MUSIC >>NARRATOR: TPS Proud.

It's a slogan that appears on nearly every street, every corner throughout Toledo.

Though the slogan may be modern, the spirit of the words is evident throughout the history of Toledo Public Schools.

TPS has fostered a feeling of community, progressive educational opportunities, and architectural achievements since its beginning.

Even before the Board of Education was created, the foundation of Toledo Public Schools was already starting.

>>LARRY MICHAELS: 1829 was the first recorded school, a guy named Cyrus Fisher had a little school by, I think it was by Ten Mile Creek, along there.

And then Harriet Whitney, she had, I guess this little log school.

It was where the, the downtown library is now.

But, um, it was, it was tough.

I mean, it was just all kids mixed together, and attendance wasn't regular.

>>NARRATOR: With increasing city population came the growing need for schools to educate children.

In 1837, Toledo was officially incorporated as a city, and the City Council wasted no time in establishing three distinct grammar schools for the three distinct wards in Toledo.

The idea was to create a school as a center point of each unique community in Toledo, an idea that would remain a steady theme through the decades.

>>MICHAELS: And it becomes then kind of the focus of the community.

As Toledo starts growing, then, of course, the schools had to get more organized.

And then in, on May 8, 1849 is when they officially organized the, the Board of Education.

>>NARRATOR: The Board of Education continued the connection between neighborhood and school with the establishment of elementary schools by ward, as well as the first steps towards a central high school.

School buildings received inspections from the Board.

They also established salaries for teachers and selected textbooks to standardize curriculum.

Schools also paid special attention to the needs of immigrant children, implementing courses in multiple languages to meet their needs.

>>MICHAELS: Toledo attracted such a variety of people.

They did have German classes, because so many of the people couldn't speak English.

And so it was the schools that taught them English, got them into the communities.

And so the, the schools had a big role in, in mixing kids together.

>>NARRATOR: By 1871, TPS also provided adult education classes in the evenings, furthering the district's impact on shaping and educating the community.

From the beginning, classes at all levels of education were offered equally, including female students.

>>MICHAELS: And that started way back in the 1850s.

My sense of it was is that TPS always fostered equality for male and female education.

>>NARRATOR: In addition to gender equality, TPS began addressing racial equality early on.

Though originally segregated, by 1872 public sentiment called for the equal education of students of all races in public schools.

TPS became integrated and would remain so indefinitely, long before integration was mandated by law.

MUSIC >>NARRATOR: Five years after the formation of the Board of Education, the decision was made to build one, central high school.

In 1854, Toledo High School was opened, making Toledo the 25th city in the country to offer classes above grammar school.

>>MICHAELS: And it sat right down there where the main library is today, down there at Michigan and, and Madison.

And it was a huge, forbidding, uh, building, kind of Italianate, mid-19th century building, and it was, it was a landmark for Toledo.

It was an architectural landmark and uh, a physical landmark.

>>NARRATOR: Toledo High School was situated right on the bank of the Miami Erie Canal, and served multiple functions for the city of Toledo.

For instance, the school's bell was used as the city's fire alarm.

The building housed 26 classrooms and an auditorium that could accommodate over 1800 people.

As such, it often served as a meeting place for city gatherings.

>>MICHAELS: And this building stood until 1895.

They had a big fire and it burned.

It was rebuilt, reopened in 1898, and it was called um, Central High School.

>>NARRATOR: Although the fire destroyed Toledo High School, one building still remained.

Adjacent to Toledo High School, the Manual Training School remained intact.

Beginning in 1885, the Manual Training School offered male students vocational training in areas such as woodworking, mechanical drawing, and printing.

One year later, the school opened the Domestic Economy Department for female students.

Even after the destruction of Toledo High School, the Manual Training School continued to provide vocational training well into the 20th century under the name of Woodward Vocational High School.

>>MICHAELS: Where the name Woodward comes into Toledo is Calvin Woodward.

