Roosevelt School

Roosevelt School PO1.1192

Violet Stein McGuirk sitting on the back porch of her parent's house at the corner of East Madison and John Street, in the summer of 1921.

In the background is the remaining construction material for the Roosevelt School that opened in 1921. Later, this school would become the high school annex.

Roosevelt School Construction.
Niles Daily News April 24, 1920.
Madison Avenue School under construction at the present time.

Niles Daily News July 14, 1921
Work upon the new Roosevelt School in the Pew Addition is moving forward swiftly and without delay. The new structure will be complete and ready for occupancy when the fall term of school opens(1921). Mrs. Kittie Craig has been selected as the principal of the new building.

The building was renamed Roosevelt School in November 1920 when the Niles School Board changed each of the schools to a President's name rather than a street name.

This school served the northwest Niles students living in the area bounded by Federal Street, Mosquito Creek continuing out North Main Street and North Road.

A Wing for McKinley High.
Niles Daily Times, October 1953

If the Niles School Bond Levy passes (November 1953), the Roosevelt School Building will be discontinued as an elementary center and would be used as the academic wing of the proposed new senior high school building.

A new Roosevelt Elementary building (later named Bonham Elementary after Superintendent S.J. Bonham) would be erected on a land site further north and would contain a kindergarten room, 12 regular classrooms and a multi-purpose room to provide the necessary facilities for a modern program of elementary education.

The present Roosevelt structure is poorly located with respect to pupils served yet additional capacity is needed to serve students in the attendance district.

Though the building is one of the best in the city school system (built in 1920), it lacks many of the desirable features of a modern elementary edification.

Some may hit combining an old building with a major new construction project but the financial and educational advantages of such a plan outweigh any possible disadvantages.

Using Roosevelt for senior high school purposes would remove a large number of elementary pupils from what will be a very congested area and at the same time increase the usable site for senior high purposes.

Although 18 acres may seem like a lot of land (for the new high school), to some it is considered a little short of the minimum standards for a high school of 750 and it is possible the ultimate capacity of the proposed building will greatly exceed that figure. Ed. Note: upon opening in the Fall of 1957, the student population exceeded the projected 750 students.

Roosevelt School Closes.
Niles Times January 12, 1995 Bob Coupland
This week for the first time in over 30 years the Roosevelt school annex is not being used for classes. For years the students and teachers trekked the block to the annex building morning and afternoon, rain or shine. Its official close was January 6, 1995.

Last week, desks, chairs, boxes, lockers, filing cabinets, teaching materials and equipment were removed from Roosevelt and brought to McKinley High School where six rooms were remodeled to hold classes for freshmen.

Eight teachers who taught full-time and a few who taught part-time will now spend all of their school day at the high school building. Roosevelt School was used since the 1950s (when the new Bonham School was opened in 1956) and at one time had as many as 1200-1300 students in the building throughout the day. The current 950 students who are at the building during the day will all be adjusting to their new classrooms this week. An average of 150 students were at the building each period.

The Nils City School District was one of the few districts in Ohio that had a building away from the main building that students had to walk back and forth to on a daily basis.

In December 1994, the Board of Education closed the building for safety reasons but had to wait for renovations to be completed at the main building. No one will have to leave the high school building and can now avoid bad weather and traffic which often confronted students and teachers during their walk-over to Roosevelt and back.