FRANK
B. COOPER SCHOOL - DELRIDGE - NEIGHBORHOOD WEST
SEATTLE |
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Designed
by school district architect Edgar Blair, Cooper School
is a significant extant example of his work, with ties
to Beaux Arts classicism. The latter was typified by the
logical composition of interior spaces, grand classical
detail, and generally assumed a commanding, publicly engaging
site presence. |
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Cooper
holds the distinction of having had the first African
American teacher hired to teach within the Seattle Public
School District. Thelma Dewitty started work in September
of 1947. She retired from teaching in 1973 after years
of civic involvement that included serving as President
of the NAACP's Seattle chapter. |
- The original school, "Youngstown School”, opened in September 1906. The original enrollment was 70 children. The name, Youngstown, was borrowed from an Ohio steel city. The families attending Youngstown primarily came from workers at the local steel mill opened by two Pacific Northwest entrepreneurs, William Pigott and Elliott Wilson. The Seattle Steel Company offered the Youngstown building to educate these children.
- In tune with Cooper’s current multi-cultural population, children from Slavic and Greek families as well as children of Scandinavian, Italian and Russian immigrants attended the school. The original population also consisted of a few Japanese-American, African-American and Native-American children. Recently, Filipino, Southeast Asian, Samoan, Somali and many other cultures have been added to the mix.
- The name Cooper was inspired by Frank B. Cooper, a pioneer superintendent of the early 1900s. 1939 saw the school change names from Youngstown to the Frank B. Cooper School.
- The district closed Youngstown-Cooper in 1989. Cooper students were moved to the Louisa Boren School as a new school building was being constructed on Puget Ridge, or Pigeon Point. In 1999, the new Cooper school was opened to neighborhood children.
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New Cooper Building 1999 |
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