page_title: Hillsboro School District
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Hillsboro School District / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Hillsboro High School Gym in Hillsboro.
context_page_description: The Hillsboro School District 1J is a unified school district located in Hillsboro, Oregon, United States. The district operates 26 elementary schools, four middle schools, and four high schools. Founded in 1851, the school district covers Hillsboro, Scholls, Reedville, North Plains, West Union, and other area communities. Total enrollment as of the 2014–2015 school year is 20,884 students, the fourth largest in the state.
  The district is labeled 1J, as it absorbed the West Union School District, the first district in the county; the J represents that the district extends into other counties, Yamhill and Multnomah. Hillsboro's elementary schools had been District 7 prior to consolidation in 1996. The high school district was 3J and included students from grades 7 through 12, and received students from the Hillsboro elementary district and five other elementary districts.
  The Hillsboro School District Board of Directors consists of seven elected members serving four-year terms. Members receive no pay for their work on the board. The district is part of the Northwest Regional Education Service District.
context_section_description: Hillsboro's first school district was formed in 1851 as School District 7. The Reverend Horace Lyman established the district and was the first commissioner, with that title later becoming school superintendent. The first school in the district was a single-room log cabin built in 1853 after a school levy was passed to raise $600 for construction. In 1875, a new frame constructed school was built, with the smaller log cabin was kept for additional space.
  In 1890 a new eight-room schoolhouse was finished at the present site of David Hill Elementary. In September 1908, tenth grade was added to the Hillsboro school district, with the classes held on the top floor of the school. Eleventh and twelfth grades were soon added, and in June 1911 the first students to complete four years of high school graduated. This class totaled five students, four girls and one boy.  A stand-alone high school was completed by 1913, and a gymnasium was built beginning in 1915. The district overall employed a total of 19 teachers for the 1913–1914 school year.
  All five of the high school teachers in the district resigned in 1914 in a dispute with management. The school board had allowed the students to vote on which teachers to retain, which the teachers resented even though all were retained in the vote. The mass walkout led to classes being canceled for a time.
  The district paid high school teachers $133 per month, other teachers $125 per month, and principals $1500 per year for the 1920 to 1921 school year.
  In 1929, a new high school building was finished with additional buildings and the wings added later. The neighboring Cornelius school district was dissolved in 1960, and part of their enrollment area was shifted to the Hillsboro districts, while the remainder went to the Forest Grove School District.
  Brookwood Elementary was opened in 1953, followed by Poynter Junior High in 1960, then Brown Junior High and Mooberry Elementary in 1963. In May 1961, voters in all the districts feeding the high school voted on a proposal to merge into a single district. Voters decided not to merge, but the next  February voters did approve merging the junior high grades into the high school district. The high school district then purchased Poynter from the elementary district for $772,566, and passed a bond measure in March 1962 to pay for that purchase, expand the school, and pay for the new junior high school that became Brown.
  The district opened Hare Field in 1965, a multi-sport facility with a track, baseball stadium, and football field. In 1970, a new senior high school opened on 48 acres (190,000 m²) on the south side of Hillsboro, with enrollment of the high school district reaching 3,621 students that year. The Union High School District's teachers held a three-day strike in March 1973 over their contracts, the first teacher's strike in Oregon history.
  By 1987, enrollment in all the districts feeding into the high school district along with the high school district reached approximately 12,325 students. In 1987, the Union High School District began plans to unify the high school district with the six elementary districts that feed into the district's junior and senior high schools. In 1991, the Oregon Legislature passed a law requiring school districts to unify by 1996, which forced some reluctant elementary districts to unify into the Hillsboro School District. On July 1, 1996, Hillsboro Elementary, North Plains, Farmington View, Groner, Reedville, West Union, and Hillsboro Union High School districts unified into a single district, the fifth largest in Oregon at that time.
caption: Hilhi gym
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