It’s a foggy Monday morning at Eureka High, buses pulling up and dropping kids off on the sidewalk, and circles of kids with Rick and Morty and Powderpuff Girl Bape backpacks stand between the bike racks. Teachers and the superintendents stand in front of the office, watching students pass through the quad doors. The bell rings, and enormous amounts of bodies pour through the tightly packed hallways, trying to get to their first period. This is a regular day at Eureka High.
At Arcata High, groups of kids crowd the main entrance. School staff greet those walking in. When the bell rings, hallways fill with students. Both Eureka and Arcata offer the same drudgy high school morning experience. The main differences are the social aspects.
Academically, Eureka and Arcata are not all that different. Eureka High is in the Eureka City Schools District, while Arcata High is in the Northern Humboldt Consortium of Schools District, which operates similarly. The real difference is the student experience.
Courses
Both schools offer similar classes based on what accommodations they have. Both schools have a woodworking class and an auto class. Both schools offer some arts and sciences. One specificity between the school’s art programs is that Arcata is run by Arcata Arts Institute (AAI), and Eureka High is managed simply by the school. AAI manages drama, music, and visual design classes. AAI offers more diverse courses to students compared to Eureka High, with music courses like Jazz Band, Choir, and an Orchestra Ensemble.
“Eureka has more music classes, but they don’t have as much participation as we do at Arcata,” senior Jessica Kaber, a past student of Eureka High, said
One class Eureka has that Arcata does not is a Guitar class. Guitar at Eureka has three different levels of classes: Guitar 1, 2, and 3. Eureka also offers an advanced choir class called “Limited Edition.”
A class that both schools offer, but Eureka has more access to is the Yurok language class. I took the Yurok class at Eureka, and there you can go to the teacher almost anytime for help. At Arcata, the Yurok class is only offered at McKinleyville, so students must bus between schools to attend. The classes at both Eureka and McKinleyville are run by the same teacher. Props to the teacher for going between schools all the time.
Policies
At Arcata High, you can find yourself wandering around the school parking lot for minutes, trying to find a parking spot. As well as tough parking, the school makes it harder with the requirement of parking permits. Personally, I have not acquired my parking permit and have been able to park off campus without any problems. At Eureka, parking close to the school is scarce, but you can find a larger parking lot in the back with lots of free space. No parking permits are required at Eureka High.
One thing that drives students crazy at both schools is the phone policy. At Arcata, teachers make students put their phones in pockets or cases of some sort. At Eureka, there are not many phone pockets, but if students are seen with their phone in class, it is sent straight to the office for the whole day. There’s a strike system at Eureka High which performs as follows: first strike is when the phone is taken away for a day, the second strike is that the phone is sent to the office and the office calls home, and third strike is they take your phone and make you sign a contract stating you won’t bring your phone to school for 30 days. Here at Arcata, I have only seen teachers threaten to start taking phones more often.
