School History

SCHOOL ADDRESS

100 High School Drive 

Bessemer, AL 35022

SCHOOL COLORS

Purple and White

SCHOOL MASCOT

Tiger

SCHOOL COMPOSITE

Jess Lanier High School serves approximately 1100 students in grades 9-12 from Davis Middle School.

SCHOOL and COMMUNITY

Jess Lanier High School, which was named for former Bessemer mayor, Jess Lanier, opened in September 1970. Due to consolidation, this became Bessemer's only high

school in the fall of 1987. Jess Lanier is organized to serve the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grades, offering four courses of study - advanced academic, general, occupational, and special education.

The original facilities of Jess Lanier have been enlarged twice since 1970, meeting the changing needs of the student population. The first renovation and addition occurred as a result of a fire in December of 1981. This fire destroyed the library. The present library opened in the fall of 1983 at more than double the size the original. In 1988 additional classrooms, a new band room, a science lab, and an art room were added. The lunchroom was also enlarged to accommodate increased enrollment due to consolidation and annexation. The Bessemer Area Vocational Center is located on the Jess Lanier campus. Our school's facilities include three computer labs, four science labs, and modem Fine Arts rooms for visual arts, and choral, and instrumental music. There are three office suites, a library, a gym, a new teacher's workroom, a special educational facility to teach life skills, and sixty-three classrooms.

Classrooms and offices at Jess Lanier are connected through a system wide networking system with a fiber optic backbone. This state of the art technology allows for total flexibility throughout the school system. The school is equipped with a telephone network system called "Phone Master" which enables us to telephone every student at the school with the touch of a button.

Horace Peterson's Library at Jess Lanier High School

Hours: 7:45 a.m.- 4:00 p.m. Monday thru Thursday

Goals of the Jess Lanier High School Library Media Center

To fulfill the mission, the goals of the Jess Lanier High School Media Center are

To provide a well-organized search system, readily accessible collection of materials and equipment as will as the technology needed to meet the individual needs of the students and faculty

To provide quality literature which promotes reading and lifelong learning.

To work with teachers in the planning and implementing of the curriculum.

To provide assistance to the students and the teachers who are using the materials

To provide assistance to the teachers to bring the resources of the Library Media Center into the center of instruction.

To provide library skills instruction within the context of the classroom curriculum for freshmen.

To provide access to information and ideas for a diverse population.

To ensure equity and freedom of access to information and ideas, unimpeded by social,cultural, economic, religious, geopraphic or technologic constraints.