Arizona republican., 1921-12-05
HIGH |S RUGE CONCERN
Value Of Plant Is Million And A Half Dollars; Its Value To Pupils Is h. finitely More And h. calculable
(By H. w. Stauffacher, Registrar,
 High SchooD

High SchooD
 In connection with the publicity being given to Educational week throughout the nation. it is worth while to give consideration to our own high school of which the city and state is justly proud.
 From the business mans stand point the high school is the largest single unit concern in the valley. The entire plant is valued at over one million and half dollars. It repre- sents to the passersby and the tourist picture of prosperity which find its equal in few places. It employs at the present time S2 people not in cluding the janitors or cafeteria help. The annual budget is large in com parison with other establishments in the city. However, the ultimate re- suits obtained cannot be figured in dollars and cents.
 At the present time the registra- ton at the high school shows an average daily attendance of 1,5s4. The large number of students, almost like a small city population, are housed in six beautiful buildings and are cared for from a. m. to D. m. Every 45 minutes the entire student body changes rooms and teachers and each student must be accounted for for each period which means that during each day there are over 12,000 individual cases to be reported on. trained, and listened to. The entire change every period is made in five minutes with machine-like accurate ness and with an average error. or case or tardiness of about one-tenth of one per cent. The average class has about 24 to 30 students. Each teacher this year has six period of actual class work while the balance of time is given over to individual help to students, correction of papers, and the activities of the school.
 Besides the regular class work which is the first and by far the most important work of the school, there is maintained the various student activities, a business in itself al large as most of the business houses in the | city. Each activity has an organiza- | ton of it's own and each organization ! must correlate with the others in order to avoid conflicts.
 Turning from the material and | physical side of the high school, there 1 is another feature that Is oftenumes overlooked when one thinks of a high school. It is the great problem of in i dividual differences of the students which have to be solved. Not only each student demands a separate ! consideration at times, but each stu dents parents also figure in and 4 make the problem all the more com | plicated. There is the indifferent student with indiffirent parents; the ambitious students with careless par ents; the ambitious parents with negligent students, etc. etc It is no little task to assemble all of these individual differences and opinions and out of this mass of thinking cre- ate a one spirited and a one-pur- posed school. The various parents may think that they have problem in the home to care for and train : from one to four children Compare with that the task of caring for 1,60C people for six hours a day and you may be able to imagine the problems which must arise and which must bt
 solved each day.
 The problem of how to take cart of the rapidly increasing size of tht 5 school presents many problems whicl must be solved in the future On'
 need not turn back in the records
 of the school very far to find that tn,
 city boasted of a high school of 9O'
 students. Today it is over three time: 500 and from the present indication , it will not be long until the hgi
 school must care for 2,500 students
 If a parent or taxpayer will visi
 the school now he will find it filled | to capacity at the present time witt : the two new buildings completed thi.
 summer. The auditorium has a tota
 seating capacity of l,2O0 Whicf
 makes is impossible to get the entire
 student body together at one time
 If the Phoenix Union High schoo
 district desires to maintain the sam' standard and hold first place in tho
 educational realm of the state anc
 the Southwest it must expand it i, present plant to include a new or {
 large auditorium and new clasi
 room building. The other alternative is to build either q new high schoo
 in another part of the city, Junio
 high school or an industrial higl
 school which would be able to pro
 vide vocational education to all wh' , desired it while the present higl
 school plant could take care of thos
 preparing for college entrance an
 would also allow greater expansion
 for the junior college.
 The Phoenix Junior college, whicl f has had such a favorable start thi . | year and has grown so popular in -h l minds of both the student body q the high school and that of the pub [ lie. is factor which will demal-d h f attention of the public in the nea p future. The junior college moVemen |. l is spreading through the Unite
 States. The public is demanding tha n an opportunity be given to those wh
 are financially unable to go to colleg f or for those who prefer to complet - the first two years of college work a
 home. to secure this work under hig . school supervision. The junior col
 iege gives to the student a completio F of his academic work started in tn
 high school and prepares him to go [ ,f a college or university and begin hl
 specialization preparation for his Tiff - work. Phoenix and the surroundln
 community is large enough and ric O enough to build within its limits ]. modern junior college which wi
 stand as an equal to any college ,r the nation.
 Statistics show that a high schoC
 education is worth S10,0 in actuS
 money value during a persons lii n who successfully completes the hig " school course. Let us cut that in tw
 and say that a student can bette ii himself to the extent of S1,000 yea e. by completing the high school in foJ
 years. Then if our present hig .r school is to be rated in financi; k terms, her value to the communit
 is at least s1,50O,000 a year or 1t other words the high school gives l. the public a return value each yea d equal to the entire value of the plan
 How then can anyone complain abou ,- the cost of education2 Why not pla
 now to build a greater high scho, .r which will meet adequately the need
 for the future?
 A DIFFERENT MATTER