Ottumwa High School - Campus

Campus

The main campus of Ottumwa High School consists of a four-story building in downtown Ottumwa. The hill on which the building sits was once the site of Chief Wapello's tribal village. Legend suggests he originally called the area "Ottumwa" from this spot in 1838.

The four floors of the main building can be roughly divided by subject areas: the rooms on the bottom floor contain mostly social studies and foreign language classrooms; the second floor contains several offices, family and consumer science classrooms, and mathematics classrooms; the third floor is mostly mathematics and language arts classrooms; and the fourth floor houses science and language arts classrooms. The school's auditorium and gymnasium are usually accessed from the second floor, though the auditorium extends to the fourth floor in height and the gymnasiums also extend an extra floor.

The Vo-Tech building houses vocational classrooms, a JROTC room, and a fiber optics network room on its first floor. Performing arts and special education classrooms are located on its second floor.

The two buildings are connected by a central cafeteria or commons; this building also houses a second-floor library with approximately 20,000 volumes.

Ottumwa High School does not hold any sporting contests within its campus; instead, the school uses other buildings or stadia within Ottumwa. The school does maintain a parking lot for students; a local church offers permit parking for students as well as a free parking lot with a limited number of places. The school does maintain two parking lots for faculty.