One in a series of history pieces published in conjunction with The News-Star’s 125th anniversary. Betty Waters filed the original story for the 1976 bicentennial edition.
In 1811, early settlers in Ouachita Parish built the first schoolhouseof which there is any record, on the banks of the Ouachita River out of "good timbers and masonry and two or three feet off the ground."
Education might have been carried on earlier in FortMiro, later to become known as Monroe, for priests of the colonial period assigned to the trading post who were charged to teach reading and writing along with theirclerical responsibilities.
At any rate, that single wood-frame building in pioneer times was the forerunner of the 20 schools in the Monroe City School System and 36in the Ouachita Parish School System.
In the 205 years sincethe first locally organized school activity,accommodations have come a long way.
Early schools had hardly any facilities except classrooms untilthe 20th century. Schools changed to accommodate modern education programs and were upgraded with modern activities made possible by electrification and natural gas.
Buildings progress
School buildings progressed to be constructed of brick and feature good lighting, ventilation, heating systems, drinking fountains and sanitation and sprawling classroom wings. Auditoriums, library science offices and covered walkways became normal architectural elements in schools. Appearing in the school setting in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, were gymnasiums, stadiums and cafeterias.
A bond issue added air conditioning to city schools in 1965, while the parish system started installing AC units in 1973.
Another development was the opening of media centers. The city's systemopened in 1968, and the parish's opened in 1970. They were built with Title I funds to serve federal programs with instructional materials, audio-visual equipment, office space and conference rooms.
The next generation
The first school had dimensions of 84 feet long by 36 feet wide. In addition to classrooms, it contained apartments for two masters, one to teach the 3 R's in Englishand the other in French because both languages were then spoken in the territory.
It operated under auspices of the University of Orleans, apparent head of public schools in the Territory of Orleans in which Fort Miro lay, and was administered by J.F. Girod, who sold the town a lot for the school, and Henry Bry and Louis Lamy of the Ouachita School Society. Thethree generally are credited for bringing the first public school to Monroe and Ouachita Parish.
Six pupils were admitted free, but there was a $1.50 monthly tuition fee for others. The school faced difficulties in recruiting teachers willing to come into the wilderness. When a financialdepression hitLouisiana in 1816, some parents unable to pay, withdrew their children.
The society under legislative act of 1824 had charge of all parish schools and became a distant ancestor of the Ouachita Parish School Board. Asmall log school was builtfor boys of the parish on a portion of the property donatedfor public school purposes on South Grand Street by Don Juan Filhoil, founder of Monroe.
Thatschool began in 1828,upon incorporation of Ouachita Parish School Society by the legislature, and the election of five administrators after the statelevied $2.50per voter as in annual appropriation to defray the cost of public education.The male academy continued in a three-room frame building on the lot that was later occupied by Ouachita Parish High School.
Not until 1837 didthe legislature provide funds for girls' public educationby appropriating$1,000 annually for five years. It was to be used in the maintenance of a girls' academy here, provided itwould instruct 10 indigents annually.
Ouachita Female Academy was incorporated that year and 14 trustees were named. The two-story academy building, the upper part to he used as a boarding place for students, was not completed until 1840 on the site that would later become Monroe Central Grammar School grounds, facing north on Wood Street, near the corner of Jackson. The girls academy, constructed of brick, functioned until 1899.
Navigation school in Monroe was nation's largest
Changes afoot
Strides forward in public schooling in Louisiana came to a halt in 1860, as education throughout the South fell victim of the Civil War bind Reconstruction era.
During the Reconstructionperiod, a number of schools were started under provisions of the Freedman's Bureaubut went out of existence in a few years.
In 1877, the city of Monroe for the first time exercised authority of its 1820 charter giving the municipality the right to erect and own schoolhouses. Thecity passed an ordnance creating Monroe School System, and in 1880, acquired Ouachita Female Academy, soon opening three schools.
Male and female schools were combined in 1885, forming the city's first coeducational school. It was housed in the old female academy with high school work added to the curriculum. The tuition-free high school later spawned Neville High.
