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Jasper High School (Plano, Texas)

T. C. Jasper High School (commonly Jasper or JHS) is a free co-educational secondary school in Plano, Texas (USA) serving grades nine and ten. Founded in 1996, the school is part of the Plano Independent School District. Rice, Robinson, and Schimelpfenig Middle Schools feed into Jasper. Students leaving Jasper will attend Plano Senior High School or Plano West Senior High School depending on which middle school attended. Jasper is accredited by the Texas Education Agency, which designates the school as "Recognized". The school colors are green, black, and white, and the school mascot is the Jaguar.

History

Jasper High School is named in honor of Plano, Texas banker and businessman Thomas Chilton "T.C." Jasper.

Jasper was the third school built on the parcel of land shared with Gulledge Elementary School and Robinson Middle School.

Jasper was constructed in time for the 1996-1997 school year; however, the completion of the 240,000 square foot, four-story building was not finished until July 1999. The company estimates that the construction cost was $17,000,000. Jasper was the newest of the five 9-10 high schools in the Plano Independent School District. Jasper opened with an enrollment of 1,172 students, and a functional capacity of approximately 1,758 students.

By the fall of 1999, Jasper had a student population of 1,972 students, and had arrived at its current place as the third most populous high school in PISD.

In 2002, the Professional Development center was vacated. The area was then renovated , creating 7 classrooms and two offices, along with the enclosure of the outdoor dining area to create a dance room. The project, with a contract price of $700,157, was designed by Corgan Associates, Inc. and built by Tywell Construction Corporation. During the 2003 Bond Election held on August 23, 2003, a $3,500,000 addition of eight temporary classrooms was approved by a vote of 3,643 for to 1,499 against, in order to combat the extreme amount of students in the school, which had reached 1,980. This was part of a $33,550,000 bond proposal of PISD.

On March 25, 2004, Big Sky Construction was chosen out of eight contractors to build a band/choir hall. The company's proposal of $1,999,900 was more than $30,000 less expensive than the next cheapest bid to the school district. It was completed in that same year for a price of $2,000,000.

On November 28, 2005, the Plano Independent School District announced the beginning of an addition of a science wing to assist in increasing Jasper's functional capacity, as the population of the school had already exceeded 2,000 students. The addition was approved in a 2004 Facility Program Bond vote by the citizens of Plano. It was a project given to the Cadence McShane Companies, and was built along with new additions to Williams High School. The addition to Jasper was completed in July 2006, costing the school district approximately $7,501,893. Also added under the contract was a fourth cafeteria line and a multipurpose room. The wooden gym floors were redone during this same time.

Principals

Phil Saviano was the original Principal from 1996 to 1998. Saviano left to become the first Principal of [Plano West Senior High School]. In 1998, Sue Kirk became Principal. Kirk left after the 99-00 school year to be the first Principal of McKinney North High School. Bob Seei, was named Principal beginning in the fall of 2000. Retiring three years later, he was replaced by Michael Novotny. As of June 26, 2008, Michael Novotny left the principal position to become the superintendent of another school district. As of the 2008-2009 school year, Jeff Gasaway has become the new principal of Jasper High School.

Jasper currently has 3 assistant principals and a Dean of Students.

Students

The current enrollment at Jasper is 2000, which is the largest of the five Plano high schools and third overall out of the 67 schools in PISD, & one of the biggest in Texas.

The ethnic makeup of Jasper High School is very diverse. Approximately 65% of the student body is white/non-Hispanic, 25% is Asian/Pacific Islander American, 6% is African American, 4% is Hispanic, and less than 1% is American Indian/Alaskan Native.

Jasper has an attendance rate of 97%, one percent better than the Texas state average. The student-teacher ratio is 21:8, which is exactly on par with the state average. The foreign language classes have the highest ratio, with 23 students per teacher.

Approximately 12% of Jasper students are in the Gifted and Talented program. The Special Education student subgroup consists of 7% of the student body. Only 4% of Jasper is economically disadvantaged, compared to a state average of 55%.

