Normandy High School (Missouri)
| Normandy High School | |
|---|---|
| Address | |
|
6701 Saint Charles Rock Road Wellston, Missouri United States |
|
| Coordinates | 38°40′57″N 90°17′48″W / 38.68257°N 90.29665°WCoordinates: 38°40′57″N 90°17′48″W / 38.68257°N 90.29665°W |
| Information | |
| Type | Public secondary |
| Established | 1923 |
| School district | Normandy School District |
| Principal | Dr. Derrick Mitchell |
| Faculty | 60 |
| Grades | 9–12 |
| Enrollment | 1,190 |
| Color(s) | Red, Green |
| Mascot | The Vikings |
| Accreditation | Unaccredited |
| Website | normandy.mo.nch.schoolinsites.com |
Normandy High School is a public high school located in Wellston, St. Louis County, Missouri that is part of the Normandy School District.
The following information was provided by Wayne Brasler, Normandy School District historian who has written numerous research papers on the District and who produces and publishes the Normandy High School Alumni newspaper. Mr. Brasler has an extensive collection of Normandy School District histories, publications and Normandy High School newspapers and yearbooks and all the information here comes from those documents. Upon his death, the entire collection will go to the Missouri Historical Society. Normandy started a high school at Lincoln Elementary School in Pagedale early its history but it did not last beyond a year. Then in 1907 a high school was started in the former Washington Elementary School on St. Charles Rock Road but only one class graduated when the school closed in 1911. In 1923, the district again opened a school, this time on property purchased from the Eden Theological Seminary. For its first year, the high school shared the ornate four-story main building with Eden students. Plans by William B. Ittner for a California-style collegiate campus with a central quadrangle were implemented shortly after. The school opened as a combined junior high school and senior high school, with six levels from 7th through 12th grades. Plans also called for adding the first two years of college. This plan was realized in a way forty years later with the opening of the Normandy Residence Center, which became the University of Missouri-St. Louis. A vocational building and gymnasium, also designed by Ittner, were added in 1929. The vocational building remains as West Hall. The gymnasium, with curved, amphitheater-style seating, was renowned in the area for its architecture.
The founders of the high school had the goal of creating the "ideal high school". The founders embraced an educational concept called "functional education," which meant educating young people to assume their place in the democracy as intelligent, educated, civically involved, ethical people. The curriculum was based on life skills; for example, gaining a lifetime liking for reading, a lifetime passion for learning. From the school's beginning it attracted subject specialists who gained nationwide fame, notably Wendell Shay in science, Esther Goff in English, Elizabeth Schneider in modern dance, Helen Dunbar in square dancing, and Mary Still in journalism. Classroom teaching was largely modeled on John Dewey's beliefs in learning by doing and relating the school to the community outside the school and, furthermore, making the school the center of the community. Lectures and tests based on student feeding the lectures back to the teacher were bypassed for hands-on projects, panel discussions, research projects and experiences outside the school. During many periods in the school's history, homework time was provided within class periods. Early in the history, the school established a longer school day to provide meeting time for school organizations. Normandy High was a so-called "lighthouse" school, with its programs the subject of numerous articles in The School Review and other educators' publications and of panels at high-profile places such as the University of Chicago.
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