Clarenceville School District


The Clarenceville School District is a public school district in Metro Detroit in the U.S. state of Michigan, serving portions of Farmington Hills, Livonia, and Redford.
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Etymology

The school district's name was derived from the former town of Clarenceville which took up some territory in Farmington Hills. It is believed that since the town of Clarenceville was in Oakland County, the school district is listed as being in that county despite having its schools in Wayne County. Two former elementary schools, Edgewood Elementary and Westbrook Elementary, were located in Farmington Hills, Oakland County, but were closed in the 1970s. The school also owns a parking lot where it stores its buses that is in Oakland County.

History

Clarenceville Middle School began as the district's high school. A new high school was built across Middlebelt Road from the former high school around 1958.
In 1955, the high school student council took up the issue of certain styles of dancing that some students were concerned was "in bad taste and made all of them look 'cheap' to outsiders," according to a student quote in the Detroit Free Press. The council banned bebop and Jitterbug dancing but allowed "the bunny hug, lindy hop, Big Apple, and the Lambeth Walk, etc.—but there will have to be a drastic reduction of 'jumping and grimacing.'" The student council's decision did not satisfy district leadership, as they banned more dancing styles later that month. The school gained a reputation as "for squares" and parents demanded that the school board reconsider, which they did during a three-hour discussion at a meeting in April 1956. Styles of "fast dancing" such as the Chicken were allowed once again.
A pedestrian bridge was built in 1968 to connect the high school site and middle school site. The high school was also expanded in 1967-1968 with a new auditorium, classrooms, and a 100-seat audio-visual room for showing movies.
Clarenceville High School shares a Michigan historical marker with its adjoined 919-person auditorium, named for a longtime school superintendent and Michigan House Representative.The auditorium's history as a major music venue began with the Clarenceville Jazz Series, run by Detroit jazz maven Midge Ellis from 1969 to 1982. During that time, such acts as Buddy Rich, Stan Kenton, Woody Herman, Harry James, Gene Krupa, Lionel Hampton, and Maynard Ferguson performed and conducted workshops for students at the high school. The Clarenceville Jazz Band program continued until just a few years before Ellis' death at the age of 91, in 2015.

Athletics

The nickname of Clarenceville Middle and High School's sports teams are the Trojans.
Students of the Clarenceville School District are considered Livonia residents for the purposes of the Livonia Hockey Association whether or not they and their families live within the city limits of Livonia, MI.

Notable alumni