The Garden City Telegram
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Students prefer one high school
Published 9/25/2007 in News : Education By Emily Behlmann
Many students at Garden City High School say their school is crowded, with congested hallways and overcrowded classrooms, but like the members of a study group looking at GCHS facilities, they vary in their opinions of what should be done to help.
Most students who were interviewed, however, like the idea of having one united GCHS, instead of building a second high school in Garden City or splitting off particular grade levels.
Building a second high school is one of several possibilities that received support when the GCHS Facility Study Group took a rough vote of preferred options. Other options that received votes were replacing the existing high school with a new building, creating a ninth-grade center, moving ninth-graders back to middle schools (by building a third middle school), splitting GCHS into a ninth/10th-grade and an 11th/12th-grade center, and taking no action.
Dawna Coulter, a senior, went so far as to say that having two high schools would be "horrible," because of the rivalry she thinks would develop between them.
Such a rivalry already is present between USD 457's two middle schools, Abe Hubert and Kenneth Henderson, said freshman Ashlee Bean. She said that when she attended Kenneth Henderson last year, she and other students looked forward to joining together into one high school.
However, not everyone opposes the idea of having two high schools. Stacy DeAnda, a senior, agreed that the two schools might be competitive, but said it would give people in the district a choice of where to go to school.
Bond issue proposals to build a second high school in USD 457 have been turned down twice by voters, in 1998 and in 2000. When the study group looked at the issue this time around, they cited the proposal's past failures as a negative point of the idea, but said the plan still deserves further consideration because it could help "enhance an appropriate education environment."
However, the study group wanted to research all possible options, said group co-chairwoman Jean Clifford, and several of those involve special emphasis on freshmen.
Although Superintendent Rick Atha said research doesn't give a consistent answer about the best placement of ninth-graders -- at middle schools, high schools or on their own -- Board of Education member Jeff Crist has said freshman year is a "pivotal age."
It's the grade level with the most discipline problems, according to Principal James Mireles, and freshmen are just catching on to the idea that they're earning credits they'll need to graduate.
Clifford said the "best educational scenario" would be a place where freshmen could be isolated for special attention, whether that's at middle schools, a ninth-grade center or a segment of a new high school.
However, not all freshmen like that idea.
"Freshman year is one of the most important years of high school," freshman Colt McElroy said. "We should be all together."
McElroy, a member of the freshmen football team, said he likes being with upperclassmen for activities, and part of the whole school for academics.
Kelsi Munoz, a freshmen, said she also likes going to the high school. It's a "good experience" that she would prefer over being separated.
Ninth-graders would be "too secluded" in their own building, Bean said, and they're old enough to move on out of middle schools.
"In ninth grade you can tell you've grown up," she said.
Coulter, a band member, likes having the freshmen at GCHS, too, especially in the band. They contribute and add numbers to the group, giving it a fuller sound, she said.
"I like having a big band," she said. "It's a better chance to meet new people of a wider range."
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