Ottumwa High School
Encyclopedia
| Ottumwa High School | |
 |
|
| Established | 1923 |
| School type | Public |
| Principal | Steve Hanson |
| Location | 501 E. 2nd Street Ottumwa, IA Ottumwa, Iowa Ottumwa is a city in and the county seat of Wapello County, Iowa, United States. The population was 24,998 at the 2000 census. It is located in the southeastern part of Iowa, and the city is split into northern and southern halves by the Des Moines River.... 52501 |
| Enrollment | 1541 (2004–2005) |
| School colors | Red and white |
| School song | |
| Homepage | Ottumwa High School |
Ottumwa High School is a public high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
located in Ottumwa, Iowa
Ottumwa, Iowa
Ottumwa is a city in and the county seat of Wapello County, Iowa, United States. The population was 24,998 at the 2000 census. It is located in the southeastern part of Iowa, and the city is split into northern and southern halves by the Des Moines River....
. It is part of the Ottumwa Community School District, and it is the district's only high school. It was established in 1923. The school sports mascot
Mascot
The term mascot – defined as a term for any person, animal, or object thought to bring luck – colloquially includes anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name...
is a Bulldog.
History
For several years, students in Ottumwa attended private classes inside area homes. Later, some students studied inside a local Methodist EpiscopalMethodist Episcopal Church
The Methodist Episcopal Church, sometimes referred to as the M.E. Church, was a development of the first expression of Methodism in the United States. It officially began at the Baltimore Christmas Conference in 1784, with Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke as the first bishops. Through a series of...
church. In 1865, the first public school in Ottumwa—Adams School—was completed at "College Square", an area bounded by College, Fourth, Second, and Union Streets. The school, which utilized four classrooms on its top floor for the high school, cost $28,818.57 to build, and it sat on the same site as the present-day high school. It was declared unsafe in 1883. The school board voted to tear down the condemned building and build a new one at the same site. With more citizens coming to Ottumwa, an additional high school was constructed about a mile west of the Adams School site in 1899. This building later served as a junior high school
Middle school
Middle School and Junior High School are levels of schooling between elementary and high schools. Most school systems use one term or the other, not both. The terms are not interchangeable...
until it was closed in 1985.
Ottumwa High School as it stands today opened on August 29, 1923 to grades 9, 10, 11, and 12. It reportedly cost just over one million
Million
One million or one thousand thousand, is the natural number following 999,999 and preceding 1,000,001. The word is derived from the early Italian millione , from mille, "thousand", plus the augmentative suffix -one.In scientific notation, it is written as or just 106...
dollar
Dollar
The dollar is the name of the official currency of many countries, including Australia, Belize, Canada, Ecuador, El Salvador, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, and the United States.-Etymology:...
s to complete.
In the 1970s, an additional building was completed—the "Vo-Tech" building—for vocational
Vocational education
Vocational education or vocational education and training is an education that prepares trainees for jobs that are based on manual or practical activities, traditionally non-academic, and totally related to a specific trade, occupation, or vocation...
and performing arts
Performing arts
The performing arts are those forms art which differ from the plastic arts insofar as the former uses the artist's own body, face, and presence as a medium, and the latter uses materials such as clay, metal or paint which can be molded or transformed to create some physical art object...
classes. The facility was connected to the main building via a skywalk accessible from the second floor hallway. This decade also saw the addition of a second gym
Gym
The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, that mean a locality for both physical and intellectual education of young men...
nasium, often nicknamed the "Rubber Gym" because of its rubber floor, which was built behind the first gymnasium and replaced the Adams School, which was demolished.
In the 1990s, a city property tax
Property tax
A property tax is an ad valorem levy on the value of property that the owner is required to pay. The tax is levied by the governing authority of the jurisdiction in which the property is located; it may be paid to a national government, a federated state or a municipality...
was levied to help fund a multi-million dollar renovation project. The original aim of the project was to renovate the school hallways and some classrooms, add additional basement classrooms, relocate the cafeteria and library to a new area adjacent to the original building and connecting to the Vo-Tech building, renovate and modernize the school's gymnasium facilities (locker and exercise rooms), and remodel the school's auditorium
Auditorium
An auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances at venues such as theatres. For movie theaters, the number of auditoriums is expressed as the number of screens.- Etymology :...
. The project went over budget, and the gymnasium and auditorium phases were scratched. The cafeteria and library projects were successfully completed, along with the basement, classroom, and hallway renovations, by the end of the century. The skywalk formerly connecting the Vo-Tech and main buildings was replaced by the new building.
