For 75 years, University Laboratory High School, known as Uni High, has
had a relationship with the UI. Like a long-standing marriage, it was always
evolving, occasionally shaky, but inevitably, mutually rewarding.
Histories of the high school point out that it actually started in 1892,
more than 100 years ago, when it was deemed necessary to give some students
at the UI from rural areas a year of preparatory training to help them meet
the entrance requirements at the UI. The school's format and name changed
over the next nine years, until it was closed in 1911.
Within two years, the College of Education asked for a laboratory high school
where space would be available to education faculty members for research.
In September 1921, the doors on a new building opened to the first class
at University Laboratory High School. It was less than half the size requested
and planned, but Uni's history had begun.
"The University High School started originally as a training school
for teachers," said Warren Royer, a long-time Uni High principal, now
retired. "During the evolution of the school, they discovered that
the size of school would not admit as many practice teachers as the College
of Education was developing."
As part of its ongoing change, one of the first revolutionary steps instituted
at Uni was the beginning of what is known as the sub-freshman program.
"In 1932, they developed the ideal of an accelerated program, with
a combined seventh- and eigth-grade program. The impression was the [seventh-
and eigth-grade] program was accelerated, but it was true for the whole
seventh through 12th grade," Royer said.
The school also had to begin to administer an admissions test, because demand
for the school exceeded its capacity, he said. Students had to qualify academically
for admission to Uni, creating what would eventually be called classes of
'gifted' students.
"[Selecting students through testing] also weighted it against using
it as a practice-teaching facility, because this lent weight to special
populations," Royer said.
But Royer points out that while the distance between the College of Education
and Uni grew over the next few decades, great innovations in education and
research were developing at the high school. Max Beberman's New Math, and
expanded social studies and foreign language programs gave Uni the reputation
as a place where innovative education being developed.
"There were people who felt it was a value to the university to have
a program they could point to as, at least in some respects, an example
of what a high school might be," Royer said.
It was a close call in 1981, when Uni was nearly closed. The College of
Education could no longer afford to fund the school, and because it was
a university-driven program, Uni didn't (and still doesn't) receive local
property tax dollars. By July 1983, Uni was no longer connected to the College
of Education. The high school is now funded through a general state-aid
program, UI funds, and voluntary donations by parents. Its administrators
now report directly to Provost Larry Faulkner.
While no longer directly affiliated with the College of Education, Uni still
has connections to that college and others across campus.
"People might not be aware of the collaborative projects we do with
the school in departments across the university," said Shelley Roberts,
principal and director of University Laboratory High School. "We have
the greatest numbers of researchers coming from the College of Education,
both graduate students and professors. But we also have people coming over
to do research from the department of human resources and familystudies,
the department of kinesiology and the math department. Some of our teachers
go to the College of Education and help teach in some of the preservice
education courses. We have student observers and student teachers in our
classes. We also have people on our faculty who have taught courses in the
College of Education and have adjunct status in departments across campus.
I hope one of the things we do is contribute to the UI."
The availability of innovative education can and does attract and retain
faculty to the UI. And students also benefit from Uni's close relationship
with the UI. Students work in various departments across campus, including
the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, and a variety of faculty
and staff members on campus have been available to students as mentors for
independent study projects. Uni students also have access to most of the
UI's facilities, including the library, the Illini Union and book store
and the athletic teams use UI facilities on a space-available basis. Uni
students who have a 4.0 grade-point average on a 5.0 scale and are at least
15 years old can take concurrent courses at the UI.
"It's a reciprocal relationship," Roberts said. "It's nice
to have things go both ways."
Because it is independent, Uni is not tied by curricular regulations most
public schools must follow. It also does not have to adhere to any district
boundaries and brings in students from not only Champaign and Urbana, but
also surrounding communities. Despite the belief that Uni is a school for
children of UI faculty and staff members, only about half of the student
body has a connection by family to the UI.
The changed affiliation of the school to the Provost's office also has helped
with retaining teachers at Uni, Roberts said.
"The faculty used to be transient. Many were graduate assistants in
the College of Education," Roberts said. "In the last 10 years,
we have developed a career faculty, which has added continuity to the school.
The lab mission of the school is at the core of their professional lives.
They've taken the spirit of the lab school fostered in the school of education,
but put it back in the hands of teachers, rather than college researchers."
University Laboratory High School is still evolving as its teachers develop
even more progressive educational programs for their students and as the
relationship to the UI grows and blooms. The school is celebrating its 75th
anniversary with a weekend of reunion activities beginning Oct. 18 through
Oct. 20, for both alumni and students. The school is touting its record
with Nobel prize-winning alumni, and celebrating the achievements of all
the young people who have gone in and come out of its doors.
"The reunion lets people know our legacy and what this institution
stands for in this community," Roberts said.
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