Fullerton Union High School - History

History

In 1893 a special election was held to create Fullerton Union High School. The school's first classroom, a rented room on the second floor of the Fullerton Elementary School building, was adequate to house the eight pupils, which constituted the first year's enrollment and the 32 books which made up the library. The high school was the second in Orange County.

In 1908, FUHS's enrollment was increasing at the rate of 18 percent a year. To accommodate the growth, the school was moved to new quarters on West Commonwealth Avenue, an area now known as Amerige Park.

School enrollment continued to grow and within two years a new polytechnic building was built to ease the overcrowding. But on November 17, 1910, the day before it could be occupied, the older FUHS building burned to the ground. FUHS was housed in the polytechnic building and four tents that year. After the fire, the school's trustees debated the best location for rebuilding. The district owned the ground on which the polytechnic building stood, but the campus was small, and school work was disrupted by the numerous Santa Fe trains that roared by each day.

In 1911, the present site was purchased one block east of Harbor (Spadra) Boulevard. A walnut orchard was removed prior to building, and the former site was sold to the City of Fullerton for use as a park.

The school's facilities have changed over the years to meet educational and community needs. Plummer Auditorium was built in 1930-32 and its original ironwork, which was made by students on the campus, was kept when Plummer was refurbished and remodeled to meet earthquake standards in 1972 (the first class to use the auditorium for Baccalaureate was the Class of 1972). Since then the stadium, locker rooms, and the agriculture complex have been rebuilt. The latest replacement was the swimming pool and the science building. In 2009 a new building housing many new classrooms including several new computer driven classrooms was opened.

Renovations of Plummer Auditorium were completed in 1993. It included new lighting, audio and dressing room upgrades. Air conditioning and an orchestra lift was added as well. The Charles Kassler fresco "Pastoral California" was uncovered and completely restored in 1997.

On April 3, 2012, during a "Mr. Fullerton contest", Fullerton Union High School was a scene of controversy when "assistant principal Joe Abell came on stage in front of the hundreds of people in attendance and interrupted speech and disqualified him from the competition". The male student, Kearian Giertz, had stated that he hoped to find love and marry legally in ten years (a direct response to a question he was asked as part of the competition). The student body subsequently circulated letters of support for their gay classmate. The assistant principal has since publicly apologized for removing the gay student from stage. On April 16, Fullerton schools Superintendent George Giokaris announced Joe Abell's removal from the FUHS campus and assignment to Fullerton Joint Union School District offices as administrators continue to assess the incident. "Today, (Abell) is working at the district office," Giokaris said. "I can't say where he will be tomorrow. But today he is here."