Mandan Public Schools is the public school district for the City of Mandan, North Dakota.
Mandan’s first schoolhouse was at the former Morton County courthouse at Lincoln township, housing about a dozen students of all ages. The first classes held inside Mandan itself was at its city hall. It bounced to different locations until the first permanent schoolhouse was completed in 1882 on the southeast corner of Second Street Northeast and Wright Avenue (today’s First Avenue Northeast); cost about four thousand dollars. The public school district became formally organized in April 1881. The student population was about sixty in the subsequent schoolyear.
In 1890, Mandan converted a private residence into its second dedicated schoolhouse on the west end near Main Street and Mitchell Avenue (today’s Eight Avenue Northwest). Classes were once held in a log cabin owned by J.J. Mitchell. For the past three years, the city had been utilizing space in the Vinton Building for additional classrooms to supplement its original schoolhouse, built in 1882. The new schoolhouse contained one classroom on each of two levels. First and second grades were on the main level; third through fifth grades above.
Central School (Mandan High, Junior High)
In 1900, Mandan voters approved a fifteen thousand dollar bond to fund both a larger west side grade school and to erect a three-story brick building housing junior and senior high students, the latter of which would be known as Central School.
Central School was expanded numerous times over the years, including a dedicated high school addition built onto its east in 1917 and a gymnasium in 1919. Cost necessitated the high school being added onto the existing schoolhouse rather than being independently constructed.
The 1917 addition became the junior high in 1924 when a detached senior high school was erected to the south. Elementary school students occupied the original Central School section at that time. The school complex was expanded several more times, including an elementary school addition in 1954. The original 1900-built section was demolished in 1966. A science wing and gymnasium were added in 1977. The gymnasium sat just north of where the original Central School once stood.
Mandan High School relocated to the city’s west side in 1957. Mandan Junior High then occupied the former high school section and absorbed the elementary section in 1994. The current Mandan Middle School replaced it in 2008. For the next year, it housed Great Plains Academy. Outside of the original 1900 structure, the rest of the school complex still stands today as affordable apartments. A 380-pound bell that was first installed at Central School in 1914 sits on a pedestal just outside the main entrance.
In April 2021, Mandan voters approved an $84 million bond to replace Mandan High School, and the district approved a purchase agreement for land east of Walmart in June of that year. Its anticipated opening is 2024.
Syndicate School (Mark Stark Elementary)
In 1922, Mandan constructed the Syndicate School to the southwest in a part of the city once developed by a group of investors known as the “Boston Syndicate.” The school expanded in 1964, and was replaced by the current Mary Stark Elementary on the same site in 1970.
Mary Stark was a long-time teacher of more than fifty years, since 1909. She taught at the Syndicate School, likely from its inception, and was its eventual principal. She died in 1960.
