A BRIEF HISTORY
«THE LITTLE RED-BRICK SCHOOL »
Americans readily refer to ‘the little red-brick school’ where World War II ended. This little school is now our school.
It can be said that the construction of Roosevelt High School goes back to the French Second Empire, in 1862, the year when the town council, led by Mayor Edouard Werlé, requested the government of Emperor Napoleon III to create a professional school.
Despite the support of Victor Duruy at the Ministry of Education, and because of the opposition of Cardinal-archbishop Gousset, things dragged on. After Gousset’s death the town purchased a site from the Convent of the Capuchin Nuns, where Libergier High School is now located. Thanks to a first credit of 370.000 francs, building work could start the following year.
Its completion was considerably delayed by numerous crises within the town council, and the occupation of the premises under construction by the Prussian forces. Works resumed under the impetus of Mayor Diancourt : the professional school opened in 1875. However its cost was so high for the taxpayers that the municipality had to request state aid. The institution became’ Practical School’ and shifted under the supervision of the Ministry of Trade, an engineering department was added to the business department.
A victim of its success, the school, the first of its kind in France, needed extending. Outbuildings were added between 1902 and 1907. As the buildings were damaged during World War I and converted into a public canteen for the homeless after the armistice, it was decided to build a new institution on Jolicoeur Street in 1926. The ‘Practical School’ opened in 1931. A business school settled there in 1937, aimed at providing local post-secondary training.
World War II brought historical fame to our high school. It hosted General Eisenhower, appointed Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces after the Normandy Invasion, and served as his headquarters, where the German plenipotentiary signed the armistice on May 7, 1945, bringing the deadliest conflict ever to an end.
The school became a ‘Modern and Technical’ lower secondary school and was supervised by the Ministry of Education. In 1947 a job-training centre was attached to it, it then became a vocational school. It also delivered local continuing vocational training and it became a partner of the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts.
Jolicoeur Street was renamed President Roosevelt Street in honour of the Allied Forces. The high school was nationalized in 1941, then classified as state high school. Preparatory classes (for the Grandes Ecoles) were created.
Lower secondary education left the high school and moved to the lower comprehensive school located on Lamouche Street, later, in 1970, the business school moved to the new Croix Rouge university campus. Meanwhile the range of secondary and post-secondary qualification programmes expanded.
While the vocational school moved in turn to the new Val de Murigny High School, as well as the vocational qualification programmes in electronics and boiler making, the job-training programme for pharmacist’s assistants gained its own premises and the continuing vocational training courses were stopped. Secondary and post-secondary programmes diversified. The DPECF, a preliminary accounting diploma (September 1988), the BTS Accounting and Management (1990-1991), post-secondary school vocational qualifications in plastics technology, materials science and metal forming were delivered.
There are now 1800 pupils at Roosevelt High School, 800 of whom are post-secondary students. Vocational degree courses have successfully started, asserting the science and technology calling of the largest high school in Champagne-Ardennes.
Looking back on the past, we realize what considerable task has been fulfilled and we feel somehow proud of living in an establishment that plays such an important part in the heart of the inhabitants of Reims, and that is widely remembered as ‘the little red-brick school’, where the German surrender was signed on May 7, 1945.