Arlington Heights High School

Last updated

Arlington Heights High School
Arlington Heights High School, Fort Worth TX.jpg
Address
Arlington Heights High School
4501 West Freeway

,
76107

United States
Coordinates 32°43′55″N97°23′9″W / 32.73194°N 97.38583°W / 32.73194; -97.38583
Information
School type Public secondary
Established1920 [1]
School district Fort Worth Independent School District
PrincipalJustin Barrett
Teaching staff121.60 (FTE) [2]
Grades9–12
Enrollment1,934 (2022–23) [2]
Student to teacher ratio15.90 [2]
CampusUrban
Color(s)   Royal blue and gold
Athletics conferenceUniversity Interscholastic League 5A
Nickname Heights
RivalPaschal High School
NewspaperJacket Journal
Website School website

Arlington Heights High School (AHHS, Heights) is a secondary school located in Fort Worth, Texas, United States. The school serves grades 9 through 12, and is a part of the Fort Worth Independent School District. Its mascot is the Yellow Jacket and its colors are blue and gold.

Contents

Arlington Heights High School serves western portions of Fort Worth including the Como, Arlington Heights, Ridglea, Meadows West [3] and Rivercrest neighborhoods, as well as the city of Westover Hills. [4]

History

Postcard of Arlington Heights High School (bottom) and North Side High School, undated North Side and Arlington Heights High Schools (20106190).jpg
Postcard of Arlington Heights High School (bottom) and North Side High School, undated

Arlington Heights High School was established in 1922 and hosted 715 students in its inaugural year. The current building was built in 1937 based on a design by Preston Geren Sr. Students from the area had previously attended Stripling High School, which is now a feeder middle school.

Arlington Heights was generally affluent and White until the late 1960s. Black students at the time attended Como High School, which no longer exists and was merged with Arlington Heights at its closing.

In 1968, Western Hills High School was hosted in temporary buildings at Arlington Heights [5] until its campus opened in 1969 on a 25-acre tract in West Fort Worth at 3600 Boston Avenue. [6]

As of 1996, students could be bused to AHHS from the Butler subsidized housing in downtown Fort Worth and from various communities in southeast Fort Worth with racial and ethnic minorities. [3]

Students at Arlington Heights refer to their school as "The Hill", as the main building offers a view of the Trinity River valley to the south, from which AHHS is visible.

In 1996, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram called the school a "scholastically touted institution that draws students from private schools." [3]

Description

The school occupies a red brick building visible from Interstate 30 (West Freeway). [3]

The main building houses 74 classrooms, a library, band hall, auditorium, gymnasium, workrooms and administrative offices. Outside buildings include a cafeteria, second gymnasium, field houses with concessions stands and a weight room. A new wing opened in the fall of 2004 and houses six classrooms and a state of-the-art dance studio. A detatched cafeteria with outside seating was built and opened in 2019. [7] The surrounding grounds are covered with tennis courts, baseball, softball, a unique multi-purpose athletic facility, soccer and football fields and an all-weather track that is open for public use. [8]

Student body

In 2014, of the approximately 1,800 students, 46% were Hispanic, 29% were White and 22% were Black. 45% were eligible for free or reduced lunch. [9]

Arlington Heights' student-athletes compete in the UIL 5A classification for 12 varsity sports.

Notable incidents

In 1963, a number of Paschal High School students attacked a crowd of Arlington Heights students using blunt weapons, Molotov cocktails and a plane that dropped toilet paper with Paschal's school colors. [10] This incident led to 46 arrests, and a Heights High School bonfire being the center of a near riot. [11] In the incident, carloads of Paschal boys and exes descended on a crowd of 500 Heights students at Benbrook Lake with an armory of weapons including baseball bats, lead pipes, whips and Molotov cocktails. A private-plane flyover by a 20-year-old pilot, a 1962 Paschal graduate, dropped rolls of school-color purple-and-white toilet paper that fluttered down onto the Heights crowd, and a 1948 sedan covered in gasoline-soaked mattresses and labeled "The Panther Ram Car" was set afire by a burly graduate and rolled toward the bonfire woodpile. There was also a ground assault by boys with bows and arrows, storming over the spillway and sailing arrows in a scene a county deputy compared to a frontier Native American attack. When all was said and done there was only one injury, when wrecker driver Junior Slayton, 33, was grazed by buckshot while towing away a student's car. [12] One week later, a visiting President John F. Kennedy smiled and asked at the mention of Paschal High School, "Isn't that the school with its own air force?" [12]

In 1979, a Paschal student stole a bulldozer from a county construction site and rammed it into the Arlington Heights field house the day before the annual Heights-Paschal football game, destroying the field house. [13] The incident resulted in criminal convictions and a nationwide reassessment of safety and security measures, starting a national discussion about youth violence and vandalism on many television and radio programs. [14]

Notable alumni

Feeder patterns

Students attending the following feeder schools are zoned to attend Arlington Heights High School: [19]

Elementary schools

Middle schools

Rivalries

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tarrant County, Texas</span> County in Texas, United States

Tarrant County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas with a 2020 U.S. census population of 2,110,640, making it the third-most populous county in Texas and the 15th-most populous in the United States. Its county seat is Fort Worth. Tarrant County, one of 26 counties created out of the Peters Colony, was established in 1849 and organized the next year. It is named after Edward H. Tarrant, a lawyer, politician, and militia leader.