In spring 2001, the school received a grant
Grant (money)
Grants are funds disbursed by one party , often a Government Department, Corporation, Foundation or Trust, to a recipient, often a nonprofit entity, educational institution, business or an individual. In order to receive a grant, some form of "Grant Writing" often referred to as either a proposal...
for nearly $1 million from Vision Iowa to remodel the auditorium which is where they now hold all of their pep rallies, guest speakers, and drama productions. The auditorium was closed from 2002 to 2003 for renovations. Its grand re-opening took place on November 23, 2002.
The latest renovations to the Ottumwa High School building came in the summer of 2003, when renovations to the gymnasium facilities were completed with aid of a federal grant obtained with the help of Iowa
Iowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...
Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
Tom Harkin
Tom Harkin
Thomas Richard "Tom" Harkin is the junior United States Senator from Iowa and a member of the Democratic Party. He previously served in the United States House of Representatives ....
.
In 2005, the school's front steps
Stairway
Stairway, staircase, stairwell, flight of stairs, or simply stairs are names for a construction designed to bridge a large vertical distance by dividing it into smaller vertical distances, called steps...
were the focus of a local controversy. The steps, which are in disrepair, needed to be replaced. A local architectural firm suggested two options: replace the steps with a similar staircase, or scrap the steps and redesign the building's entrance and facade
Facade
A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....
. Although the architectural firm and local school board both recommended the cheaper option of scrapping the steps, a grassroots campaign of graduates spoke out against removing such an iconic part of the school. In August 2005, the school board decided to keep the steps, and no major decisions about what to do with them were made then.
Near the end of May the district decided to get rid of the steps in front of the school. The original idea was to just leave them off of the school and have a flat front of the building. As there were so many protests and different people against the idea the new plan now is to get rid of the steps and rebuild them. The steps had seen senior pranks that caused them to be painted with Sherman-Williams paint from the Ottumwa store, just a short walk from the school. Rebuilding them will cost around $3 million to redo, but they will be rebuilt with extra safety and better features to go with them.
The steps will soon have no passage way underneath them. Having air going underneath them causes them to rot faster. Also, the steps will be rebuilt with a heating system. This will increase safety on them in the winter time and janitors will have no need to go put salt on them in the mornings. Construction was finished in the 2006-2007 school year.
Campus
Campus
A campus is traditionally the land on which a college or university and related institutional buildings are situated. Usually a campus includes libraries, lecture halls, residence halls and park-like settings...
of Ottumwa High School consists of a four-story building in downtown
Central business district
A central business district is the commercial and often geographic heart of a city. In North America this part of a city is commonly referred to as "downtown" or "city center"...
Ottumwa
Ottumwa, Iowa
Ottumwa is a city in and the county seat of Wapello County, Iowa, United States. The population was 24,998 at the 2000 census. It is located in the southeastern part of Iowa, and the city is split into northern and southern halves by the Des Moines River....
. The hill on which the building sits was once the site of Chief Wapello's
Wapello (chief)
Wapello was a Native American chief of the Meskwaki tribe.-Early life:Wapello was born in 1787 at Prairie du Chien, in what is now the state of Wisconsin...
tribal village. Legend suggests he originally called the area "Ottumwa" from this spot in 1838.
The four floors of the main building can be roughly divided by subject areas: the rooms on the bottom floor contain mostly social studies
Social studies
Social studies is the "integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to promote civic competence," as defined by the American National Council for the Social Studies...
and foreign language
Foreign language
A foreign language is a language indigenous to another country. It is also a language not spoken in the native country of the person referred to, i.e. an English speaker living in Japan can say that Japanese is a foreign language to him or her...
classrooms; the second floor contains several office
Office
An office is generally a room or other area in which people work, but may also denote a position within an organization with specific duties attached to it ; the latter is in fact an earlier usage, office as place originally referring to the location of one's duty. When used as an adjective, the...
s, family and consumer science
Family and consumer science
Family and consumer sciences is an academic discipline that combines aspects of social and natural science. Family and consumer sciences deals with the relationship between individuals, families, and communities, and the environment in which they live...
classrooms, and mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
classrooms; the third floor is mostly mathematics and language arts
Language arts
Traditionally, the primary divisions in the language arts are Literature and Language, where language in this case refers to both linguistics, and specific languages....
classrooms; and the fourth floor houses science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
and language arts classrooms. The school's auditorium and gymnasium are usually accessed from the second floor, though the auditorium extends to the fourth floor in height and the gymnasiums also extend an extra floor.
