East Side High School
in Newark, NJ

School History

On November 25th, 1908, the chairman of the Committee on Buildings Grounds and Supplies presented a resolution, calling for the construction of the East Side High School. The resolution was adopted by the Board of Education consisting, at the time, of the following members: James Taafe, Leser Lehman, John Bruenig, Frederick F. Guild, Thomas S. McCabe, Edgar R. Brown, George W. Tomkins, Benedict Prieth, Charles P. Taylor.

On September, 1910, a competitive examination was held for the principalship of the school. There were about fifty applicants from various parts of the country. The successful candidate was Thomas F. Kennedy, Head Assistant in the Barringer High School and acting Principal of the Market Street Annex, who was also first on the Newark Principal's eligible list.

Mr. Kennedy immediately began to select a faculty. Some of the best members of the Barringer High School faculty were transferred to the new school and other instructors were brought from such leading schools as the Stuyvesant High School of New York City, the Central High School of Cleveland, and the Springfield, Massachusetts, Technical High School. Mr. Kennedy considers his faculty a carefully selected and highly efficient corps of instructors.

The school was organized February 1st, 1911 in the Market Street Annex with all first-year pupils. The following April the school moved to the building where we now have an enrollment of about 450 student, coming from all parts of the city.