He was in St. Louis and he was a big advocate of vocational education, and so they named the vocational wing after him.

[Because] there was such a need for vocational training.

I mean, this-remember this is when Toledo was like doubling in size, so there was a lot of need for people to learn trades, and, and TPS helped meet those needs.

>>NARRATOR: Even after Woodward moved to a new location in North Toledo and opened as a comprehensive high school, the old site still operated as a vocational education facility until 1938 when construction began for the main public library.

In 1938, male students began receiving vocational education at Macomber Vocational High School.

The school was named for Irving Macomber, a board of education member who advocated for the construction of dedicated vocational high schools for both men and women.

In 1939, female students began enrolling at Whitney Vocational High School, named for Harriet Whitney, the first recorded female teacher in the Toledo area.

>>GEORGIA WAGGONER: I am a graduate of Harriet Whitney Vocational High School, where I was accepted in the Distributive Education.

And we each had our own coordinators that uh, taught us the alternating week between uh, the school and our jobs, and I was at Tiedtke's.

It was a very exciting way of uh, attending your high school.

I thoroughly enjoyed the uh, school rotation, and it was a uh, way of being uh, in the workplace.

>>NARRATOR: Vocational training was critical in Toledo's history, not only in providing students with trade skills, but also its pivotal role in Toledo's efforts during World War II.

It is commonly said that during the war, the lights never went off at Macomber, as the school served as space for the creation of wartime goods.

Whitney provided much needed training to meet the increasing need for women in the workplace as a result of the war.

MUSIC >>NARRATOR: Vocational training was not the only thing growing in TPS in the 20th century.

With significant population growth came the need for physical expansion of the traditional schools as well.

Even after the construction of Central High School in 1898, students quickly outgrew the building.

In 1908, Pauline Steinem, the first female Board member and grandmother of Gloria Steinem, was quoted as stating the school was inadequate to the demands made upon it.

As well, then Superintendent William Guiteau saw that building a high school in every ward was of utmost importance.

He believed that neighborhood schools were central to strong communities within Toledo.

The need for multiple high schools became apparent, leading to some of TPS's greatest architectural achievements.

>>MICHAELS: I mean Toledo doubled between about 1880 and 1900.

I mean, Toledo actually doubled in population, and so by the 1920s, they had to, this huge building program.

They had to build new schools, and they built so many of them.

>>NARRATOR: Though many schools were built in the 1910s and 1920s, perhaps the most architecturally notable are the oldest remaining high schools in TPS today: Jesup W. Scott and Morrison R. Waite High Schools.

>>MICHAELS: When they passed the tax levy to build those, and it passed overwhelmingly in 1908, they ended up hiring David Stine, who was a nationally known architect, and he designed and they built Waite and Scott, which are truly national quality, architectural gems of buildings.

>>PAT SQUIRE: My only high school was Scott, and I graduated in 1953.

I've taken more than one tour of the building since the renovation.

The, the tiles on the floor in the hallways are the same ones I walked on, and the same ones my father walked on.

They built buildings to last at, at the beginning of the 1900s.

>>NARRATOR: Besides Scott and Waite, an additional three high schools were added to TPS in the 1920s and 30s: Edmund Drummond Libbey High School in 1923, Calvin M. Woodward High School in 1928, and Thomas A. DeVilbiss High School in 1931.

With these schools, Guiteau's vision of a high school in every neighborhood was achieved.

>>KATHY JONES: I went to Libbey High School for my four years in high school.

It was this, beautiful, huge brick building.

I think there were three or four floors.

I remember there was a basement, and there was a cafeteria at the very top.

It was beautiful.

They had like, um, like granite.

I seem to remember they were, the flooring, so that when you walked on it you could hear like the click-click-click-click of your shoes, and I just thought that was just the coolest thing.

There were, uh, large staircases large circular staircases.

Outside it was brick.

It kind of reminded me like, crenellations on a castle sometimes, on the sides.

