Wenonah High School

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Wenonah High School
Wenonah High School.jpg
BCS small logo.png Birmingham City Schools
Years 1948–present
Location 2916 Wilson Rd SW, (map)
Tarpley City
Grades 9-12
Principal Willie Goldsmith Jr
Enrollment 717 (2021–2022)
Colors old gold & white
Mascot Dragons
Website bhamcityschools.org

Wenonah High School (opened in 1948) is a high school in the Birmingham City Schools system. It is located at 2916 Wilson Road Southwest in the Tarpley City neighborhood of Birmingham's Grasselli community. The principal is Willie Goldsmith.

The school was constructed after a 1946 fire destroyed the former Wenonah School, which had been established by Tennessee Coal Iron & Railroad Company at the Wenonah mining camp in 1917 and was later turned over to Jefferson County Schools. TCI donated a 16-acre parcel for construction of a new high school and elementary school and construction began in late 1946.

The new school plant was built at a cost a cost of $500,000 and included 15 classrooms, administrative office, lunchroom, athletic room, shoe repair, upholstery and radio repair shop, cosmetology, foods and clothing labs.

In January 1948, the 9-12 grade students at the elementary school, Powderly School and students from surrounding areas of Jefferson County as far away as Shades Valley and McCalla attended classes in the building led by Principal Leon Kennedy. In May 1948, the first senior class graduated from Wenonah High School.

In 1956, seven classrooms, a library and gym were added to the school plant. In September 1968, the Wenonah Area Vocational School opened to students. In the spring of 1970, a new facility was erected by the Jefferson County Board of Education at a cost of $300,000 to house the Wenonah Area Vocational School. The building was located on the southwest side of the old Wenonah High School campus.

In 1973, Wenonah High School was annexed into the city of Birmingham. Administration of Wenonah was taken over by the Birmingham Board of Education officially in December 1974. In 1981, a new gymnasium was constructed and equipped at a cost of more than $1 million.

Under head coach Emanuel Bell, Wenonah's girls basketball team amassed a 530-194 record over 22 seasons and won four straight state 5A championships from 2014 to 2017, finishing as runner-up in 2018.

In 2005, construction began on a new 183,000 square-foot building for Wenonah High School, just northeast of the 1948 building. McCauley Associates designed the new building for 1,200 students. It was erected by Doster Construction for $40 million. On August 13, 2007, classes began in portions the new school, which was completed in January 2008.

The main academic building features a media center, computer laboratories and classrooms for science, math, social studies, English and other subjects, as well as a 750-seat auditorium with theatrical lighting and sound. The career-technical wing contains an electronics classroom with lab areas, a classroom and fully equipped commercial kitchen for the school's culinary arts program, and a family and consumer science classroom. There are also classrooms and labs for welding and cosmetology. Band and chorus classrooms also are part of the career-tech wing, which includes the cafeteria.

The new campus includes a gymnasium for practice and physical education classes. The "new gym" that was part of the old school, a free-standing building, was renovated and expanded into a 1,400 seat competition gym. Dorsey Architects and TRI Architect & Design provided construction documents for that work. A new 4,500-seat Bell-Culpepper Stadium with a six-lane track, concession stands, restrooms and irrigation system was also constructed.

In the summer of 2008 environmental science teacher Ruayyah Aqeel invited representatives of the Fruit Tree Planting Organization in San Diego, California to help students plant a small orchard on campus.

In 2011, Wenonah became the home of the city's "Academy of Hospitality and Tourism" under Superintendent Craig Witherspoon's plan to establish career academies in the city's high schools. In 2017 the school was placed for the first time on the state's list of "failing schools" due to the low performance of Wenonah 10th graders on the reading and math portions of the ACT Aspire test. The school reappeared on the state's 2018 and 2019 lists.

Long-time football coach Ronald Cheatham retired in 2018.

Principals

Notable alumni

References

External Links

BCS small logo.png Birmingham High Schools
Schools

Carver High School | Jackson-Olin High School | Huffman High School | Parker High School | Ramsay High School | Wenonah High School | Woodlawn High School

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