Longfellow Elementary School

(This report was written as part of Longfellow's contribution to the West Allis Centennial Celebration)

Hello!  I’m Michael and I’m Mesa.  We go to Longfellow Elementary School.  The land on which our school was built was purchased in 1920 from George L. Kappel for $5000.  The school was built in the same year.  When it came time to name the school, it was named after Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a poet.

The 1920 school had two rooms but in 1927 that two-room school was replaced with a nine-room, fireproof elementary building.  In 1928 another addition was added.  A lot more was added to the school in 1957; such as, two classrooms, gym/auditorium, administrative offices, and supplementary rooms at a cost of $216,739.  Our current school has thirteen classrooms, rooms for art, music, and library, a kitchen, gym, administrative unit, and six rooms that are used by transition, Title, speech, psychologist, and special education teachers.

At one time Longfellow teachers taught kindergarten through eighth grade, but now we have grades K4 – 5.  A lot of subjects were taught in the “back then days” including reading, U.S. history, civics, language, geography, arithmetic, penmanship.  Today our subjects are reading, writing, mathematics, science, and social studies.

When Longfellow first opened, men teachers were paid a greater salary than the women teachers.  The salary ranged from $1000 to $1,675.  But the men getting paid higher salaries didn’t last.  In 1943, the Board of Education took on a single salary schedule for teachers.  This meant that women finally got paid as much as men.

Longfellow School has changed a lot over the years.  From a two-room schoolhouse to a twenty-two room, fireproof building, from men getting paid more than women to equal salaries, Longfellow has evolved and changed until it is the building we know today.

If you would like to know more or enroll your child in Longfellow Elementary, please visit us at this address:  2211 S. 60th Street, West Allis, 53219

To view the entire Powerpoint presentation, "Historically Speaking," please visit the district site for the West Allis/West Milwaukee Schools, at www.wawm.k12.wi.us and click on the button entitled, Centennial Projects.