The Campus Laboratory School Records (1899-1997) document the operation, administration, and mission of the San Diego State University Campus Lab School, and includes correspondence, reports, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, photographs, student work, and meeting minutes.  The majority of materials primarily date from the 1960s and focus on the school's innovative teaching methods and experimentation.  Highlights include several scrapbooks with photographs of students working on school projects, staging plays, and going on field trips.  The collection is divided into five series: Administrative Files (1899-1993), Library Files (1950-1970), Parents Association Files (1949-1971), Campus Lab School Publications (1955-1977), and Photograph, Scrapbook, and Student Project Files (1925-1970).

Initially named the Training School, the Campus Laboratory School (or Campus Lab School) was established in 1900, and located on the State Normal School campus.  The school provided instruction for elementary, middle, and high school students in small classes where they could receive more individualized instruction. Besides serving as a grammar school, the Training School allowed Normal School students the opportunity to instruct the students themselves, thus providing practice and teaching experience. When Edward Hardy began his term as president in 1910, he discontinued the high school segment of the Training School because increasing enrollment (by 1910 the Training School had over four hundred students) was causing space problems. To accommodate the growth in enrollment the school moved into a separate building. 

5.51 Linear Feet

The copyright interests in some of these materials have been transferred to or belong to San Diego State University. The nature of historical archival and manuscript collections means that copyright status may be difficult or even impossible to determine. Copyright resides with the creators of materials contained in the collection or their heirs. Requests for permission to publish must be submitted to the Head of Special Collections, San Diego State University, Library and Information Access. When granted, permission is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical item and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder(s), which must also be obtained in order to publish.  Materials from our collections are made available for use in research, teaching, and private study. The user must assume full responsibility for any use of the materials, including but not limited to, infringement of copyright and publication rights of reproduced materials.

This collection is open for research.