“We just call it Lake,” students say.

Lake Clifton Eastern High School was built in the 1970s on top of Lake Clifton, a fact which has raised fears that the school may be sinking.  It was originally known as Lake Clifton High School.  The school has an area of 441.11 acres.  It was stated that when the school opened, it was the largest high school at the time on the East Coast.  The school is equipped to hold 4,800 students.  In 1985, Eastern High School merged with Lake Clifton, and the Baltimore City School Board (part of the Baltimore City Public School System) changed the school's name to Lake Clifton Eastern High School to reflect this merger.

A decision was made in 2003 by the city school board to split Lake Clifton into a smaller school, a trend that is occurring throughout the city school system with large high schools. With support from the Small Schools Workshop, school faculty members and administrators met and planned new, small, learning communities to open within Lake Clifton. But before the school could complete its restructuring, the board changed plans and decided on new uses for this valuable campus property and scattered the school population to other schools.

 

At the time, there were rumors about closing the building and moving the students to save money.  However, the community and many alumni vigorously opposed such action.  So, in 2003, Lake Clifton EHS closed its doors, but reopened them in the fall as two separate, smaller schools, Doris M. Johnson High School #426 and Heritage High School #425.  A third school, City Springs Alternative, was also formed and moved to another building in Clifton Park. 

 

The layout of Lake Clifton is unique in that it has a central core containing a main office, auditorium, two cafeterias, two gymnasiums, a main entrance, media center, library, and administrative offices, which include the school police and the Entrepreneurship Training University.  On the basement level of the central core, there’s an Olympic size pool as well. Connected to the central core are two separate buildings, each with four separate wings, referred to as units A, B, C, and D (which are visible in the aerial photograph above).  These wings house all of the students’ classrooms and the school’s individual main offices. On each of the three floors, the wings are connected by a commons area. The A and B units are located on the left side of the central core and the C and D units are located on the right side of the central core.

 

As of today, Doris M. Johnson High School is an entirely separate entity, operating on the C and D units of the building.  Currently, enrollment is approximately 600 students, 55 teachers and 8 paraprofessionals.