History
Oregon Episcopal School began in 1869 as St. Helen's Hall, a boarding and day school for girls. It attracted students from the rural areas of Oregon as well as from Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, and Idaho. The school moved several times during its first century to different locations in downtown Portland and was located at 13th and Hall streets before moving to its present location in Raleigh Hills in 1964.
In 1972, St. Helen's Hall merged with Bishop Dagwell Hall, an all-boys school, and was renamed OES. Over the years, the school has grown in students and in the quality of its facilities. The Drinkward Center for Math, Science, and Technology opened in 2003 with state-of-the-art laboratories and equipment. Middle School students have been housed in a spacious new building since 1996, with an addition being added in 2006 that is capped by a "green" roof with soil and plants.
In the 1990s and especially since 2000, the school has gained a nationwide reputation for its research-based science program by regularly winning awards in the Intel Science Talent Search and the Siemens Competition in Math, Science, and Technology. The music program has grown dramatically over the past 10 years, offering numerous choirs, a cappella groups, bands, orchestras, and jazz bands. Alumnae/i continue to praise the instruction they received in writing, saying it it has been critical for them in their further studies and careers.
