Thomas Jefferson High School, Rockford, Illinois
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Thomas Jefferson High School is a secondary education facility located in Southeast Rockford, Illinois, which opened as a junior high school in 1957. With the need of a new high school for the Rockford School District 205 Jefferson was selected and converted in 1969 to a senior high school, which consistently had some of the largest enrollment figures in the district at the time. The current building was built in 1976-1978 and hosted its first class with the 1978-79 school year. The mascot for Jefferson is the J-Hawks and the school colors are red, gold and white.
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[edit] Junior High School
Jefferson Junior High School, then located at 2525 Ohio Parkway, on the northwest corner of Harrison Street and Ohio Parkway, hosted students who attended seventh, eighth and ninth grades until 1969 when the middle school concept was adopted by the Rockford School District. The seventh and eight grades were moved to Morris Kennedy Middle School (formerly an elementary school) starting in 1967 with the grades being fazed out by the beginning of the 1968-69 school years.
The principal of Jefferson was Chalmer Hart, who served in that position until just before his death in 1985, well after Jefferson had changed to a senior high school and moved to its present location. The current gymnasium is named the Chalmer Hart Gymnasium in his memory.
[edit] 1969-1978
Jefferson's change to senior high school, including ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth grades was gradual to allow those who graduated in 1973 to be the last class which started at Jefferson when it was a junior high school. With the elevation of the school to senior high status, a Junior ROTC battalion was added and the school joined the BIG-9 Conference (now called the Northern Illinois Conference or NIC-9) for sports.
During the 1973 year, Superintendent Robert Salisbury announced that the district need a new High School in light of the overcrowding that Jefferson and the other schools were facing. In 1974, Bernard Flinn passed away leaving the Rockford School District $10 Million for the building of a new school for the district. The will also stipulated that the new building was not to be named after Mr. Flinn. In 1976, a separate referendum was passed to allow funds for a new high school to be built in southeast Rockford.
This referendum passed despite the defeat of a second referendum on the same ballot that was offered to the voters at the same time to increase much needed revenues for the general fund. The school board had asked votes for raises in the general funds in the past in order to make up shortfalls for much needed monies that were desperately needed. Because of the rejection of several past efforts, the school board cut as much as they felt they could and made the announcement that if the referendum did not pass that extra curricular activities at all school were to be cut. Because of the defeat of this referendum most extra curricular activities, including all sporting competition at all levels in the district, were cut or cancelled, and all school district building closed after 5 pm as well as on the weekends. An attempt from private sources to sponsor after school sporting events was soundly defeated by the school board. Some of these extra curricular activities were reinstated, as monies were found, however the sports were not reinstated until the 1977-78 school year after another referendum for the general fund was passed in that summer. Some middle school sports teams were not reinstated for several decades, with football being partially reinstated in the fall 2002.
[edit] Construction and naming of the new high school
Construction of the new high school started in the fall of 1976 next to the Rockford Vocational Technical Center, which was on the corner of Samuelson Road and 35th Avenue. The construction took on its own flair as administrator felt that the need for fewer windows in the building would enhance the study time for students in the area. This was actually the opposite case and this decision ultimately lead to the creation of an urban myth that the new high school was originally built to be a prison.
Tradition of the school district in naming high schools for the area they were located - Guilford High School is in Guilford Township, Auburn High School is located on the far west side of Rockford off of Auburn Road, East and West High Schools, built before Auburn and Guilford, were located on the east and west sides of the Rock River separating the city of Rockford. There was also a tradition of naming new Junior High Schools and Middle Schools after US Presidents, such as Lincoln, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Theodore Roosevelt and Wilson Middle Schools.
However there was a push by many in the area, especially the students and alumnus of Jefferson, to transfer the name of the school from Old Jefferson (the nick name the old building is called by alumnus now) to the new building. In the spring of 1977 the school board approved the name transfer and decided to rename the older building Bernard E. Flinn Middle School. The staff of Jefferson would be completely transferred to the new campus and the staff of Morris Kennedy would be transferred to the renamed Flinn Middle School, with the Morris Kennedy building being closed and put up for sale. That building was sold to the Ken Rock Community Center a few years later.
