Founded in 1914, Franklin is Portland's fourth high school. The city's high schools were filled to capacity at the time, and the population in southeast Portland was rapidly growing. It was initially founded in part of the Creston Elementary School, with nine instructors and 115 students in the spring 1914 semester. The current building, designed by
Floyd Naramore, opened in September 1917. In 1942, a
statue of Benjamin Franklin, after whom the school was named, was installed outside of Franklin High School. Due to the
baby boom and the passing of a $25 million building levy by the school district in 1947, a new addition for arts,
industrial arts, and
home economics departments was slated. Between 2015 and 2017, the school was modernized and expanded, with funding from a $482 million bond measure in 2012. The modernization included a new arts center, a new gym, biomedical, and culinary arts building, seismic retrofitting, and a new entrance. ==Student profile==