From your time as a student to your graduate experience as an alumni, TASOK support and amenities continue, as a result of your connection to the Tasok Alumni Network, now over 1,000 people.
TASOL was the original idea of Lee and Jerry Weaver with the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society. “Lee returned from the U.S.A. in 1961 and began teaching our children at home. Eventually, Lee said, ‘I do not like teaching just my kids, but will teach others if we can start a school!’ That is how TASOL began.” (Weaver)
A monument dedicates Weaver Field on TASOK campus to them as “founders of the school”. They solicited participation widely, initially with businessmen and other mission organizations in Zaire. Soon, the U.S. Embassy and the United Nations joined in support of the English speaking school. It was agreed by all that TASOL was not to be a school for just missionary children. There was a wider vision to create an “American school, to offer an American curriculum for expatriate American children”. (Steven Sharp)
Initial classrooms were held in Sims House built by Rev. Aaron Sims, a Scottish physician and pioneer missionary with Livingstone Inland Mission. He built Sims House in 1893 after completing Sims Chapel across the road in 1891. The chapel is the oldest free-standing structure ever built in Kinshasa and is located on the Congo River.
Ground was cleared for a new 6 classroom building and a library on the CBZO (CBCO) compound. “Additional classroom blocks were built and playgrounds prepared before the high school moved to Mont Ngaliema in 1966 on land obtained through the auspices of the U.S. Embassy.” (Steven Sharp)
“While new classrooms were being built, classes were held in Chanic houses along Ave. de l’Avenir. There was a large group of new teachers from the Mennonite teachers’ college in Hillsborough, Kansas. An elegant, vivacious woman named Mme Grandjean taught French.” (Brown Noyes). “Permission was finally granted to build and it is well on its way to completion. However, the present enrollment has already outgrown the new building- four classes with a multipurpose room. The enrollment must be about 120 now.” (Oct. 1962 letter by Marj Sharp)
“Each succeeding year more students arrived and many non-missionary kids wanted admission. Some American Embassy personnel joined from the outset, so soon we needed more classrooms which were added, forming an L shaped structure with an auditorium.
First yearbook
High School Principal Orv Wiebe Grade School Principal James Clark
School Motto: International Understanding
School Colors: Navy and White
6 seniors from 5 countries
“The seventh grade had a teacher who had been in the Marines and insisted on his class singing the Marine Hymn at the top of their voices every day.” ( Brown Noyes)