The Couch School Building

IN 2018, local historian, guide, MLC history teacher and long-time former MLC PTSA (and PTSO!) member Dr. Tonya March assembled these photos and prepared this essay for the 50th Anniversary Publication, where it appears on pp. 74-78.

MLC’s Historic Building Home

By Dr. Tanya March

On Couch School’s opening day in 1915, the modern 24-classroom building was celebrated with much fanfare. A smallpox outbreak and worries of fire hazards at the previous Couch School, located on NW 17th between Kearney and Lovejoy, doomed the original 1883 structure. Not only was fire safety a concern for the newer school, but a sanitary vision was expressed with two open-air classrooms and an emergency hospital room. In addition, the new Couch School had a domestic science room, a manual training room (shop), a 600-seat assembly hall, a sewing room, and an open-air play area on the roof above the auditorium. Modern equipment included electric lights, interior communication telephones,

Broken ground and excavations for the second Couch School building—our building!—as photographed in 1914. Is that where the pool will go?

automatic clock system, and a vacuum cleaning system. The construction of the school was paid for by a 1913 bond.

Within the 1915 Couch building’s cornerstone are the names of all students who graduated from the original 1883 school during its 33 years of operation. Many of these 1158 alumni attended the laying of the cornerstone on February 18, 1915. The mascots of the new Couch School were the Yellow Jackets. Starting in 1915 the swimming pool at Couch School was opened to the public twice a week. A gym was added to the school in 1926.

Jump ahead to 1941: Atkinson School, Portland’s first high school, occupying an entire city block between NW 11th & 12th Avenues, Couch and Davis Streets, was demolished. After WWII, white families moved out to the suburbs and Couch School became racially diverse. By 1968, Northwest Portland was the heart of the counterculture and many of its grand historic homes were converted to co-ops. A small group of innovative thinkers advocated successfully for an alternative educational environment, and in 1968 they acquired space in five of Couch School’s classrooms. The Metropolitan Learning Center was born.

In the 1960s, construction of the Fremont Bridge and I-405 destroyed 2000 dwelling units that were within the Couch School boundaries. Residents moving into Northwest Portland below 24th Avenue were seeking a free-school ideology in which students could design their own course of study in an ungraded environment.

By 1974 there were 205 students enrolled in the freewheeling alternative school, MLC, which shared the building with a regular Couch school of 160 students. When surveyed, only 23 did not desire to merge with MLC, philosophies of Couch and MLC having also moved closer together. Although located in the same building, the schools had remained separate. As barriers between them were dissipating and teachers at Couch becoming increasingly liberal, it was time to disband the regular Couch program and open up spots for more than 180 students on the MLC waiting list.

Above: the original 1883 Couch building at NW 17th and Kearney; below: our current 1915 facade.

Above: student photo taken inside the original 1883 building at 17th and Kearney; below: student photo taken in our 1915 building, not long after its opening.

Above and below: Couch students, circa the 1950s!