George Fisher and Harry Burns were asked to design a school in the Lake Forest area of Jacksonville in the mid 1950’s. In the 1950’s the International style of architecture was popular uniting modern engineering techniques and building materials with a vigorous sense of functionalism. Ornamentation is absent. Flat roofs, bands of windows, smooth wall surfaces, lack of eaves, and cantilevered sections contribute to the strongly rectilinear, horizontal flow of this style. The most common materials used were concrete, glass, and steel. Large curtain-like walls of plate glass fill the facades. The composition of an International style building is typically asymmetrical but balanced. Using this style of architecture, the school was designed and the construction began.
In 1956, Lake Forest Hills Public School Number 91, was opened and accepted its first students. Mrs. Elaine Davenport was the first principal of the school. The school served first through seventh grade students in 1956. The mission of the school was “To promote the welfare of children and youth in the home, school, church and community.”
In 1989, the school name was changed to honor a long time school teacher and one of the first African American women to serve on Jacksonville’s city council, When serving on the council, Mathis spent much of her time trying to improve sewage and road conditions in depressed neighborhoods of her district. She was a tenacious fighter for social justice and racial harmony. On July 25, 1982, Sallye Mathis died of cancer. In appreciation of her hard work for the people of Jacksonville, school officials changed the name of an elementary school in her district, Lake Forest Hills Elementary, to Sallye B. Mathis Elementary School.
In 2007, Sallye B. Mathis Elementary was presented a grant of one million dollars to implement one of Jacksonville’s newest Magnet schools specializing in Math, Science and Pre-engineering.
As time goes on the make up of the community has changed; however, the vision for the school has remained the same. Over the last 56 years, Sallye B.Mathis Elementary school has provided a structure through which groups of parents, teachers and community members have made a difference in the lives of the children in the community. As a past PTA president wrote, “As our children grow, so grows our school; and so grows our desires to better both.” When enough people care to act, the course of an entire community can change.