Highland_Park_High_School_(University_Park,_Texas)

Highland Park High School (University Park, Texas)

Highland Park High School

Motto	"Enter to Learn, Go Forth to Serve."
Established	1922
Type	Public School
Principal	Patrick Cates
Location	4220 Emerson University Park, Texas (Dallas address) United States
District	Highland Park Independent School District
Enrollment	2,063 students
Grades	Ninth Grade to Twelfth Grade
Publication	The Bagpipe
Band	The Highlander Band
Drill Team	Highland Belles
Mascot	Fighting Scot
Website	http://hs.hpisd.org/

Highland Park High School is located in University Park, Texas.

Highland Park is a part of the Highland Park Independent School District. It serves all of the city of University Park, most of the town of Highland Park, and portions of Dallas.

History

The school was established in 1922. Before 1922, Highland Park students who were ready for high school rode the trolley down Cole Avenue to Dallas to attend Bryan Street High School. When the new high school opened in January, 1922, pupils in eighth and ninth grade attended school at Armstrong Elementary School in Highland Park in half-day sessions until the building was ready for occupancy. They returned to Armstrong for lunch the remainder of that year. Those who had cars filled them to capacity for the "trip to lunch", and the other students walked.

The tenth grade was added in the fall of 1922, and the eleventh grade a year later. In 1924, thirty-three students became the first graduating class of the Highland Park Independent School District. (At that time, only eleven years of school were required prior to college admittance, and it was not until 1937 that the twelfth grade was added.) It was this first location on Highschool Street and Granada that became the middle school in 1937 when the current Highland Park High School building was erected on Emerson Avenue. The old building become the Highland Park Junior High School, which in later years was renamed Arch H. McCulloch Middle School. The school added the fifth grade and split into Highland Park Middle School for grades 7 and 8 and Arch H. McCulloch Intermediate School for 5th and 6th graders upon moving to a new facility after which the old building was demolished.

In 2003, a 4 year remodel of the school was completed which added a new wing to provide more classroom space and allow for a new, larger cafeteria. Additionally, the project included the addition of outdoor tennis courts, a softball field, and a parking garage.

Currently, Highland Park High School is the only high school in the Highland Park Independent School District. Other schools in the district include University Park Elementary, Robert S. Hyer Elementary, John S. Armstrong Elementary, and Bradfield Elementary. These four schools feed into Arch H. McCulloch Intermediate School and Highland Park Middle School, both of which are housed in the same building.

Recent events

In 1999, Dallas police issued 200 alcohol and curfew violations citations to Park Cities teens partying in a Deep Ellum warehouse. CNN picked up the story, and after it emerged that parents had rented the facility and contracted a bus company to safely deliver drunken high school students to and from the party, the Alliance on Underage Drinking (ALOUD) started the "Parents Who Host, Lose the Most" campaign, which informs parents about health, safety and legal ramifications of serving alcohol to underage individuals.

In late 2004, Simon & Schuster published young adult author Francine Pascal's The Ruling Class, a teen drama set at Highland Park High School. The school's newspaper The Bagpipe published community reactions to the book, and online reviews are mixed.

In late 2005, The Dallas Morning News published a story about the Friday of Highland Park's homecoming spirit week, on which several seniors dressed as thugs, maids and other caricatures of racial minorities. Some pointed to this as support for the general perception of Highland Park High School and the Park Cities as a "bubble" (as the area is known in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex). The article ignited a storm of letter-writing and editorializing to and in the Morning News. Soon after the article was published, two swastikas were spray-painted on a sign in front of the school, but it is disputed whether this was done in response to the Thug Day controversy or as a prank by students from one of the school's football opponents.

In 2005 and 2006, Highland Park students received a multitude of state and national awards, and established several new records in Sparta. The UIL Science Team, under the leadership of AP Chemistry teacher Wenzen Chuang, won state for the second time in the history of the high school. The Bagpipe newspaper received the Gold Crown Award for excellence in journalism in 2005 and later that year was one of 15 high schools in the country to win an NSPA Pacemaker. The same year, the school's yearbook, The Highlander, was chosen as a finalist for the NSPA Pacemaker award and Highland Park Television was chosen as a finalist for the NSPA Broadcast Pacemaker; Highland Park Television won the award the following year.

Highland Park High School has been named a National Blue Ribbon School on two occasions, in 1984-85 and again in 2007.

Athletics

Highland Park High has one of the most successful and tradition-rich athletic programs in Texas. In 2005, Sports Illustrated listed them as the best sports program in the state of Texas (16th in the US).

As of 2007, Highland Park Scots football teams have made a state-record 49 playoff appearances. Since 1944, they have had six state finals appearances. Coached by Rusty Russell (1942-45) and led by Doak Walker and Bobby Layne, the Scots made the final consecutive times in 1944 and 1945. After losing 20-7 to Port Arthur in 1944, Highland Park battled Waco to a 7-7 tie in front of a record 45,790 crowd at the Cotton Bowl. In 1947, Highland Park lost the state final 22-13 to San Antonio Brackenridge, while in 1957 they defeated Port Arthur 21-9 under the guidance of Thurman Jones.

The Highland Park football team is currently coached by Randy Allen, who holds a 244-69-6 record as of 2006, placing him 19th on the Texas All-Time Coaching Records Ranking. On August 30, 2008, the Highland Park football program became the first Texas high school football team to win 700 games with a win over Red Oak High School.

In 2005, Allen guided the Scots to a 59-0 rout over Marshall, the largest margin-of-victory ever in a UIL 11-man state championship football game. This also produced the first-ever undefeated, un-tied team at Highland Park. (The 1945 team was undefeated but tied by Waco High School in the state championship game.) In 2007, the Scots went undefeated into the state final against Austin Lake Travis, but lost 36-34.

Some members of the Highland Park community -- including a candidate in the 2008 school board race -- claim that parents have an undue influence in the operations of the athletic department, especially in the girls' program. They claim that complaints to superintendent Cathy Bryce about coaches are often relayed to girls' athletic coordinator Jerry Sutterfield with the ultimatum that coaches be terminated. Complaints made by high-dollar donors to the district's "Mad for Plaid" campaign, according to complaints, take precedence over maintaining continuity in the coaching staffs.

Information

Highland Park was ranked as 15th in Newsweek's list of the top high schools in the United States, based on the Challenge Index by Jay Mathews. The Challenge Index ranks schools by the number of AP and IB tests taken by students at a school in 2008 divided by the number of graduating seniors. It was ranked 13th in 2002's version of the index.

It is currently classified as a Conference 4A high school by the University Interscholastic League. A common joke among Texas school athletic directors is that when the UIL realigns in even numbered years, the 4A-5A cutoff is always defined as "Highland Park plus two." Despite being an exaggeration as of 2008, Highland Park remains among the larger 4A schools in Texas. The average class size is 32 students per teacher, with about 500 students in a grade.

Highland Park's Latin League is hosting the 2008-2009 Texas State Junior Latin League Convention at Southern Methodist University. The Highland Park chapter has fostered executive officers Jordan Vincent (07-08 Parliamentarian) and current TSJCL President Abraham Hashmi.

Highland Park is often referred to as "The Bubble". According the The Dallas Morning News, as of 2005 the high school's ethnic makeup is about 94 percent white. Notable alumni