 The establishment of what is today Theodore Roosevelt High School occurred in 1868 when the first classes of what was originally known as Kent High School were held . This was preceded first by the formation of the Franklin Union School District around 1860 , which brought four smaller schoolhouse districts under one administration in what was then known as Franklin Mills . In 1867 , the school board decided to consolidate the various neighborhood schoolhouses and create a graded curriculum , which included separate high school classes . As part of the consolidation effort , construction of a new building , known as the Union School , began at the corner of Park Avenue and North Mantua Street on a hill overlooking the newly named village of Kent . Construction of the school was part of a number of building developments in Kent in the late 1860s , including two churches and a large bank building . The name of the settlement was changed from Franklin Mills to Kent in 1864 and the village was incorporated from part of Franklin Township in 1867 after population growth began in the mid @-@ 1860s followed the arrival of the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad and its shops in 1863 . The laying of the Union School 's cornerstone on May 29 , 1867 , was hailed by the local newspaper , the Kent Bulletin , as an event " which is brighter than anything heretofore recorded in our favor . " 
