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Orleans American High School Campus

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New School To Open Doors for Fall Term

From the Orleans Item -- weekly newspaper of the
Orleans Area Command, vol. 6 no. 3, Friday 15 July 1960:

New School To Open Doors for Fall Term; More Room,
Pleasant Atmosphere Highlight New Five-Wing Facility

"In September 1960, Orleans area children will be attending classes in the new five wing building at Foret d'Orleans. The
new two-story structure with approximately one hundred class rooms comprising one mile of corridor and 152,000 square
feet is a far cry from the fourteen class rooms situated on one floor of a main building at Maison Fort. These were the circumstances under which the Orleans American High School contended when it first opened in September 1954 with a
faculty consisting of fourteen teachers (twelve American and
two French).

The school was accredited in March 1955 by the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, the nation's largest accrediting organization which supervises high school standards of overseas dependent schools. Admission to the Association is granted to only schools which satisfactorily meet requirements in instructional, library, and administrative staffs, length of class periods, prerequisites for graduation, size of
the school, pupil and teacher loads and book expenditures. Gaining admittance to this Association was a great stride in progress for the infant school.

This fall the new school will host some 1,900 children from
all of the surrounding Orleans area. With superior facilities,
the building is generously subdivided into spacious offices and classrooms. In the junior and senior high school there will be separate class rooms for home economics, industrial arts, instrumental music, commercial rooms (one for business machines and one for typing), library, cafeteria, vocal music room, arts and crafts and physics and biology. The auditorium which presented the scene for the graduation exercises has a seating capacity for over 500 students and will temporarily double as school gymnasium.

Nor have efforts been spared for modernizing the elementary wing.  Here also, students will have separate rooms for physical education, speech, reading, a well-equipped all-purpose music room, and an ungraded classroom. Science will be taught in
two individual rooms, one for seventh-graders, and one for students entering the eight grade.  For the first time in the school's history, an elementary school counselor will be
available to advise and assist students in any scholastic or academic problems. A playground area for younger children
will feature slides, horizontal ladders and jungle gyms.

Lighting is modern and strategically placed to offer a minimum
of eye strain. A very noticeable improvement will be in the heating of the building.  At the Maison Fort location, many classrooms were inadequately heated. With the adequacy of the heating plant in the new school, classes need not be cancelled on cold days.

The school at La Chapelle will only house kindergarten and grades one through four of children living in the housing areas and along these routes located in the immediate area."

This 'Orleans Item' piece is accompanied with four photos:
one of the new library, two that depict work benches in what
may be the industrial arts class room, and one with human anatomy models in what is likely the biology lab.

When I arrived in Orleans in November 1959, school was at Maison Fort.  Football games were held at Harbord Barracks. One practice field was at Harbord Barracks -- the same field used by the GIs. The other was at Fort d'Orleans behind the school and a short jog away was the facility where gym classes were held and also wrestling practice.

Chuck Ralston, OHS 1962

John Kohn (OHS ’62) did this drawing for the 1961 Yearbook. Without any references like architectural drawings, aerial photos or floor plans, he had to do it from just walking the halls and the exterior of the building, not an easy task. The position of the gym in the right background is accurate, but everything else was put in at the request of Assistant Principal Emil Mika.

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