The Ouachita Parish School Board in 1889 began operating a girls' and boys' school in the three-room frame building previously used as a boys' school.
The next development came when the parish forcibly merged with the city to operatea consolidated Ouachita Parish Central and High School in the old female academy building from 1890 to 1894. The city council withdrew the city school committee from its association with the parish school committee.
The stage was set for the city and the parish systems each to establish schools that would become landmarks in education.The old Monroe City High School and the old Ouachita Parish High School were about to make their debuts. They woulddominate downtown Monroe for several decades.
Ouachita Parish High School
In 1894, the Ouachita Parish School Board adopted a resolution to establish Ouachita Parish High School in the city of Monroe and authorized constructionon property originally donated by Filhoil.The high school was conducted in the former frame boys' school while construction was underway.
The new building was brick and contained six large classrooms, an auditorium, two basem*nts and an enclosed playroom. The plant enlarged year-to-year to include 66 classrooms, four laboratories. a cafeteria, stage equipment and lighting effects in the auditorium, band rooms, a large gymnasium and a library.
Ouachita Parish High operated there alongside Ouachita Parish Grammar School for years.
About 1956-57 the old gymnasium was converted into a central office complex for the parish school system. The new Ouachita Parish High School is east of the city.
Monroe City High School
Meanwhile, the city operated a grammar school on a plot of land on North Third Street, between Washington and Breard streets acquired in 1896. It was called the Gayle School because the house originally was the home of the family of that name.
On Oct. 3, 1898, the Monroe City Council issued a resolution asking that a new city grammar and high school be erected. In 1899, the councilaccepted a bid for construction of what was to he Monroe City High School.
Opened in 1900, it had 12 grades and was one of two schools in the state at that time holding kindergarten. The entire city school system, both elementary and high school, was housed In the new building except for a small school for black children.
By 1931, the City High School building was filled to capacity and all high school activity was movedto the new Neville High School in the city's northern section. It featured academic classrooms, science rooms, lecture rooms, laboratories, industrial arts shops, music rooms, a library, an auditorium, a gymnasium, stadium, etc.
After high schoolgrades moved to Neville, the old City High School building continued to house Monroe Central Grammar School. In 1957, the building was condemned for school use, although thecity school system maintained central offices there until a new administration building was ready for occupancy in 1963.
For many years, the old Ouachita Parish High School and Neville were considered the epitome of what a high school plant should be.
Construction of Neville High came in a growth spurt experienced by the city system from 1921-31. The decade also saw the building of:Georgia Tucker School on Stubbs Avenue, Barkdull Faulk School on Jackson Street, Lida Benton School on Lee Avenue, SherrouseSchool in eastern Monroe and Monroe Colored High School on 11th Street between Breard and Washington streets, which later became Clark Elementary when Carroll High was built.
Wisner School wasan old frame building at the corner of Eighth and Washington streets that operated for a while.
A 1953 expansion program brought construction of Lexington Elementary andPlum Street schools, which renamed Clara Hall 10 years later, and also Carroll High and Carver School which had been Newtown School on Texas Avenue.
Lee and Jefferson junior highs opened in 1957, followed in 1962 by Sallie Humble, Minnie Ruffin, Lincoln and Carroll Junior high schools. Berg JonesElementary andWossman High opened in about 1967.
Forsythe brought progress to early Monroe
Ouachita consolidates
Present layout of Ouachita Parish School System has been directly shaped over the years. Not only by a growing population, but also by a trend its public schools to consolidate.
In 1920, the district had 71 locations scattered across the parish, often in isolated areas where classes were sometimes held in churches or lodges.
In 1925, the parish district combined five small school to create Okaloosa, which was a high school. It was closed a few decades later for legal reasons. Federal courts also directed phasing out Booker T. Washington, Myles and Hamp Faust Schools.
By the late '40s and '50s, there was a widespread consolidation movement among public schools in Louisiana facilitated by improved transportation systemsand school bus fleets.
