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The Salt Lake City School District is among the oldest public school districts in Utah. Boundaries for the district are identical to the city limits for Salt Lake City. Employing about 1,300 teachers who instruct about 24,000 students K-12, the district is the fifth largest in the state behind Jordan School District, Granite School District, Davis School District, and Alpine School District. Two of the district's high schools, East and West, are over 90 years old.

High schools

All high schools in the Salt Lake City District serve grades 9-12. The district operates three high schools as of 2004: East High School near the University of Utah serving the central-east part of the city, West High School in western downtown serving the north and west area, and Highland High School near Sugar House Park serving the southeast. Additionally, the district runs an alternative/adult education school, Horizonte High School, located on Main Street in the south central city.

A high school no longer extant—South High School (Salt Lake City), on State Street—once served the southern part of Salt Lake City. The district built this school during the depression to accommodate about 1000 students from the private LDS High School, which closed in 1931. South High was located in some of the poorer areas of Salt Lake City with a population increasingly devoid of school age children by the 1980s. Falling enrollment throughout the school district prompted the district to close the less influential South High after the 1987-1988 school year. Schools with older facilities, such as East and West, as well as Highland High School received students from portions of the former South High school bounderies. The district donated the South High School school building to the Salt Lake Community College.

East High School

East High School serves grades nine through twelve. It also accepts and cares for mentally and physically disabled children. East High School was founded in 1914 and currently has an enrolled student body of 1,996. It is located at 840 South 1300 East in the East Bench neighborhood. The school mascot is the Leopard. Academically, in 2002-03 East had seven National Merit Semi-finalists and one National Merit Winner, four Sterling Scholar State Finalists and one State Winner, with 30 percent of students regularly on the Honor Roll. East High has also earned over 65 athletic State Championships in its history. Sports teams in 2003-04 won three State Championship and four Region Championship Trophies. Service groups at East provide assistance regularly to the community. One-fourth of senior students earned Block “E” Awards for their service and involvement in school activities in 2003-04. Their Debate team is also famed for having a National Winning Original Oratory. During the 2007-2008 school year, East High School had six National Merit Semi-Finalists, five of whom advanced to Finalist standing.

Most of the Disney Channel film High School Musical was filmed at East. Most recently, the opening scenes of High School Musical 2 (including the film's opening number, What Time Is It?) were also filmed at East High. Additional filming took place in St. George.

Noted Alumni:

• James Irwin, astronaut who walked on the moon (Class of 1947)
• Merrill Cook, U.S. House of Representatives, 1997-2001 (Class of 1964)
• Roseanne Barr, actress and comedienne (dropout in 1970)
• Sione Pouha, defensive tackle for the New York Jets (class of 1997)
• Elizabeth Smart, a teenager abducted in 2002 (Class of 2006)

Highland High School

Highland High School opened in 1956 and has a student body of about 1,788. It is located at 2166 South 1700 East, next to Sugar House Park. The current principal is Paul Schulte.

During the 2006-2007 school year, Highland began hosting a school known as the Salt Lake School for the Performing Arts (SPA), which over the next one or two years will be constructed alongside the school. It will offer programs in music, theater, and dance, as well as feature a 3500 to 4000 seat auditorium. Enrollment is expected to reach its maximum of 400 within thirteen years.

Highland High School is noted for its rugby union team. Since Larry Gelwix started the team in 1975, they have compiled a phenomenal 361-9 record. It has won the national high school championship in 17 of the last 23 years (when the national championship game was instigated) and in that time span has never placed lower than third, which it has achieved just once. It is also the only team to have participated in every national rugby championship. In 1998 Highland participated in the first World Schools Rugby Championship held in Harare, Zimbabwe. They were the only team from the Western Hemisphere included and placed 3rd place out of 12 teams.

It's football team is also one of the best in the reigon and has been reigon champs for five years running. There coach is the noted Brody Benson and in his first year as head coach took the team to a state championship game. In the semi-finals the played one of highlands most amazing games winning a game against Box Elder in over time by a field goal. That one kick took them to state. With a strong ethic and a great team there are big things expected of the Highland Football team in the upcoming years.

