Carl Sandburg High School

Carl Sandburg High School (CSHS) is a public four-year high school in Orland Park, Illinois, a southwest suburb of Chicago. It’s in Consolidated High School District 230, along with Victor J. Andrew and Amos Alonzo Stagg. Carl Sandburg, an Illinois poet, named the school. Parts of Orland Park, Tinley Park and Oak Forest are served. Amos Alonzo Stagg High School is zoned to Orland Park and Palos Park, but Sandburg High is an option. An area near Victor J. Andrew High School has Sandburg as an option. In April 1952, two local school districts, Orland 221 and Palos 222, merged to form Consolidated High School District 230. There was an earlier high school run by the Orland district at one of its grammar schools, and history, English, home economics, and science lessons were held in rented space around town. Each of the new school’s 450 students School building on a former corn field surrounded by forest preserve, lake, and golf course.On behalf of “historic significance surpassing solely local connotations of the past school districts”, the school board named the new school after Carl Sandburg. Sandburg “consented and expressed his joy” in a letter to the school board in April 1953. Sandburg visited the school every other year until 1960. The $930,000 structure was started on May 17, 1953. The school was built as a one-story building with a 1,200-person central gymnasium/auditorium. A two-story part was built to  house the school’s library and agriculture and science classes. The school was designed with the intention of adding more as the student population rose. The school started in September 1954. On October 10, 1954, the school was dedicated with the school’s namesake present.The district grew from 186 high school students previous to the building of the new school to nearly 900 students expected for the 1956–57 academic year. Construction on the school’s first major extension began in the summer of 1956, more than doubling its size. During the 1956–57 school year, pupils were split into two shifts to reduce overcrowding. In January 1958, a second gym for girls opened ahead of the remainder of the construction. After finishing the extension in May 1958, the school could accommodate 1,700 students. This new addition included new classrooms, administrative offices, and greater space for music and industrial technology students.The school board issued a bond referendum in the autumn of 1958 to fund nearly US$1 million to substantially expand the school and purchase property for a future high school. A new library (the old one was separated into classrooms) and the school’s first swimming pool were built in the 1960–61 extension. The next bond issuance was in 1966, for US$3.5 million, to fund additions at Sandburg and Stagg High Schools. Sandburg saw new science labs, as well as painting, music, and industrial arts training areas. When Carl Sandburg initially attended Carl Sandburg High School in Illinois, he was mistaken for a homeless nobod and asked to leave. Officials swiftly realized their error. Sandburg was supposed to be kind and considerate throughout. The school choir sang at Carl Sandburg’s formal memorial at the Chicago Public Library in 1967.