Seattle Public Schools Half A Century Ago

The mid- to late-1940s represent a significant period in the history of the Seattle Public Schools. This was a period when the student enrollment hovered around 50,000, certificated employment at around 2,500 (at an average salary of $2,877), and the District was overseen by a five-member Board of Directors which met at 810 Dexter Street at the District Administration Center. The city's northern boundary stopped at 85th Street (it presently extends to 145th), there was no interstate freeway (everyone managed with highway 99), there was no Space Needle or Seattle Center, and the Smith tower was the tallest building in Seattle. Then World War II came to an end, and with it, a city forever changed.

Seattle School District No.1 Administration Building, 1934-1949. (#606-04)

Board of Directors 1947. Left to right:
Mrs. Henry B. Owen, Vice-President, James A. Duncan,
Judge Robert S. MacFarlane, President, Dietrich Schmitz, John H. Reid (021.060)

Samuel E. Fleming, Superintendent of Schools from 1944 to 1956 directed the school system through a period of great expansion and change. The School Board minutes on April 14, 1965, in a tribute to him at his death, read: "No man in the history of the Seattle Public Schools contributed more than Samuel E. Fleming to the program of Adult and Vocational Education."

Samuel E. Fleming, Superintendent of Seattle Public Schools, 1944-1956. (#008-7)

This program originally began as Broadway-Edison Technical School, and it was particularly vital after the war. Many of the thousands of Seattle-based service men and women returning from the war needed to finish their interrupted high schools studies and find employment, to which the District responded by closing a high school (Broadway) in the summer of 1946 and reopening it as Broadway-Edison Technical School in fall of the same year. This program evolved into the present-day Seattle Central Community College which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year.

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