Our History
In August 1918, the Franklin County Board of Education approved a petition from the residents of the Village of Upper Arlington to recognize Upper Arlington as a new school district. At that time the village was bounded by what is now Lane Avenue, Riverside Drive, Fifth Avenue, and North Star Road.
A school board was appointed by the county superintendent of schools, and John W. Wuichet Sr. was named president. One of the first actions for the new school officials was to authorize the construction of a four-room temporary school. It was built at the corner of Arlington Avenue and Tremont Road from parts of barracks left behind from Camp Willis.
Fifty-two students enrolled in the school, which taught first through ninth grades. Through their Upper Arlington Company, King and Ben Thompson, the brothers behind the development of Upper Arlington, put up the funds necessary to build the temporary school. In 1917, prior to the construction of the frame schoolhouse, King Thompson's basement at 1930 Cambridge Boulevard was being used as a school for more than a dozen children in first through third grade. (Children in upper grades attended Grandview Heights.)
The temporary school was completed and opened in October 1918. It was replaced the following year by the Waltham Road School.
The Board of Education named its secretary-treasurer, Evan L. Mahaffey, as the first superintendent of the school district.
Upper Arlington's first permanent school building, now known as Jones Middle School, opened on March 24, 1924, with six teachers and approximately 150 students from grades 1 to 6, according to newspaper archives. Grades 7 to 12 would later be added following the building’s expansion in 1926.
The building now known as Jones Middle School, shown in 1924
Historical Ties to Pleasant Litchford
Upper Arlington Schools is proud to honor its historical ties to Pleasant Litchford, a master blacksmith who moved to the area in the 1830s after buying his own freedom from slavery in Virginia.
Since 2020 descendants of Pleasant Litchford and the school district have been working together. The goals are to honor the life and contributions of Pleasant Litchford and his family as well as to honor and remember those once laid to rest in the Litchford Family Cemetery, formerly on the site of Upper Arlington High School.