Type Public Principal Carol Campbell Number of students 1610 | Opened 1924 Grades 9-12 Phone +1 503-916-5160 Mascot Generals | |
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School district Portland Public Schools Address 2245 NE 36th Ave, Portland, OR 97212, USA Profiles | ||
President Ulysses S. Grant High School (colloquially Grant High School) is a public high school in the Grant Park neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, United States. It is the largest high school in the Portland Public Schools district. Three motion pictures have been filmed at the school—Mr. Holland's Opus (1995), Nearing Grace (2005), and the made for T.V. movie, Reunion (1980).
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History
Grant opened in September, 1924, with 1191 students. Many of the schools in the Portland Public School district that were built between 1908 and 1932 were designed by architects Floyd Naramore and George Jones. However, so many schools were being built in the early 20s that the district had to hire another architectural company for Grant High School, which was designed in the Classical Revival style by the architect firm Knighton and Howell. In November 1923, the bricklayers working on building Grant went on strike after the district tried to cut costs by using a maintenance worker to lay bricks. After the Vanport flood in 1948, it was home to the Vanport Extension Center (now Portland State University) through the summer of 1948.
Student profile
The student population is 62% white, 22% African American, 7% Asian/Pacific Islander, and 5% Latino. About 25% of Grant's students live out of boundaries and transfer in.
In 2008, 92% of the school's seniors received their high school diploma. Of 443 students, 388 graduated, 39 dropped out, 6 received a modified diploma, and 10 are still in high school. In 2009, 27% of the students were transfers into the school.
Special programs
Grant High School houses the last installment of the "Japanese Immersion Program", a 13-year immersion program, begun at Richmond Elementary and continued at Mt. Tabor Middle School.
Extracurricular activities
The school boasts a strong Constitution Team which has been the state champion in Oregon eight times (2002, and consecutively 2004 to 2009 and again in 2011 and 2013) and placed 2nd in 2005, 3rd in 2004, 2007 and 2008, and 1st in 2013 and 2015 in the national We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution competition.
Grant's Wind Ensemble was also awarded first place at the Northwest Invitational Band Competition in 2007 and 2011, and received a silver medal at the Heritage festival in Anaheim California in 2007. The Wind Ensemble has performed at Disneyland in 2007, 2009, 2011, and 2013. In addition, the Wind Ensemble has won first place in the Portland Interscholastic League Competition repeatedly throughout the past ten years. In 2007, the Jazz Ensemble received gold at the Willamette Jazz Festival, finished 5th at the Northwest Jazz Festival, 2nd at the Clackamas Community College Jazz Festival and repeated as Champions at the University of Portland Jazz Festival.
In 2011, Grant's student newspaper The Grantonian was replaced by the 36-page full-color monthly Grant Magazine. In its first year, the "Grant Magazine" won Best In Show at the Oregon Fall Press day. It has also won the Columbia University Scholastic Press Association's Gold Crown award three years in a row, from 2014 through 2016.
Athletics
GHS's mascot is the Grant General, in honor of its namesake General Ulysses S. Grant.