Baker High School - Nugget Yearbook (Baker City, OR)

Page 21 text:

Page 15 I. R. Evans Superintendent of the Baker Public Schools from l946 With a heritage of fine schools. Baker looks ahead to even finer training for her youth. Many of the improvements of the last three or four years are not apparent within themselves but will become apparent by increasing excellence of the educational job being done. These include a system-wide curriculum and supervision program to foster constant improvement in basic education, an enlarged staff of excellent teachers to assure an opportune teacher-pupil ratio. an adequate test and record system. Other items of the overall improvement which are more apparent include: consolidation in 1949 of fourteen districts which unified the area served by Baker and established a pattern of efficient and compact district tthis type of district is now being advocated by the state legislature for the entire statel revamp- ing of bus service. thus offering more economy, safety and service: institution of lunch program: enlargement and improve- ment of elementary school grounds: a unified bond issue for long-range rebuilding and improvement of schools. with a high school, pool, stadium and shop now nearing completion, with new elementary schools at Tiedemann. and Brooklyn, and im- proved schools at the old high school. North Baker, Churchill and Haines to be effected by 1956. Baker is taking an increasingly greater part in educational leadership in the state and has been instrumental in establishing the practice of pre-school inservice training for teachers. a quar- terly statewide roundtable for superintendents and establishing of community colleges in the state, the original junior college bill being introduced from here. Baker's community college and adult education program are serving 120 adults this year. This leadership with its conscientious and sound administra- tion might well characterize the period also as the Golden Age in Baker education.

Page 20 text:

I. A. Churchill Superintendent ol the Baker City Public Schools 1891-1913 ST.l1JEl'll'1lB1'1ClEl'1lS When Prof. I. A. Churchill assumed the superintendency ol the Baker City Public Schools shortly after the organ- ization ol the high school- and there was only one other in the state: Portland-it was indeed a godsend for us . . . because by the dynamic spirit of public weliare possessed by this man, Prof. Churchill has guided the development of the schools of Baker City to a point ot near supremacy in the state . . . -The Nugget, 1902. From the records of the administration oi Prof. Church- ill it is evident that ever-progressive development in the schools characterized the period. The high school program-new and, except for Portland, untried in the state-was crystalized in the Baker City High School plan perfected by the superintendent. This plan was the model for other high school program developments in the state. Expansion of the grammar school program, too, was another accomplishment of the time. The building of the Brooklyn school on the east side, the South Baker school, the North Baker school and the planning lor the new high school building which was erected in 1916 were results of the larsightedness of the superintendent and progressive-minded citizens. The leadership of the Baker City Public Schools in educational progress and high school programming is so manifest that the era might well be called the Golden Age in Baker education. Page ll

Page 22 text:

' A ' ,. -t w Prof, Herbert Kittredge First Principal of the Baker City High School 1889-1891 The Baker City High School is one of the first institutions of the kind estab- lished in the state of Oregon. For many years we have had the grammar school and the college with us. but it remained with Baker City and Portland to supply the 'missing link' in the State educational system. Since the establishment of these high schools many cities of the State have taken up the idea, and we now have high schools started in nearly every large town of Oregon. --By William Hyde Stalker, Principal ol the Baker City High School, 1898-1901. THE. CENTRAL SCHOOL BUILDING The Central School Building opened tor classes for the grammar school and the high school on Ianuary. 1889. This building continued to house the high school until 1917 when the new high school building was dedicated and opened. The Central School continued to be used lor elementary and junior high school classes until 1934 when it was pulled down to make way for the Helen M. Stack Iunior High School Building. This building was located at the site oi the present Iunior High. c 4, fr. - cf- -if