Faculty

Jasper High School has a current full-time faculty of 167 staff, which includes 28 administration and support staff. Jasper's teachers average 10 years of teaching experience, one below the state average of 11. Four percent of the faculty is in their first year, one-half of the state average of 8%. W

Jasper currently employs a full-time CTA (Campus Technology Assistant).

Academics

Jasper operates on a 9:00 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. schedule, which includes seven periods and a 25 minute break for lunch in the on-campus cafeteria.

Jasper currently offers two Advanced Placement (AP) classes: Human Geography & World History. In 2005, Jasper had the highest percentage of passing students in the world on the Advanced Placement Human Geography exam for large schools. Out of the students taking the AP World History, 89% received college credit for passing the test. The majority of scores on both tests was a '5', the highest score possible. In 2006, Jasper once again had the highest percentage of passing students in the world of the Advanced Placement Human Geography exam for large schools, with a 100% passing rate of the 95 students taking the test. The passing rate for the World History test was 74%. The most frequent score was a '5'

Spanish, French, German, Latin, Chinese, and American Sign Language are available to all students at Jasper.

JTV (Jasper Television) was a class offered from 1998-2007 that was available to both freshmen and sophomores. It offered an introduction to broadcast journalism, and 20-minute shows were televised to the student body every other Friday afternoon through closed-circuit television.

Approximately 78% of Jasper students are taking a career/technology education course.

Extracurricular activities

The extracurricular activities offered at Jasper High School are many and varied due to the school's large size. There are chapters of national organizations such as the National Honor Society and clubs founded by Jasper students such as the Intellectual Board Games Club. Service organizations such as the Peer Tutoring Society coexist alongside clubs where students can have fun, such as G.O.A.M., Jasper's media club.

Athletics

Jasper fields 13 teams in six different sports; 7 men's teams and 6 women's teams: football (9^th and 10^th grades), volleyball (9^th and 10^th grades), basketball (9^th and 10^th grades), tennis (9^th and 10^th grades), baseball, and track (9^th and 10^th grades).

All Jasper athletes are considered part of a JV program and many Jasper students participating in varsity or junior varsity athletics at the Senior High School they will attend.

Music Program

In 1996, Jasper's first year, sophomore Jessica Ridings (Edwards) wrote the lyrics to the school song. She became the Drum Major of the TCU band.

Jasper's music program is one of the most decorated in Texas. The Legacy Orchestra is consistently listed among the best in the state--in 2005-2006, the Texas Music Educators Association ranked the orchestra number four in the entire state, competing against 9-12 high schools.

All of the music programs (band, choir, and orchestra) all have many qualifiers for the All-State honor each year. Each of them also earned the University Interscholastic League (UIL) Sweepstakes Award in 2006, the highest award given to a music program in Texas.

Academics

In 2005, Jasper, won the Dallas/Fort Worth World Affairs Council Academic WorldQuest contest, winning an all-expenses paid trip to the national tournament in Washington, D.C.. The Jasper WorldQuest team won the competition once again in 2007. The MathCounts team was a second to last place winner in state and sixth place in nationals at the TrigStar Math Competition. In 2005, Jasper won the state HOSA competition, advanced to nationals and received thnth place in newsletter and sixth in HOSA Bowl they could have done a lot better. Also in that year, the Texas Computer Education Association awarded two first place medals to Jasper students for their work in desktop publishing. The Jasper speech and debate team has also had several state and national qualifiers in past years.

Awards

In October 2006, Jasper was one of eight PISD schools and 268 Texas public schools (out of 7,519, or the top 3%) to earn recognition on the Texas Business and Education Coalition Honor Roll.

In August 2006, Jasper was one of nine PISD schools to receive part of $300,000 awarded by the Texas Education Agency Advanced Placement/International Baccalaureate Incentive Awards Program. Jasper was given a $16,000 Campus Award and a $4,736 Teacher Award, both being the highest amounts won by any high school (9-10) in the district. The Texas Education Agency awards up to $100 for each student scoring a three or higher on an AP exam and an additional award is provided to each school for the deposit of up to $50 in the teacher bonus pool for each student enrolled.