Pottsville Area High School is a coeducational public high school located in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. It is part of the Pottsville Area School District and is the largest public high school in Schuylkill County. It was founded in 1853 and offers a comprehensive program with an enrollment of approximately 1,000 students in ninth through twelfth grades.
Students from the neighboring Saint Clair Area School District attend the high school, with their district paying PASD tuition. The school building, with its Italian Gothic brickwork, retains its architectural and historical integrity while housing modern facilities, including four science labs, a planetarium and observatory, four computer labs, three art studios and two music studios, and two gymnasiums.
The library has a collection of 10,000 volumes, more than 40 magazine subscriptions, and access to resources throughout the state via computer systems. A formal 1,499-seat auditorium and a little theater are unique features of the building. Within the district complex are tennis courts, athletic fields, and a sports complex including a natatorium. The current high school building was constructed in 1932 and continues to stand as an example of architectural genius.
History 19th century
The first publicly printed indication of the school board's intent to organize a high school in Pottsville appeared in a newspaper issue dated September 6, 1847. It announced that the school would open with Elias F. Perrin as principal; Monsieur F. Perrin, teacher of French and German; W. P. Koutz, of natural science, history, and elocution; and E. Sagendorf, of English. A later notation announced that Pottsville High School was to be dedicated on January 1, 1848. The above-named teachers were those who had conducted the Pottsville Academy.Pottsville High School Centennial: 1853-1953, page 4
On February 18, 1851, the school board advertised that applications for superintendent of schools would be received. The reply from Elias Schneider seemed to indicate definitely that the board had intended to establish a high school in September 1851, since he said in part: "I do, therefore, offer myself as a candidate for the office of a superintendent of your schools, with the expectation that the high school will be commenced next 1st of September." Mr. Schneider, who assumed his duties on April 1, 1851, received a salary of $50 a month. A report by Superintendent Schneider, on which the March 15, 1853, date of the founding of the high school is based, was received by the school board on March 3, 1853. The report asked for favorable consideration of a plan to divide the No. 1 male school. (Bunker Hill grammar school), by transferring the most advanced pupils from this room into the one above. "At present, we have a high school in reality but not in name. As we have the thing, let us have the name," Schneider's report stated. Then he continued, "A high school proper can be established without any other additional expense than the salary of a female teacher. Mr. Gotshall and I can attend to the upper classes, and the male assistant with a female can teach the others.
This arrangement would give me just about sufficient time to attend my general duties, as well as to some daily recitations." The school board of the time was faced with many problems concerning the operation of the new high school, but what they were is a matter of conjecture because historical information on the subject is meager. However, the weather did occupy the attention of the directors at a meeting on May 18, 1853, when many people petitioned the board to have only one session of school during the hot weather, from 7:30 A. M. to 1:30 P.M. A paid advertisement appearing in The Miners' Journal issue of April 26, 1851, gave the following regulations for the operation of the common schools as adopted April 10, 1851: "The hours of instruction shall be from 8 o 'clock until 12 in the morning, and from 2 P. M. until 5 in the afternoon, from the 1st of April until the 1st of October; and from 9 o 'clock until 12 in the morning and from 1 o'clock until 4 in the afternoon from the 1st of October until the 1st of April. "A vacation shall be allowed the month of August, and in the afternoon of each Saturday. The schools shall also be closed on the 1st day of January, Good Friday, in Easter week until the Tuesday following, 4th of July, and Christmas Day, and on such other days as the directors may allow."Pottsville High School Centennial: 1853-1953, page 4 - 6
Graduation from high school during the first eight years of its operation carried no tangible evidence of it for the boys and girls who had completed the course. According to an early newspaper clipping, the Class of 1862 was the first to receive diplomas. These went to a class of ten, seven girls and three boys. Among them were James B. Reilly (who later represented the area in Congress), Alfred J. Derr, Joseph W. Gumpfert, and Miss Wynkoop. The commencement was in the form of a public examination conducted by the faculty of the State Normal School. At the time, J. W. Roseberry was president of the school board, and Christopher Little was the secretary. The receipt of a diploma, however, didn't help the school enrollment during the Civil War period. Many scholars enlisted, and others went to work. The school became practically non-operative and higher education for Pottsville pupils virtually halted at the grammar school level.Pottsville High School Centennial: 1853-1953, page 6
Benjamin F. Patterson was selected as a high school principal in March 1865. On April 1, 1867, he was named superintendent, a position he held until his death in July 1906.
