Berkeley High School - Olla Podrida Yearbook (Berkeley, CA)

Page 8 text:

A New Berkeley High School BERKELE ' S rapid growth is so sure to continue in the immediate future that an absolute necessity exists for providing for the present and future needs of its school department in a large way at once. YVe have kept in the front rank of educational progress. We have planned out a fine system of elementary, intermediate, and high schools. Much good work is being done in each of these departments. But so little provision has been made in the way of buildings, equipment, and playgrounds, that it is impossible to carry out the things which have already been endorsed by the people. The high school is probably the most handicapped of all the Berkeley schools. A e cannot provide proper recitation rooms for all of our students. Y e are compelled to exclude some from certain courses because of over- crowding. Our main building was condemned in April. 1906. but was patched up with the expectation that it would be replaced in two or three years. It still houses the greater number of our students. Xeedless to say the building is no more safe now than it was seven years ago. Play- ground there is none. Xeither is there a gymnasium. Nothing whatever is being done for the physical welfare of the eleven hundred students. My suggestion to the Board of Education and to the people of Berkeley is that a new site of not less than ten acres be purchased. On this should be erected a group of buildings for a modern high school including all de- partments, academic, polytechnic, vocational, physical. These buildings should be inexpensive in structure but artistic, and adapted to their respec- tive uses. There should be playground space for boys and girls of high school age. This means football, baseball, bas ketball, tennis, track, outdoor and indoor gymnasiums, and necessary grand stands. There must also be enough land for a botany and agricultural department where city young people can be taught at least how things grow. These things are so evident that we cannot but wonder why there should be any delay. AYe forget that the people do not know the facts. It is our duty then as students, teachers, and school officials to use every opportunity to bring these to the attention of the public. Experience has proven over and over again that the people, when once informed, can be depended upon to do the right thing. C. L. BIEDEXBACH. 6

Page 10 text:

(UlasH of aimtr, 1913 Strft, dlmtf 25, 1912 3trd, 3Januarxj 2D, 1913 Sirft, ifrbruary 1, 1913 Btril, Aitmtst 14, 1912