12 / matters magazine / school 2018 FromSchoolHousetoHighSchool The Evolution of Columbia High School BY ADRIANNA DONAT I fyouhaveastudentatColumbiaHighSchool, you will likely ask why there is an enormous flagpole in the middle of the school’s parking lot. The parking lot is small and the flagpole is placed where new drivers are likely to back into it. This placement is odd for a number of reasons, but particularly because CHS has a long history of changing with the times. Strangely, the flagpole remains despite its inconvenience. CHS’s forerunner was a one-room stone school- house located at "The Common" – what is now the intersection of South Orange Avenue and Academy Street, currently occupied by PNC Bank. Little infor- mation about this schoolhouse is known. In 1814, a new toll road (now South Orange Avenue) going into Newark threatened its location, so a wooden, two- story structure was built nearby in time for the 1815 school year. It served a small agricultural community. Students paid $1.75 per quarter “for spelling, reading and writing,” writes Henry Foster, SOMSD Superintendent from 1900-1927, and author of The Evolution of Public Education in a New Jersey School District. Arithmetic, grammar and geography les- sons cost an additional fee. Families within walking distance paid to send their children of all ages to learn and share the cost of wood to heat the building. In the absence of any historical documentation, we can only surmise that the first flag to fly at the school was some version of our Stars and Stripes. Local families elected trustees who, in turn, hired a teacher paid by the quarter. Enrollment for the en- tire school was sometimes fewer than 30 students. The school was dubbed “the Columbian School of South Orange” in tribute to the early-adopted poetic name for America that gave its name to such patri- otic songs as “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean,” Columbia (formerly King’s) College (now Univer- sity) in Manhattan, and the Columbia River in the American northwest. By 1861, the Columbian School was entirely funded by the public. Serving the changing needs of its community to Photo credit: Joy Yagid