>>NARRATOR: High schools were not the only architectural gems in TPS.

In 1926, Harvard Elementary School was built on Glendale Avenue overlooking River Road.

Harvard Elementary is one of the last of the 1920s school buildings still standing today.

Nicknamed the Castle on the Hill, the school was thought by some to be too ornate at the time of construction.

Today, Harvard is noted as one of Toledo s finest structures.

MUSIC >>NARRATOR: While the early architecture was notable, the curriculum in the beginning of the 1900s was equally important.

Elementary school students had opportunities for interactive and creative learning experiences beyond the classroom even in the 1930s.

>>WAGGONER: The first school that I went to was the George W. Stevens school, and it was named for the uh, first director of our uh, Toledo Museum of Art.

We were taken by bus, by community traction bus, at least once every six weeks to the Toledo Museum of Art, and they would take us to the various galleries, and uh, we would have uh, a learning session.

And every six weeks we would have Mr. Shapiro come with his full orchestra, and he would give us a uh, complete education of naming each and every one of the instruments.

The extra of going to the museum, it was just wonderful, and we learned uh, a great deal from that.

>>NARRATOR: With the growth of the district came another fundamental component of students school experience: high school sports.

Within the first years of the opening of Scott and Waite, the first football game took place between the two schools.

Being the only high schools in TPS at the time, a natural rivalry began, one that would last for decades to come.

>>MICHAELS: 1914 was the first football game, and Waite won that first game.

And it really wasn't til Libbey opened in 23, there was another Toledo high school.

And then DeVilbiss in the-uh, Woodward in the late 20s, then DeVilbiss, and then you got a city league forming, but in those early years it was Waite and Scott, and they always played on Thanksgiving Day.

>>SQUIRE: Thanksgiving morning, always.

The turnout was huge.

It was a really big rivalry.

Many of the fans for the uh, for the Scott and Waite Thanksgiving games were, were alumni of, of each of the schools.

The stadiums were full.

>>MICHAELS: And there would be ten, fifteen thousand people at those games.

It was the big Thanksgiving; what people did in Toledo.

>>NARRATOR: After the expansion of the 1910s and 1920s, construction of new buildings slowed as a result of the Great Depression.

With the assistance of the Works Progress Administration in the late 1930s, TPS was able to renovate or build additions to many schools.

Going into the 1940s and 50s with fresh and well-built schools, students enjoyed expanded sports offerings, improved academics, and perhaps most notably, the company of diverse student bodies throughout the district.

>>JONES: Libbey was integrated.

As a matter of fact, there were already, it was already partially integrated in the 40s much earlier than a lot of other schools, I think, in other cities and states.

>>SQUIRE: It was very diverse.

Between the large number of African-American students, the uh, very large number of Jewish students, we had some Muslim students.

I always knew that uh, that didn t happen all the time, but it, it reflected the diversity of, of our student body.

We were Scott students together.

>>NARRATOR: Toledo population increased again between 1950 and 1960, leading to significant strain on the capacity of existing high schools.

DeVilbiss and Libbey even resorted to split schedules to accommodate students.

In 1959, voters passed a levy in support of 2 new high schools: E.L. Bowsher High School and Roy C. Start High School.

Then in 1966, Toledoans voted to annex Adams Township into Toledo.

This annexation resulted in the disbanding of Adams Township s Board of Education, and added 12 schools to TPS, including Rogers High School.

The number of physical buildings thus reached its high point during the 1960s, including 8 traditional high schools, 2 vocational high schools, and 54 elementary schools.

MUSIC >>NARRATOR: The 1960s saw a nationwide educational reform of moving from K-8 schools to having separate junior highs for 7th and 8th graders.

In 1972, Byrnedale, Old West End, and East Toledo Junior High Schools were built, and in 1980, Leverette, Robinson, and DeVeaux Junior Highs were formed.

>>CRYSTAL ELLIS: I had to change Hamilton to Leverette in 1980.

