In 1935, the Beacon began as a passion project of news and gossip relating to Woodrow Wilson High School. Since then, the community has seen 87 years of culture and history written down onto a detailed student-led newspaper, published each month during the school year. 

We went back to October 1962, the 28th volume of the Beacon. The United States was in the midst of the Civil Rights movement; Wilson High School, a formerly all white school, began to integrate. The hallways of the building experienced an influx of tigers, leading to an overcrowded building, similar to the situation now, sixty years later. 

OVERCROWDING Friday October 12,  1962 A large sophomore class brings Wilson’s enrollment to 1431, an increase of 74 students over last year’s Oct. 14 total of 1357. The girls outnumber the boys by 59. An increasing student enrollment combined with inadequate school appropriations from Congress, has resulted in overcrowded classrooms and in a lack of textbooks at Wilson. Because no money has been appropriated by Congress for additional high school teachers, two teachers’ salaries were transferred from Wilson to other District of Columbia schools where the need for teachers was even greater.

Numbers Exceed Norm: A count shows that 72 per cent of the academic courses have over 30 students. Only 47.8 per cent of the academic classes had enrollments of over 30 two years ago, a survey taken by the Beacon to show that the need for more teachers to show that the need for more teachers at that time revealed. Eighty-three academic classes have an enrollment of between 31 and 35, compared to 79 classes in 1960. The national norm for a high school class is 25 students.

The enrollment of Jackson-Reed this year totaled 2,127 students. Although the building that we know today was renovated in 2011, the school still faces issues of overcrowding due to lack of space. Now as the numbers continue to increase we face the same problem they did at our school 60 years ago.