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Community recalls Leslie Junior High as Salem-Keizer SD 24J modernized South Salem High campus
Summary
Speakers at a community session traced Leslie Junior High’s arc from an early 20th-century ‘‘state-of-the-art’’ school through a 1936 WPA expansion to its later demolition to expand South Salem High, noting a narrow bond win, asbestos and HVAC problems, and reuse as Howard Street Charter School.
Several community speakers recounted why Salem-Keizer SD 24J removed Leslie Junior High to expand South Salem High and how the old building’s decades-long history remains visible in the new campus. Presenters pointed to a combination of enrollment and seismic needs, maintenance problems and a closely contested bond process.
A presenter who outlined the building’s early history said Leslie was built in the early 1900s and "was kind of... state of the art" for its time, with specialized classrooms and an original cost he recalled as "$88,000." He said the next major construction phase was a 1936 Works Progress Administration project that added an auditorium and gymnasium and that Governor Charles Martin spoke at the opening while the student body president, who later became Sen. Mark Hatfield, served as master of ceremonies.
Speakers emphasized how the site’s selection sparked community controversy decades earlier. One presenter recalled a rejected siting plan and a subsequent special election that "passed by 12 votes," an episode the group said illustrated how locally contentious school-site choices were.
Former students and community members described both the building’s charm and its functional shortcomings. A resident who taught near the building and relatives of teachers praised woodwork and display cases that preserve decades of Leslie history, while presenters detailed recurring facility problems: boilers that left classrooms uncomfortably warm in late spring, a math classroom with a sewer issue, and asbestos discovered behind a wall during a smart-board installation.
Those practical problems, speakers said, interacted with modern expectations for instruction and safety. "In those days, ADA access and being able to move from one place to another weren't on the radar," a presenter said, noting that classroom layouts and ventilation did not meet current educational standards. The district’s broader planning goal, the presenter added, was to design high schools with roughly 2,100–2,200 capacity; staff concluded that meeting that target at South Salem would require altering the Leslie footprint and affecting the Rose Auditorium and gym.
Community-led reuse of the old site also figures in the building’s history. A presenter said a group of community members created a middle school at the old Leslie location that became Howard Street Charter School, which "opened in September '97" and had moved to a downtown Salem site by 2023. Speakers described efforts to preserve tangible elements of the old school — original Rose Auditorium seats, portions of gym flooring and display cases — and to echo the auditorium’s form in the new building’s courtyard and concrete work.
Several speakers framed the demolition as a difficult but necessary decision. One participant said, "I knew it had to go," and described holding artifacts and memories as personal consolation while acknowledging the district’s work over many years to seismically strengthen other older buildings.
The session underscored the trade-offs school districts face between preservation and meeting modern educational, safety and capacity standards. Speakers called attention to documented maintenance issues, the narrow community vote that enabled construction, and the ways elements of Leslie’s material history have been retained in the newer campus.