It became the north end junior high because they took all of the 7th and 8th graders-schools-and took the 7th and 8th graders out of those area schools.

Riverside, um, Stickney, must have been four or five schools, but they took all the 7th and 8th graders and formed Leverette.

But forming a junior high is not an easy task because you changed the neighborhood district now into a traveling district where kids have to travel out of their communities and parents have to bring them to school, and there s no bus routes in many of the ways.

So, it wasn t an easy task at all.

>>NARRATOR: Although challenging, TPS succeeded in establishing the new junior highs.

But despite the money for expansion of buildings, operating and sustaining levies were consistently voted down.

Breakdown in negotiations between unions and administration lead to strained conditions for teachers and faculty, eventually resulting in strikes.

>>JOHN FOLEY: I can tell you that in 1977, which was my first year of teaching, um, there was financial difficulties and at the time um, the law was that if schools didn't have the budget they had to close.

So we actually closed schools for like two weeks because of lack of funding, and then a levy passed, and they could re-open the schools.

Then we had the blizzard of 78.

We were closed down for a week of school, and then we had the teachers strike of 1978.

As a first year teacher I really don t know that, that we were aware of all the dynamics that were going on at the upper levels of politics.

I think people were upset.

I think they fled in some cases, uh, voted with their feet in terms of the support they provided for the public schools, but at the same time some people just rallied and said hey we're going to overcome this and move forward, and there certainly have dedicated staff and dedicated parents that, you know, made the best of it and moved forward and that's why we have such a strong district today.

>>NARRATOR: Starting in the 1970s, TPS faced a waning Toledo population, causing low enrollment and thus lowering both state and federal funding.

Compounding the issue, an influx of charter schools also provided new competition for TPS.

>>FOLEY: It started probably in the late 80s with the advent of charter schools, and certainly uh, population of Toledo has been diminishing over time as well.

First of all it was a piloted in Lucas County targeting Toledo City Schools.

Um, so that we were the initial pilot at the state level and so it took hold and so we saw students being recruited by this, by these various schools.

And certainly that was a challenging time for, for everyone because as everyone knew at the time the funding followed the students, so as you lost students, you also lost funding >>NARRATOR: One of the ways to combat the draw of students away from TPS was to change and expand the program offerings within the schools.

There was already a strong tradition of vocational education in the district; the 1970s and 80s were a time to revitalize TPS with adaptive programs to meet the needs of the modern student.

>>FOLEY: We built programs that changed the technology.

You know, you had construction trades, but now you had um, computers and all those things.

So, I think school systems have tried to evolve to address the needs of the community as well as the needs of the students.

For example, at Rogers High School, we started a constructions trades program where students learned about electricity and plumbing and construction At Bowsher we had a computer repair program that was built in.

So all of those have been there and in existence, but they've had to evolve with the changing technologies as well.

>>NARRATOR: In the early 2000s, TPS began another cycle of change and progress, both academically and architecturally.

As a result of a tobacco settlement at the state level, school districts were given funding to aid in rebuilding.

The Building for Success program began in 2002, and was met with mixed emotions when decisions had to be made between renovating, rebuilding, and closing altogether.

>>FOLEY: If you look at the history and research of schools, schools were never designed to last a really long time.

They really had a shelf life of about fifty years, and many of our schools were older than that.

They were well maintained throughout the years.

Our schools were, um, very well maintained.

Um, but the state really dictated which ones got renovated.

>>JANET KEENER: I went to a meeting at Bowsher High School to, to support Harvard School that it wouldn't be torn down.

It was so beautiful, and there were so many families around here.

They had such fond memories of being here, and we can't destroy what our forefathers did for us.

We have to remember some of that stuff.

>>JONES: I know I was one of many people very upset over the fact that these schools were being torn down and not replaced.

In my neighborhood Newbury's gone.

Jones and Libbey are gone.

Walbridge I believe is still around, and Marshall.

So, less than half of what we had.

