Cass Technical High School

Cass Technical High School (simply referred to as Cass Tech) is a magnet high school in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, United States. It was established in 1907 and is part of the Detroit Public Schools Community District. It is named after Lewis Cass. Until 1977, Cass was Detroit's only magnet school and the only non-neighborhood enrollment school in Detroit. It remains one of few magnet schools in Detroit. Entrance is based on test scores and middle school grades. Students are required to choose a curriculum path—roughly equivalent to a college "major" —in the ninth grade. Areas of study include among others arts and communication, business management and marketing, engineering and manufacturing, human services, and science and arts. History The school was founded in 1907 on the third floor of Cass Union School on Grand Union Avenue, subsequently moving to its own wing. After that school was mostly destroyed by a fire, a building for Cass Tech was built on the site and opened in October 1912, but was soon overcrowded. A new building nearby on Second Avenue was designed in Collegiate Gothic style by Malcolmson and Higginbotham with Albert Kahn as construction architect; construction began in 1916, the cornerstone was laid in 1917, and after delays caused by World War I austerity measures, the building opened in September 1922. It had a capacity of 3,600 students and was connected to the High School of Commerce, which opened earlier the same year in Cass Tech's former building, by Victory Memorial Arch, a pedestrian bridge over Main Street that was a memorial to students killed in the war. By 1942 the school had more than 4,500 students and was the largest in Michigan. In 1985, an addition on the south side was opened, designed by Albert Kahn & Associates, which included performing arts facilities, a new pool, and a student cafeteria, and a wing of the building was remodeled for computer and business classes. Departments in the 1922 building were grouped by floor; facilities included a foundry and machine shops that were used for training by Ford outside school hours, and the auditorium was used as a practice hall by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. The 1922 building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in March 2011.