facilities Planning recommends that Wainwright be closed.
To see the school as it appeared in 1924, see this link from the Tacoma Public Library.
http://search.tacomapubliclibrary.org/buildings/bldg1image.asp?j=1&o=1&n=10532&i=4838#text
Read more about possible school closures at : http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/01/19/1509242/foss-students-fret-over-possible.html#ixzz1Bn2OnEp6
Today’s school is Stanley Elementary at 1712 South 17th Street. Their mascot is the cougar. The original school opened in November of 1925 and was designed to hold upwards of 480 students. It was named after George A. Stanley, a popular Tacoma Schools Administrator, who had died suddenly that same year. Additions were constructed in 1949, 1955, 1967 and 1973. In 1983 the main part of the building was declared unsafe in the event of an earthquake and it was closed and eventually demolished. The current building was constructed in 1986 and includes some decorative architectural elements from the original school (see photo below).
In 1970 Stanley became a “technologically advanced elementary [manet] school” and later it became a science magnet. It currently functions as a neighborhood school to a diverse student population.
Tacoma Public School has announced that it may close schools in order to save money. Foss is the high school they are considering and elementary schools with less than 300 students are also possibilities. These elementary schools are Franklin, Lyon, Roosevelt, Stanley, McKinley, Wainwright and Geiger. Geiger has had a program change and has been taken off the table. I thought over the next week or so, I’d take photographs of the mentioned schools and use them as my new places of the day.
Read more about possible school closures at :
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/01/19/1509242/foss-students-fret-over-possible.html#ixzz1Bn2OnEp6http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/01/19/1509242/foss-students-fret-over-possible.html#ixzz1Bn2OnEp6
Today’s school is Mary Lyon Elementary at 101 E. 46th St.. Their mascot is the lion. The school was constructed in 1910 and has a student population of about 270. Their official website states “The school is named after a 19th-century farm girl who was born on Feb. 28, 1897 who eventually became a teacher and established the first women’s college-Mount Holyoke-in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Mary Lyon Elementary was originally a one-room, wooden portable and has developed into a brick and stucco structure with 18 classrooms, along with classrooms in adjoining portables that were added to accommodate Lyon’s population growth.”
A photograph of the building as it appeared in 1924 can be found here:
http://search.tacomapubliclibrary.org/buildings/bldg1image.asp?j=1&o=4&n=6743&i=4814#text
Over the years, the building has had extensive renovation, as can be readily seen when comparing the historic photo from Tacoma Public Library to the new photograph.
