Tacoma’s Classroom Crisis
Record enrollment leaves the city's school system scrambling for space, with some students relegated to converted woodsheds.
When the Tacoma public schools opened this morning, the problem that presented itself was what to do with the pupils. Although the figures have not been reported to Secretary Whitty, it is estimated that the attendance today was several hundred more than last year. The high school building on Tacoma Avenue will not begin to hold the pupils who will enter that institution this year. This morning, 125 ninth-grade pupils were transferred from the high school to the Central school building, but the old building still remains unfit for high school purposes. The McKinley school is almost as congested as the high school. The building is utterly inadequate to provide for the pupils in that section. As a means of temporary relief, a room formerly used as a woodshed will be fitted up as a classroom.
“As a means of temporary relief, a room formerly used as a woodshed will be fitted up as a classroom.”
Tacoma’s struggle with rapid population growth and aging infrastructure is a century-long tradition. Much like today’s heated debates over school bonds and modern capacity, the 1904 administration was forced to resort to desperate measures—like converting a woodshed into a classroom—just to keep pace with an influx of new families.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.