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Oak Forest High School

high school in Oak Forest, Illinois, USA, in the suburbs of Chicago

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 14, 2026
Entity authorityQ7073465 ↗
Source-derived summary

Oak Forest High School is a public high school located in Oak Forest, Illinois. It is part of Bremen Community High School District 228 which also includes Tinley Park High School, Hillcrest High School and Bremen High School. It serves most of the community of Oak Forest, as well as portions of Midlothian and Crestwood in Bremen Township in the south suburbs of Chicago in Cook County.

History

In March 1968, taxpayers of District 228 approved a US$1.3 million loan from the Illinois School Building Commission to begin first phase construction of the district's fourth high school. In August 1968, the Board of Education approved the new school's name, and in September, the architectural plans were approved. The construction contract was approved in March 1969, with the plan calling for an initial "first phase" of construction, and a second phase to be added on if necessary.

Oak Forest High School opened in 1971 as a remedy to the excessively high numbers of students attending the three other existing high schools in the district. Before the school had even opened, it became clear that the school would not be sufficient to contain the increasing student population. The district again turned to voters to approve a bond issue to add onto the school. After two failures, and threats of students needing to attend double shifts, the bond issue passed in December 1971.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Oak Forest High School” as high school in Oak Forest, Illinois, USA, in the suburbs of Chicago. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful synthesis for locating the documentary relationships between formal authority, participants and affected communities. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1968, 1969, 1971—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1971. The account is most persuasive where Forest, High and School can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as high school in Oak Forest, Illinois, USA, in the suburbs of Chicago. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7073465. Authority coordinates are 41.616, -87.756. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1968, 1969 and 1971.

Critical limits

Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Oak Forest High School”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Oak Forest High School primary sources, Oak Forest High School archive and Forest research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Oak Forest High School”?
  2. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
  3. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Oak Forest High School” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.