Oak Park High School has undergone significant changes over the past several decades. The campus has expanded, academic expectations have shifted and technology now plays a central role in daily learning. From the physical layout of the school to the tools students use in the classroom, OPHS today looks and operates very differently from earlier eras.

English teacher Kathy Bowman has been with  the school district for 40 years and joined OPHS when the school was only 10-years-old. In her years here, she has witnessed how the school has evolved throughout the decades. 

When Bowman first arrived on campus, the thought of the school issuing personal laptops to every student sounded straight out of a science fiction novel. 

“When I started here, we didn’t even have computers,” Bowman said. “Students had zero access to technology, everything was typed on typewriters.” 

This simple shift in technology profoundly shifted how teachers assign work, and how students complete it. Academic expectations also shifted as technology reshaped the classroom. 

Prior to the Chromebook era, students were expected to complete more work independently, often without online resources that students have available to them now. Research papers required scanning textbooks instead of a quick Google search. Math homework depended on working through problems without video explanations and turning in assignments took more effort then just clicking a submit button before midnight. 

“I think the rigor has really died down,” Bowman said. “It’s just not as difficult as it used to be, and the expectations have dropped.” 

As the world has evolved through digitization, the style and pace of students have evolved along with it. Teachers adapted by balancing modern tools with the needs of newer generations that learn differently and face different challenges than students did 30 or 40 years ago.

While long time teachers like Bowman have watched OPHS evolve from inside the classroom, former students have witnessed changes across the campus landscape. OPHS alumni and parent, Diamond Kelly, has witnessed physical structures come and go.

“There used to be a senior parking lot where the auditorium is,” Kelly said. “The library was not there when I went to high school, and there were no classrooms or paths around the great lawn.”

At that time, the snack shack on the athletic field did not exist, so volunteers would barbeque next to the bleachers.

“We used to have awesome guys barbequing food next to the bleachers and there wasn’t the snack shack that we have today,” Kelly said. 

In recent years, the Homecoming king and queen are wheeled off in a horse-drawn carriage, but that was not always the case.

Many hands-on electives that used to shape students’ high school experience are no longer offered and have shifted to more academically rigorous courses.

“I miss home economics where I cooked and sewed,” Kelly said. “I took Typing and Woodshop. We also had Life Skills for seniors only, where we got married and had a baby to share with a partner.”

These classes were not just for fun; they reflected a time when OPHS emphasized real life preparation differently than they do now. While typing has become an automatic skill for most students, many of the other electives once offered taught abilities that current high schoolers are no longer given the same opportunity to develop.