The School Board of Alachua County began construction in 1968 for two new high schools in the rapidly expanding suburbs of Gainesville, Florida, to supplement the city's two existing public high schools. The new school in the northwest suburbs was named F.W. Buchholz, in honor of a distinguished Alachua County educator who had died a few years earlier, while the school in the eastern suburbs was named Eastside High School. The school board hoped to open both schools in September 1970 and to open them without the upper classes (grades 11 and 12) in order to allow the new schools to expand gradually, while also allowing students in the upper grades at Gainesville High School (GHS) to remain there for their final years. The slow roll-out at Buchholz and Eastside also spread the need to hire new teachers over several years, and allowed the school board to alter the grade structure in the junior and senior highs.