After the American Civil War, a committee comprising Peter W. Sheafer, William B. Wells, Christopher Little, John W. Roseberry, and David A. Smith reorganized the high school, and it was again placed on a firm basis. The P. H. S. Annual of 1905 said of the reorganization, "At this time a curriculum was adopted which has suffered little change." The then prevailing three-year course offered the following subjects: First (Junior Year) ~ History, algebra, geometry, foundation of Latin, Caesar, elocution; Second (Middle Year) ~ Geometry, physiology, literature, botany, composition, Cicero, Latin prose, Caesar, elocution, physical geography; Third (Senior Year ) ~ Physics, Cicero, Virgil, rhetoric, civics, astronomy, trigonometry, chemistry, geology, elocution.
A fourth or post-graduate year offered these subjects: Solid geometry, advanced algebra, Virgil, Cicero, prose composition, review of the three years' work in Latin, and mathematics. Elective subjects included German, French, Greek, teachers' course, and mathematics. Shortly before the school's reorganization, its location was moved to the old Academy building at Fifth and West Norwegian Streets. At the time, enrollment numbered 14 pupils. The school site was the Jackson Street building from 1876 to 1894, when it was transferred to the Garfield building at Fifth and West Norwegian Streets; then, in 1916, to the Patterson building at Twelfth and Market Streets; and finally, in January 1933, to the present location at Sixteenth Street and Elk Avenue.Pottsville High School Centennial: 1853-1953, page 8
Within ten years following the school's reorganization, enrollments increased. School board proceedings of the time showed the enrollment of 59 pupils and three teachers in 1873; 78 pupils and two teachers in 1878; 81 pupils and three teachers in June 1882, and 144 pupils and three teachers in November 1893. The all-time high enrollment in the school's history was 1,700 students during the 1939–40 term. During this period of rapid growth, the high school was directed by Stephen A. Thurlow, another outstanding figure in local educational circles. Thurlow was named principal in September 1881 and became superintendent in 1906 upon Patterson's death. Thurlow served as superintendent until his death on January 4, 1912.
The closing years of the Nineteenth Century marked another major step forward in Pennsylvania, making a high school education possible for many who could not otherwise afford it. The Legislature adopted the Free School Book Act, and in September 1893, all public school scholars received their textbooks without cost. Previously, high school textbooks would cost approximately $25, a large sum in those days. In commenting on the issuance of free textbooks, the P. H. S. Annual of 1894 had this to say: "The benefit to be derived from this cannot be told in a short space, but it is sufficient to say that the whole country will be benefited by graduating from the schools, intelligent and educated men and women."
20th century
With the increase in the student body during the 1876-'94 period, while the school was situated in the Jackson Street building, came the first large-scale expansion of the school curriculum. A commercial department was added, but as a separate unit. On March 12, 1912, it was merged with the academic department. The beginning of the second half of the school's centennial history brought an innovation that ranked only second to the issuance of free textbooks in promoting the school's growth. This marked the inauguration of a four-year course that took effect in September 1908. The 1908 issue of the Annual related: "For some years a four-year course has been agitated for the high school, but up to this time it has received no serious attention. The visit of the State Inspector of High Schools, however, seems to have brought the matter before the minds of the board and the people in general as never before."
The Annual report stated, "A four-year course would mean much for the high school, much in the way of scholarship and in preparation for college or for immediate entrance to the business world. This expansion of the curriculum would require more space and more teachers, but surely Pottsville can afford it with its boasted wealth and love of education. Under existing conditions, we are hampered by the lack of time for such studies as rhetoric, chemistry, and astronomy, three of the most difficult and important studies in the curriculum." The Class of 1912 was the first to graduate under the four-year curriculum; there was no 1911 class, but the new educational venture brought with it new problems for the school board.Pottsville High School Centennial: 1853-1953, page 10
When school resumed in Fall 1914, there was not sufficient room to accommodate the pupils. Within a period of six years, the enrollment had increased from 100 to 300, and fully 100 more were listed for the 1914-'15 term. A number of plans were considered by the school board, among them a suggestion that a new building be erected at Nineteenth and Market Streets or that the Garfield building, then the site of the high school, be enlarged by adding another story. The most practical idea, however, seemed to be the one proposed for enlarging the Patterson building at Twelfth Street to accommodate the high school pupils. Architect F. X. Reilly drew up plans to enlarge the Patterson building; Contractor Wertley was awarded the contract for $44,250, and on September 29, 1916, the new school opened with an enrollment of 500 pupils.