The Vo-Tech building houses vocational classrooms, a JROTC room, and a fiber optics network
Optical fiber
An optical fiber is a flexible, transparent fiber made of a pure glass not much wider than a human hair. It functions as a waveguide, or "light pipe", to transmit light between the two ends of the fiber. The field of applied science and engineering concerned with the design and application of...
room on its first floor. Performing arts and special education
Special education
Special education is the education of students with special needs in a way that addresses the students' individual differences and needs. Ideally, this process involves the individually planned and systematically monitored arrangement of teaching procedures, adapted equipment and materials,...
classrooms are located on its second floor.
The two buildings are connected by a central cafeteria
Cafeteria
A cafeteria is a type of food service location in which there is little or no waiting staff table service, whether a restaurant or within an institution such as a large office building or school; a school dining location is also referred to as a dining hall or canteen...
or commons; this building also houses a second-floor library
Library
In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
with approximately 20,000 volumes.
Ottumwa High School does not hold any sporting contests within its campus; instead, the school uses other buildings or stadia within Ottumwa. The school does maintain a parking lot
Parking lot
A parking lot , also known as car lot, is a cleared area that is intended for parking vehicles. Usually, the term refers to a dedicated area that has been provided with a durable or semi-durable surface....
for students; a local church
Local church
A local church is a Christian congregation of members and clergy.Local church may also refer to:* Local churches , a Christian group based on the teachings of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee, and associated with the Living Stream Ministry publishing house.* Parish church, a local church united with...
offers permit parking for students as well as a free parking lot with a limited number of places. The school does maintain two parking lots for faculty.
Students
Enrollment during the fall quarter of the 2004–2005 school year was 1541 students. 90% of the student body is white, 7% is HispanicHispanic
Hispanic is a term that originally denoted a relationship to Hispania, which is to say the Iberian Peninsula: Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain. During the Modern Era, Hispanic sometimes takes on a more limited meaning, particularly in the United States, where the term means a person of ...
, 2% is Asian
Asian people
Asian people or Asiatic people is a term with multiple meanings that refers to people who descend from a portion of Asia's population.- Central Asia :...
, 1% is African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
, and less than 1% is of another descent.
10% of the student body qualifies for a special education program, while just over 37% of the student body speaks English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
as a second language. 6% of all graduates completed four years of English/language arts study and three years of either mathematics, science, or social studies in 2004–2005.
Ottumwa High School enrolls around twenty foreign exchange student
Student exchange program
A student exchange program generally could be defined as a program where students from secondary school or university choose to study abroad in partner institutions...
s each year.
Faculty
There are approximately 110 full-time faculty at Ottumwa High School, including 16 administratorAcademic administration
An academic administration is a branch of university or college employees responsible for the maintenance and supervision of the institution and separate from the faculty or academics, although some personnel may have joint responsibilities...
s or secretaries
Secretary
A secretary, or administrative assistant, is a person whose work consists of supporting management, including executives, using a variety of project management, communication & organizational skills. These functions may be entirely carried out to assist one other employee or may be for the benefit...
. This places the student-to-teacher ratio at approximately 16:1.
In 2001, anatomy
Anatomy
Anatomy is a branch of biology and medicine that is the consideration of the structure of living things. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy , and plant anatomy...
/physiology
Physiology
Physiology is the science of the function of living systems. This includes how organisms, organ systems, organs, cells, and bio-molecules carry out the chemical or physical functions that exist in a living system. The highest honor awarded in physiology is the Nobel Prize in Physiology or...
teacher Gail Wortmann was named "Iowa Teacher of the Year." She was also awarded the Milken Family Foundation Teacher of the Year award in that year. From 2000–2002, science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
teacher Peggy Steffen served as an Einstein Fellow for NASA.
Extracurricular activities
Students at Ottumwa High School can participate in many extracurricular activities. In addition to 14 varsity athletic teams (baseballBaseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
/softball
Softball
Softball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of 10 to 14 players. It is a direct descendant of baseball although there are some key differences: softballs are larger than baseballs, and the pitches are thrown underhand rather than overhand...
, basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
, bowling
Bowling
Bowling Bowling Bowling (1375–1425; late Middle English bowle, variant of boule Bowling (1375–1425; late Middle English bowle, variant of boule...
, cheerleading
Cheerleading
Cheerleading is a physical activity, sometimes a competitive sport, based on organized routines, usually ranging from one to three minutes, which contain the components of tumbling, dance, jumps, cheers, and stunting to direct spectators of events to cheer on sports teams at games or to participate...
, cross-country running, football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
, golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
, swimming
Swimming (sport)
Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native...
, tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
, track and field
Track and field
Track and field is a sport comprising various competitive athletic contests based around the activities of running, jumping and throwing. The name of the sport derives from the venue for the competitions: a stadium which features an oval running track surrounding a grassy area...
