The school was designed by architect Everett Lane Williams of the Detroit architectural firm Van Leyen, Schilling & Keough.

During World War II, the Tower was used to spot enemy aircraft that could have been headed for the River Rouge Plant, where tanks were in production.

A cafeteria, ten classrooms including science and computer labs, and the replacement of the greenhouse comprised the new wing.

Consequently, Fordson received the Governor's Award for Historic Preservation and has been featured in many publications including the Masonry Institute of Michigan [1] and the architects of the addition, TMP architecture.

Assistant principals (2024-2025 school year):[6] In 2009 the Wayne County Regional Education Service Agency issued a report strongly asking Fordson High's administration to only use Arabic when absolutely necessary to communicate to students and parents.

The library has hand carved oak paneling, a fireplace, painted wall murals by Zoltan Sepeshy, tapestries and Jacobean fumed-oak furnishings and many bronze and marble statues including, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Nike, Niobe, Venus, and Mercury.

[5] The main hall also includes a blue and gold Fordson Tractor with lettering of state champions imprinted on its top.

[11] In 1986, Tom Hundley of the Detroit Free Press wrote that the school "has a reputation for solid academics.

[5] As of 2016[update], according to Brian Stone of the Huffington Post, Fordson was "consistently praised" because larger than average numbers of its students, many of whom were from low socioeconomic backgrounds, matriculated to elite universities.

[14] By 1986, the school established a program to defuse tensions between Arab and non-Arab students through periodic meetings.

[22] The majority of non-Arab students, referred to as "Americans" or "Anglos" in the school parlance, were of Italian and Greek heritage, and were by then in their second and third generations.

[29] Arab Americans had been in the student body since the establishment of the school, with the original generations prior to the late 1960s seeking to fully assimilate into the dominant culture of the area.

[28] Numbers of students of Arab ancestry increased after the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War and the 1978 South Lebanon conflict.

Longtime residents, who often ate lunch in off-campus restaurants, thought the recent immigrants,[30] known as "boaters" meaning "fresh off the boat" in area Arab-American slang,[32] had a lack of sophistication.

In the words of Gary David and Kenneth K. Ayouby, authors of "Being Arab and Becoming Americanized: Forms of Mediated Assimilation in Metropolitan Detroit," the longtimers perceived the recent immigrants as being "nerdy".

[17] In 2003 52 of 53 members of the football team were Muslim while the coach was Catholic, and players used Arabic on the field to issue commands.

Around that period some Muslim players active during the Islamic month of Ramadan chose to break their fasts, which they would normally observe, in order to play in the games.

[18] By 2010 coach Fouad Zaban began holding football practice at night in order to make it easier for devout Muslims to participate during Ramadan.

[33] Zaban had received approval to do so from Fordson and DPS administrators as well as the Dearborn police department and area residents.

They visit Liberty Bell Junior-Senior High School and teach the local elementary students about the history and politics of Michigan.