Tables 1. Statistics of high schools of major types of organization. Page 11 2. Number of public secondary day schools responding, by State, and by type of organization.. 14 3. Public secondary day schools having activity periods, by length of period, by size of school, and by type of organization, 1949–49 . . 4. Public secondary day schools having activity periods, by length of period, and by State, 1948-49. IV 15 16 Foreword WITHIN the last decade the activity period has been adopted by an increasing number of high schools, even in those unaffected by bus transportation schedules. These schools believe it is a means for developing desirable civic and social activities for all pupils and for applying the total resources of school staff and equipment to the pupil activity program. They contend that activities serving the needs of only a segment of the student body and sponsored by only a part of the faculty are only halfways programs. Half-way programs convince neither pupils nor teachers of the importance of their joint responsibility for integrating activities with the formal school program. The purpose of this publication is to report practices regarding activity period organization in public high schools. We hope that the data, obtained from the replies of 10,925 public high schools to the Inventory of Offerings and Enrollments in High-School Subjects, will be helpful to the profession generally and will stimulate further inquiry into the problem of how best to organize effective pupil activity programs in meeting the needs and interests of all secondary school youth. Halen Jones GALEN JONES, Director, Organization, Instruction and Services Branch. V organize A LMOST ALL public high schools provide opportunities for their pupils to participate in extraclass activities, but they do not provide for them in the same way. The procedures which high schools adopt in organizing for extraclass activities generally follow one of these three patterns: (1) THE ACTIVITY PERIOD, which is intended to provide for most extraclass activities within the daily time schedule, (2) THE CORE PROGRAM, which consolidates many of the extraclass activities with the class activities, (3) THE BEFORE-SCHOOL AND AFTER-SCHOOL activities program, which provides for most of the extraclass activities outside of the regular school session. Though these patterns of organization are rather dissimilar in operation, they do not necessarily differ as to objectives. It is possible for an individual school to use a combination of these procedures, and to that extent they are not mutually exclusive. Nevertheless, the procedure adopted by a particular school reflects its philosophy in organizing extraclass activities. Patterns (1) and (2) indicate that the school has planned to some extent a policy for providing pupil activities within the daily time schedule; pattern (3) does not indicate whether there has been over-all planning or whether activities have, like Topsy, "just growed." The Activity Period High schools employing the activity period point out that it is a means for providing coordination of pupil activities in homeroom, assembly, group guidance, club program, and intramurals. For example, in one |