, volleyball
Volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...
, soccer, and wrestling
Scholastic wrestling
Scholastic wrestling, sometimes known in the United States as Folkstyle wrestling, is a style of amateur wrestling practised at the high school and middle school levels in the United States. This wrestling style is essentially Collegiate wrestling with some slight modifications. It is currently...
), OHS offers numerous clubs and other activities such as the JROTC program and Drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
. The OHS drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
department presents several productions annually, and the band
Band (music)
In music, a musical ensemble or band is a group of musicians that works together to perform music. The following articles concern types of musical bands:* All-female band* Big band* Boy band* Christian band* Church band* Concert band* Cover band...
, choir
Choir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
s, and orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
present several concerts.
An art
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
club, debate
Debate
Debate or debating is a method of interactive and representational argument. Debate is a broader form of argument than logical argument, which only examines consistency from axiom, and factual argument, which only examines what is or isn't the case or rhetoric which is a technique of persuasion...
team, speech
Public speaking
Public speaking is the process of speaking to a group of people in a structured, deliberate manner intended to inform, influence, or entertain the listeners...
team, international club, and science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
club are joined by local chapters of DECA, Future Educators of America, SADD, and the National Honor Society
National Honor Society
The National Honor Society is a recognition program for high school students in grades 10-12 in the United States and in several other countries...
(known at OHS as the "Torch Club") to extend opportunities for students. There is also a student council
Students' union
A students' union, student government, student senate, students' association, guild of students or government of student body is a student organization present in many colleges and universities, and has started appearing in some high schools...
with approximately 50 members, who help to plan homecoming (an annual tradition since 1938), intramural sports (basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
, dodgeball
Dodgeball
Dodgeball is any of a variety of games in which players try to hit other players on the opposing team with balls while avoiding being hit themselves. This article is about a well-known form of team sport with modified rules that is often played in physical education classes and has been featured...
, powder puff football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
, and volleyball
Volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...
), and multiple "Spirit Weeks."
Of three intramural sports
Intramural sports
Intramural sports or intramurals are recreational sports organized within a set geographic area. The term derives from the Latin words intra muros meaning "within walls", and was used to indicate sports matches and contests that took place among teams from "within the walls" of an ancient city...
offered yearly, basketball is the most popular. It involves a regular season and a playoff tournament. Intramural dodgeball and beach volleyball seasons also take place each year.
Students may also take a year-long course to help produce the "Argus Annual", an annual yearbook
Yearbook
A yearbook, also known as an annual, is a book to record, highlight, and commemorate the past year of a school or a book published annually. Virtually all American, Australian and Canadian high schools, most colleges and many elementary and middle schools publish yearbooks...
since 1904, the student newspaper
Student newspaper
A student newspaper is a newspaper run by students of a university, high school, middle school, or other school. These papers traditionally cover local and, primarily, school or university news....
(formerly the "Argus News", but is now the "Bulldog Bulletin"), or the student television show ("BNN" -- Standing for "Bulldogs News Network"). A student-run café
Café
A café , also spelled cafe, in most countries refers to an establishment which focuses on serving coffee, like an American coffeehouse. In the United States, it may refer to an informal restaurant, offering a range of hot meals and made-to-order sandwiches...
—with gourmet food cooked by family and consumer science students—offers bi-weekly meals to the community. Another class offers students interested in going directly into a field of work after graduation
Graduation
Graduation is the action of receiving or conferring an academic degree or the ceremony that is sometimes associated, where students become Graduates. Before the graduation, candidates are referred to as Graduands. The date of graduation is often called degree day. The graduation itself is also...
job shadowing experience.
Student traditions are observed around the week of homecoming, which is usually close to the end of September or early October. Students celebrate the school day with "dress-up days", (such as "duct tape
Duct tape
Duct tape, or duck tape, is cloth- or scrim-backed pressure sensitive tape often sealed with polyethylene. It is very similar to gaffer tape but differs in that gaffer tape was designed to be cleanly removed, while duct tape was not. It has a standard width of and is generally silver or black...
day", "pink day", "black day", "Disney day", "Make-your-own t-shirt day", and "hat day"), a parade
Parade
A parade is a procession of people, usually organized along a street, often in costume, and often accompanied by marching bands, floats or sometimes large balloons. Parades are held for a wide range of reasons, but are usually celebrations of some kind...
, a bonfire
Bonfire
A bonfire is a controlled outdoor fire used for informal disposal of burnable waste material or as part of a celebration. Celebratory bonfires are typically designed to burn quickly and may be very large...
