Our feature OKI Wanna Know looks for answers for the little things in life, and best of all, the questions come from you. This week, WVXU's Bill Rinehart gets an after-hours education.
Kate Detmer of Aurora, Indiana, says she just learned something about a relative.
“We recently found a yearbook from my grandfather that was for West Night High School in Cincinnati," she says. "We never heard anything about that from him and wanted to learn more about the night high schools.”
Cincinnati's school system was created after the legislature passed a law in 1825 to fund public education. The first district in the Queen City, the Common Schools of Cincinnati, was founded in 1829.
The manager of reference and research at the Cincinnati History Library and Archives says there was a problem. Jill Beitz says education was still out of reach for some people.
“A lot of children had jobs during the day and so they couldn't go to school. Originally they were just educating people up to the junior high level and then they would age out, so they could work even more hours, but hopefully get a better job," Beitz says. "The school board and the superintendent at the time was concerned that the cycle of poverty would continue if no one was educated.”
The solution was night classes. The first began in 1842 for elementary students.
Beitz says in 1856, there were two big expansions.
“Women were first admitted to the schools, and in 1856 was also the same time they opened night high schools, so people could further their education even while they were working during the day," she says. "But in order to attend the night high school you had to pass a test on the basics of geography, grammar, arithmetic, reading and penmanship.”
Night students often were using the same classrooms as their daylight counterparts. Eventually, some got their own buildings.
“The very first night high school that was opened was 1893.”
Dan Hoying is the unofficial historian for Cincinnati Public Schools. He's also general counsel for the district.
“At the turn of the century there was at least an East Night School and a West Night School.”
West Night High School started in the 1st Intermediate School at Baymiller and Clark in the West End. After 1914, it moved to Hughes High, on Clifton Avenue. East Night High was in what was the Woodward Building on Sycamore. That eventually became the first home for the School for Creative and Performing Arts.
Hoying says the night schools were similar to daytime classes.
“Students studied all the same courses they would study in day school,” he says. “Coursework consisted of algebra, geometry, bookkeeping, drawing and design, but they also had vocal music. If you look at the yearbooks from those schools they had sports teams; they had drama clubs.”
West High's yearbook was the Echo. East High had the Rostrum. Copies of both are on the shelves and in the digital archives of the Cincinnati Hamilton County Public Library.
Jill Beitz says attendance dipped during the First World War, but the schools came roaring back after the markets crashed and the Great Depression began.
“In 1931, because there was so many students wanting to get in, they opened a third one called West High Night High School," she says. "I feel like they could have come up with a better name instead of having two West Highs, but that's just me.”
That other West High Night School was at Western Hills High School on Ferguson Road.
Beitz says more and more adults started enrolling. The district opened nine vocational night schools that offered classes in mechanics, engineering, drawing and home economics.
“In one of the yearbooks for the night high schools there was an article about how their attendance had grown exponentially because of the Depression.”
The state legislature first authorized the creation of night schools, and Dan Hoying says it was Ohio lawmakers who would take them away, too.
“The General Assembly in Columbus was struggling with rule about compulsory education.”
He says laws requiring a formal education dated back to the 19th century, but there were a lot of exceptions.
“Including for example 'My child is needed to watch over siblings, or work during the day.' That would have been deemed a legitimate exception, and so these night schools were really opened to accommodate those students as well.”
The library has digital copies of the Echo up until 1967.
Today, Cincinnati Public Schools offers evening classes, but mostly for adults trying to earn a high school equivalent diploma, and people who are learning English as a second language. The Aspire program does take students younger than 18, but only under certain circumstances.
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