The basketball team has a local reputation of being unfairly chosen. There is much controversy whether Coach Keith West already has his team picked out before tryouts or not. Coach West was found guilty of undue influence and was punished with a five-game suspension (which he appealed) and a one-year suspension. Many of the kids don't feel like trying out because the team is run by some of the fathers of current players. In the 2006-2007 season, the majority of them were in 10th grade, with two 11th graders and two 12th graders (one who didn't play.) This infuriated many parents, claiming that their kids never had a chance. The court papers describe blatant disregard for many players at Spring and Summer basketball camps, saying that West paid attention to only those on the team. When one student attempted to write an article in the school newspaper about it, Coach West complained to Principal Schulte and Schulte edited the article without consulting the student first, taking out some quotes and putting in some wrong information of his own. Principal Schulte said that he doesn't want to bring it up and that he just wants to forget about it.

Noted Alumni:

• Jon M. Huntsman, Jr., current Governor of Utah and son of billionaire philanthropist Jon M. Huntsman, Sr. of Huntsman Corporation
• Jeff Judkins, basketball player for Boston Celtics, Portland Trailblazers, Utah Jazz, Detroit Pistons and current head coach for women's basketball at Brigham Young University.
• Terry Tempest Williams, author best known for "Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place" published in 1991.
• Jon Schmidt, pianist
• Peter Breinholt, singer/songwriter.
• John Bytheway, LDS author and youth speaker.
• Haloti Ngata, defensive tackle for the Baltimore Ravens and first-round 2006 NFL Draft pick
• Logan Tom, Olympic indoor volleyball and professional beach volleyball player.
• Stewart Bradley, outside linebacker for the Philadelphia Eagles and third-round 2007 NFL Draft pick, 87 overall

West High School

West High is located at 241 North 300 West in Salt Lake City. West High was Salt Lake City's first high school. It was known as Salt Lake High School at the time. On the School Seal, it still says "Salt Lake High School". The school has a shooting range, and used to have an underground fallout shelter. West High has a student population of 2,278 under Principal Margery Parker. In addition to students in grades nine through twelve, West High School serves a group of 7th and 8th graders in an Extended Learning Program (ELP). The school mascot is a panther, and the school colors are red and black.

Noted Alumni:

• Shannon Hale, Class of 1992, young adult author
• Thomas S. Monson, Class of 1944(?), President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
• Larry H. Miller, Class of 1962, prominent Utah businessman and owner of the Utah Jazz.
• Robison Wells, Class of 1996, novelist
• Earl Holding, owner of Little America Hotels
• Holden Magroin, author of Doing Business for Dummies

Middle schools

There are five middle schools in the Salt Lake City School District. All middle schools in the district teach grades 7-8.

In addition, West High School offers grade 7 and 8 for some students as part of the "Extended Learning Program" (ELP).

Elementary schools

The district operates 27 elementary schools. All elementary schools in the district serve grades K-6, with some offering preschool services.

In 1999, the district approved a bond that would reconstruct 20 of the elementary schools as well as Northwest Middle School. In addition, two elementary schools were closed for the 2002-2003 school season (Rosslyn Heights in Sugar House and Lowell in The Avenues) while serving as temporary campuses for the reconstructed schools. They were originally going to choose two schools off of a list of eight to be closed, and eventually the school board decided to close Lowell and Rosslyn Heights (the latter of which was not on the list). This aroused considerable protest from parents, teachers, and even board members, and lawsuits were filed against the district. However, they failed to keep the schools open.

References

1. \
2. Erickson, Tiffany (2006) Salt Lake board OKs charter school hybrid for next fall, Deseret Morning News
3. Jewkes, Wade. "Highland High routs Jesuit, wins 17th national championship Deseret Morning News, May 21, 2007.
4. http://deseretnews.com/cgi-bin/cqcgi_plus/@plus.env
5. http://deseretnews.com/cgi-bin/cqcgi_plus/@plus.env?CQ_SESSION_KEY=QOPWEERWNBZM&CQ_CUR_DOCUMENT=6&CQ_TEXT_MAIN=YES
6. The Highland Rambler, Volume 50, Number 6, March 2007
7. Reported by the student that wrote the article

External links

• Salt Lake City School District
  • East High's homepage
  • West High School homepage
  • Highland High School homepage
  • Horizonte High School webpage
  • Backman Elementary homepage

• Articles needing cleanup from January 2008
• Cleanup tagged articles without a reason field from January 2008
• Misplaced Pages pages needing cleanup from January 2008
• Salt Lake City, Utah
• School districts in Utah