>>FOLEY: Certainly everyone loves their school, and they grew up there, and they went to school, and there was a lot of uh, a lot of issues, a lot of tears about tearing down old schools, and certainly it was hard to do sometimes, but at the end of the day you gotta look at what, what the success was.

>>ROMULES DURANT: You know, working together to really develop a really high-tech facility for our students of today's times to be able to learn in a technological age, uh, being that this is what they were brought into this world in.

>>JONES: Anything that's going to help kids learn is always a good thing.

I'm very, very supportive of public schools.

Um, anything we can do to help our kids learn better, yeah, there's give and take with all of it.

>>NARRATOR: Today TPS offers opportunities for students in over 50 buildings and satellite locations.

Students can choose from traditional college preparatory education, career technologies, and even Associate's Degree programs.

>>FOLEY: I think Toledo Public Schools success in being one of the top urban districts is always based on really strong programs and strong um, education of students.

>>DURANT: We're the most comprehensive school district in Northwest Ohio, and I would say probably one of the most comprehensive in the state of Ohio.

You know, what you would have to go to one school to be able to get, you can get entirely within this entire district.

So what we're doing with the magnet school approach with the specialty schools is pretty much, the new today of Macomber-Whitney So Toledo Early College is one, which is an advanced track through college course offerings.

Toledo Technology Academy is ranked one of the highest technological schools in, in the United States um, but focuses on robotics.

It was one of those things that, you know what, here's how we did it when Macomber was here.

Now we've taken Macomber, and we had broadened it out to individualized small schools of focus.

So Aviation Center used to be at Macomber, that was one of the options.

Now it's a school of its own.

If you're interested in aviation, your entire environmental factors all focus on aviation.

>>NARRATOR: TPS provides support to all students, no matter which career path they choose.

From focused tutoring programs like Upward Bound, to advanced learning opportunities like ESO, each school strives to give its students every chance for success.

>>ELIZABETH GOTAY: I was in Upward Bound for two years, my freshman and sophomore year.

It's a afterschool tutoring.

If it wasn't for that program, I know I wouldn t have gotten to U.T.

My counselors they actually encouraged me a lot.

They said that my grades were really good as a freshman, and so I took college credit plus as well.

>>DARNELL HALSEY: EHSO is, um, early high school for elementary kids, so they get high school credit.

They come to the school.

They take high school classes, and then they go back to their home school.

I did EHSO at Start High School.

It made me realize I am capable of doing anything that I set my mind to.

>>NARRATOR: TPS has affected Toledo more than any other entity in the city's history.

Whether it's the programs, the memories, or the historic buildings still standing, most Toledoans and TPS alumni can agree to the value and immeasurable impact that the school district has on our community.

>>SQUIRE: We're in such a transient society, and to have something that has been there for a long time, and people can point to as uh, well something meant something to multiple generations in a family.

I believe that the neighborhood here uh, considered Scott a neighborhood school, and it uh, it s almost like an anchor in, in, in this neighborhood.

>>MICHAELS: Waite High School is East Toledo.

It s the focal point of East Toledo.

It was the programs, it was the sports, it was the things that they did for the community.

It was just the center of the community.

>>HALSEY: When I look back on my entire experience at TPS, I think about where I would be if I didn t come to TPS.

I mean, this is what made me who I am.

>>FOLEY: I think Toledo Public Schools has really provided a strong education for many, many students.

You only hear, many times, the negatives about this situation or that situation, but you look at the number of students that graduate from a Toledo Public School every year, and go on to be successful in their careers.

And, and I think I'm proud of the success we've had, And I think it's important that people know that there are very many successful students and successful adults now that are graduates of Toledo Public Schools.

>>NARRATOR: Though buildings may change, programs adapt, one thing remains the same.

TPS stays true to its initial goals of connecting communities through schools, providing equal opportunity to students for all academic and career pathways, and ensuring that there is a chance for every child.

MUSIC