/local band concert
Concert
A concert is a live performance before an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, a choir, or a musical band...
, and a football game. Cheerleaders and football players TP each others' houses during homecoming week, and the senior class often celebrates Friday with a senior prank.
Curriculum
Ottumwa High School utilizes a seven-period school day, with classes beginning at 8:15 am12-hour clock
The 12-hour clock is a time conversion convention in which the 24 hours of the day are divided into two periods called ante meridiem and post meridiem...
and ending at 3:00 p.m. School is also dismissed at 12:30 p.m. on every second Wednesday of each month for faculty meetings. All students are required to take several core academic classes, including three years of language arts
Language arts
Traditionally, the primary divisions in the language arts are Literature and Language, where language in this case refers to both linguistics, and specific languages....
, two years of mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
, three years of social studies
Social studies
Social studies is the "integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to promote civic competence," as defined by the American National Council for the Social Studies...
, two years of science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
, and four years of physical education
Physical education
Physical education or gymnastics is a course taken during primary and secondary education that encourages psychomotor learning in a play or movement exploration setting....
to graduate and receive a diploma
Diploma
A diploma is a certificate or deed issued by an educational institution, such as a university, that testifies that the recipient has successfully completed a particular course of study or confers an academic degree. In countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia, the word diploma refers to...
.
As of the 06-07 school year, they mandated an advisory
Academic advising
Academic advising, based in the teaching and learning mission of higher education, is a series of intentional interactions with a curriculum, a pedagogy, and a set of student learning outcomes...
period for all grades. A twenty minute class to set kids in the right direction, and plan their future. Students have the same teacher all four years. It's held between third and fourth period. Students listen to announcements on Tuesday and Fridays. Also used to better organize assemblys, inform students on schedule changes, grade updates, and ITED testing. While many people are opposed to the advisory program for shortening each class, some students say it's an okay program. Black binders hold activities to get your goals accomplished towards a better future. Most of these are seen as useless, busy work. Every person in the building has an advisory including the principal and school nurse. So therefore, going to the nurse is not allowed during advisory. Neither is going to the bathroom allowed. It counts for half a credit per semester if all advisory activities are completed.
46 credits are required, and each daily semester-long course is one credit. A student must have a course load of at least 5½ credits per semester; students are assisted by the faculty when choosing their classes.
The 08-09 school year saw the elimination of the study hall
Study Hall
Study hall or study period is a term for a place and/or time during the school day where students are assigned to study when they are not scheduled for an academic class. They are most commonly found in high schools and some middle schools, especially in the United States...
.
Notable alumni
- Herschel C. LovelessHerschel C. LovelessHerschel Cellel Loveless was the 34th Governor of Iowa, from 1957 to 1961. He was also mayor of Ottumwa, Iowa. He was born in 1911 in Hedrick, Iowa and died in 1989 in Winchester, Virginia....
– 1927 – Governor of Iowa (1957–1961) - Carol MorrisCarol MorrisCarol Ann Laverne Morris , Miss Iowa USA, was the second Miss USA to win the Miss Universe title in the pageant's fifth edition in 1956....
– 1954 – Miss UniverseMiss UniverseMiss Universe is an annual international beauty contest that is run by the Miss Universe Organization. The pageant is the most publicized beauty contest in the world with 600 million viewers....
winner in 1956 - Tom ArnoldTom Arnold (actor)Thomas Dwaine "Tom" Arnold is an American actor and comedian. He has appeared in many films, perhaps most notably True Lies . He was the host of The Best Damn Sports Show Period for four years.-Early life:...
– 1977 – character actor/philanthropist - Stephen BlumbergStephen BlumbergStephen Carrie Blumberg is best known as a bibliomane who lived in Ottumwa, Iowa. He became known as the Book Bandit and was the most successful book thief of the 20th century in the United States.-Personal:At 2:00 a.m...
– 1975 – Rare book thief - Todd DavisTodd DavisRichard Todd Davis is the founder of LifeLock, a personal fraud protection company. Davis is known for regularly giving out his Social Security number, 457-55-5462, in advertisements as a way of publicizing the LifeLock service...
– 1986 – inventor of world-renown Mule Dance - Stevan Robinson – 1989 – musician
- E. J. MatherE. J. MatherEdwin J. Mather was an American football and basketball player and coach. He was selected as an All-Western football player while playing for Lake Forest University in 1909 and went on to a coaching career at Lake Forest , Kalamazoo College , the University of Arkansas , and the University of...
-- football and basketball player and coach - Riley O'Brien -- Midwest 2-liter chugging champion