Marshall High School (Portland, Oregon) Explained

Marshall High School
Streetaddress:3905 SE 91st Avenue
City:Portland
County:Multnomah County
State:Oregon
Zipcode:97266
Country:USA
Coordinates:45.4941°N -122.5723°W
Pushpin Map:Portland
Type:Public
District:Portland Public Schools
Grades:9–12[1]
Students:751
Mascot:Minutemen[2]
Colors:Scarlet, navy, and white
Athletics Conference:OSAA Portland Interscholastic League 5A-1
Opened:1960
Closed:2011
Homepage:www.marshall.pps.k12.or.us

Marshall High School is a former public high school in Portland, Oregon, United States. The school opened on September 6, 1960, and is named after John Marshall, the fourth Chief Justice of the United States.[3] The school was closed in 2011 as the Portland Public Schools district moved to consolidate students and resources into fewer high schools.[4]

History

Marshall was built to accommodate 2,400 students, although only 1300 enrolled in its first year. It cost $4,731,506 to build, and included 42 classrooms.[5] It had a library, which projects from a corner of the building into the courtyard, had 7000 books in its first year, and a cafeteria which seated 800 students.[6] Students were drawn from areas previously served by Franklin and Madison High Schools.[7]

Marshall was designed by the firm Stanton, Boles, Maguire & Church, which also designed the campus of Lewis and Clark College. Marshall had several innovative design features. It was designed to have conference rooms connected to classrooms, with windows between them, to allow teachers to either meet with individual students while keeping an eye on the class as a whole or let students study in the conference room while teaching a class in the main classroom. It put lockers in all teachers classrooms, for storing personal belongings. Despite these design features, it is not eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, since, unlike Jackson Middle School and Ida B. Wells-Barnett High School, it does not demonstrate as high a level of innovation in its design.[8] [9]

In the mid 1960s, Marshall experimented with an innovative program, developed by a team of professors at the Stanford School of Education, which gave students the opportunity to complete homework during an extended school day.[10] This program structured the school more like a college, to better prepare students for college. Students spent just two thirds of their day in class, leaving the other third open for studying, researching, or sitting in on other classes. Classes also varied in length, resulting in a complicated schedule based upon 20-minute modules, which was created by an IBM 7090.[11] While the reaction was generally positive, there were some problems with the experiment. Not all teachers adjusted well to the student-discussion focused classes, and some students goofed off instead of studying during the free third of their school day. The school encouraged collaboration between teachers, which many saw as positive.[12]

Student profile

In its last year of operation, the student population was 45% white, 23% Latino, 16% Asian/Pacific Islander, and 10% African American.[13] The Marshall boundaries contained more potential students (1640) than any other in the Portland area, though the Marshall enrollment was only 751 students. In 2009, 9% of the students transferred into the school.[14]

Academics

Since 2004, Marshall comprised four small schools:[15] the BizTech High School of Business and Technology, the Portland Academy of International Studies, the Linus Pauling "Academy of Integrated Sciences", and the Renaissance Arts Academy.[4]

Athletics

Among Marshall's most successful sports teams were the boys basketball teams (reaching the postseason in 2009–10) also the 1995-96 basketball team almost reach the post season they were one game shy of making the post season. And the cheerleading squad (which finished 4th in Oregon in 2009–10). The girls basketball team won two consecutive state championships in 1981 and 1982. Coached by Ken Trapp and John Hughes, the 1981 championship team was the first in Oregon history to finish undefeated at 26–0. Coached by Rod Jones, the girls volleyball team won the state championship in 1978 and finished second in 1982, 1985 and in 1987 second under coach John Hughes. In 1980 the girls soccer team reached the quarter-finals. In 1981 the softball team finished 3rd in the state.[18] Marshall football reached the state quarterfinals in 1973, and last reached the playoffs since 2003, but hadn't won a playoff football game since 1990. The school recorded the first winless season in the school's 50-year history during the 2007–2008 season after falling in the last game of the season to also winless Roosevelt High School 25–22 in a match-up of two teams that have struggled for the better part of the decade.[19] JMHS hired a new football coach on June 23, 2010.

Notable alumni

Use as a "hotel school" during PPS renovations

After its closure in 2011, the Marshall Campus became a "hotel school," temporarily housing students of several Portland high schools during renovations to their campuses. Classes from the following high schools took place, and continue to take place, on the Marshall campus:

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Oregon School Directory 2008-09 . . 139 . September 2008 . July 11, 2015 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110526202904/http://www.ode.state.or.us/pubs/directory/school-directory-september-2008.pdf . May 26, 2011.
  2. Web site: Marshall High School . Oregon School Activities Association . https://web.archive.org/web/20100621073940/http://www.osaa.org/schools.aspx/Marshall/ . June 21, 2010.
  3. "School Bells Ring Again; Record Enrollments Expected". The Oregonian, September 6, 1960, p. 29.
  4. News: Matt Buxton . Marshall High School closing: Anger, resignation, hope mark end of an era . OregonLive.com . June 13, 2011. September 12, 2011.
  5. News: John Marshall School To Service Students In Southeast Area. August 24, 1960. The Oregonian.
  6. News: John Marshall High To Open In Southeast Portland. 5 September 1960. The Oregonian.
  7. News: Portland Public Schools Open Sept. 6. Wentworth. Eric. 24 August 1960. The Oregonian.
  8. Web site: Marshall High School (Portland, Oregon) Oregon Digital. oregondigital.org. en. 2018-06-07.
  9. News: School Building Planned To Meet Students Needs. 6 September 1960. The Oregonian.
  10. News: Is Homework Necessary?. Ashby. Neal. 22 November 1964. Parade: The Sunday Newspaper Magazine.
  11. News: IBM Gadget Shelves Tradition At Marshall High. Guernsey. John. 27 October 1963. The Oregonian.
  12. News: 'Revolutionary' System At Marshall High Probes College Method On Secondary Level. Guernsey. John. 7 February 1965. The Oregonian.
  13. News: What will be the fate of my high school?. Kimberly Melton. January 21, 2010. OregonLive.com. July 11, 2015.
  14. News: How many transfer, and where do they go?. Kimberly Melton. February 4, 2010. OregonLive.com. February 12, 2010.
  15. News: Bill Graves. Oregon high school dropout rate drops to lowest in a decade. April 15, 2009. OregonLive.com.
  16. News: Jerry Casey. State releases high school graduation rates. June 30, 2009. OregonLive.com. July 1, 2009.
  17. News: Oregon dropout rates for 2008. https://web.archive.org/web/20110916010203/http://blog.oregonlive.com/education_impact/2009/06/Dropout-Rates.xls . September 16, 2011 . June 30, 2009. OregonLive.com. July 11, 2015.
  18. Web site: OSAA - Home. www.osaa.org. en. 2018-06-07.
  19. Web site: Pamplin Media Group.
  20. News: Remade Franklin High School reopens to students of first day of school . KGW8 . August 30, 2017 . 2019-02-15.
  21. News: PPS staff say Grant needs buses to Marshall . Hollywood Star News . Portland, Ore . February 28, 2017 . 2019-02-15.
  22. News: Photos: Grant High School bond work in full swing . Daily Journal of Commerce . December 20, 2017 . 2019-02-15.
  23. News: Summer construction transforms many neighborhood schools . Hollywood Star News . August 15, 2018 . 2019-02-15.
  24. Web site: Benson Polytechnic High School . www.pps.net . 14 August 2021.