History
Humboldt opened for the 1889-1890 school year in a 316,000 square feet (29,400 m) building, built in 1888. The school was the first high school on the West Side and the only one to be built since. The original building housed the school for twenty-three years, until 1909 when a new building was built. Additions were made to the 1909 structure in 1924 and 1959. In 1971 there was talk of closing the school. As a result of the campaign to keep the school open the latest portion of the building was built in 1976.
In the 1999-2000 school year Humboldt was placed on academic probation by Saint Paul Public Schools due to low test scores. A related report stated problems for the junior high as: "Poor attendance and a huge tardiness problem. Teacher competency varies. Technology is not meaningfully worked into instruction. School needs its own principal, not shared with the high school" and problems for the high school included "Too many students do not take school seriously. Many staff members set low expectations for students." The following year Humboldt posted some of the largest gains in a state standardized tenth grade writing test. Competency increased from 58% to 75%. In June 2001 the junior high was placed off probation but the high school remained on.
In 2005 plans were approved to give Humboldt a $1.4 million upgrade to the school's athletic facilities. A new artificial turf stadium with new bleachers and a new scoreboard was built. Soccer, football and softball fields received upgrades. The project was part of a larger plan intended to boost enrollment especially from the local neighborhood.
As part of No Child Left Behind Act Humboldt Junior High needed restructuring for the 2009–2010 school year as a result of continual low test scores and not making Adequate Yearly Progress. The high school portion was restructured as well because of its alignment with the junior high. As part of the restructuring 23 teachers were transferred from the school and a new program focus was created.
Read more about this topic: Humboldt Senior High School
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it furnishes; not the annals of the country, but the natural facts, or perennials, which are ever without date. When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)