Benbrook is a town located in the southwestern corner of Tarrant County, Texas, United States, and a suburb of Fort Worth. As of the 2010 United States census, the population was 21,234, reflecting an increase of 1,026 from the 20,208 counted in the 2000 census, which had in turn increased by 644 from the 19,564 counted in the 1990 census. As of the 2020 census, the population grew to 24,520.

In Texan folklore, the Lake Worth Monster is a legendary creature said to inhabit Lake Worth at the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge, just outside Fort Worth. The creature is often described as a "part-man, part-goat" with scales and long clawed fingers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Vandergriff</span> American politician

Tommy Joe Vandergriff was a politician from Texas. He served as Mayor of Arlington from 1951 to 1977, as a U.S. Representative from Texas's 26th congressional district from 1983 to 1985, and as County Judge of Tarrant County from 1991 to 2007. For the greater part of his life, Vandergriff was a Democrat, but he became a Republican around 1990.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Worth Independent School District</span> School district in Texas

Fort Worth Independent School District is a school district based in Fort Worth, Texas, United States. Based on a 2017-18 enrollment of 86,234 students, it is the fifth largest school district in Texas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western Hills High School (Benbrook, Texas)</span> Public high school in Benbrook, Texas, United States

Western Hills High School (WHHS) is a secondary school located in Benbrook, Texas, United States, serving the city of Benbrook, portions of western Fort Worth, and unincorporated portions of southwestern Tarrant County. The school, which serves grades 9 through 12, is a part of the Fort Worth Independent School District (FWISD).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">R. L. Paschal High School</span> School in Fort Worth, Texas, Tarrant County, United States

R. L. Paschal High School is a secondary school in Fort Worth, Texas, United States. It is part of the Fort Worth Independent School District, and is the oldest and largest high school in Fort Worth ISD.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eastern Hills High School</span> Public school in Texas, United States

Eastern Hills High School is a four-year public high school in Fort Worth, Texas, United States. The school is educating students in grades 9–12, as part of the Fort Worth Independent School District. In an historical footnote, the band from the school played "Hail to the Chief" during President John F. Kennedy's visit to Dallas–Fort Worth in November 1963. EHHS is also the only school in the world with two Pulitizer Prize-winning photographers as alums -- "Skeeter" Hagler and Michael Ainsworth. The school has been recognized by the National Football League as part of its 50th Anniversary Super Bowl High School Honor Roll for serving as the home school for two former Super Bowl Players - Uwe von Schamann and Byron Chamberlain - as well as for Doug Hart, who played for the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowls I and II following graduation from EHHS's predecessor, Handley High School.

Oscar Dean Wyatt High School is a secondary school in Fort Worth, Texas, United States. The school is located at 2400 East Seminary Drive. The school is a part of the Fort Worth Independent School District. In 2022 the student body was 54 percent Hispanic and 38 percent African American.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">North Side High School (Fort Worth, Texas)</span> Public school in Texas, United States

North Side High School is a public secondary school located in Fort Worth, Texas. The school serves about 1,600 students in the Fort Worth Independent School District.

Pantego Christian Academy (PCA) is a private Christian school in Tarrant County, Texas, United States. Its main campus, the Arlington Campus, has a building at 2201 West Park Row Drive in Arlington and a 57,000-square-foot (5,300 m2) high school building at 2221 West Park Row Drive in Pantego. The Arlington Campus has 670 students in grades pre-kindergarten through grade 12. The system also operates the Mansfield Campus at 2351 Country Club Drive in Mansfield which teaches 143 students from age 3 through grade 5. The Mansfield campus closed its doors in 2020 and now all students attend the Arlington campus.

Polytechnic High School, also known colloquially as "Poly", is a public high school located in Fort Worth, Texas, United States.

The Oakridge School is a private school located in Arlington, Texas, US. It educates about 800 students in age groups Preschool-12.

Ronald Parker Mills is an American former competition swimmer for Southern Methodist University and a 1968 Olympic medalist in the backstroke. He later had a career in advertising in the Dallas area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Betsy Price</span> Mayor of Fort Worth, Texas, United States

Barbara Elizabeth Cornelius Price is an American businesswoman and politician who served as mayor of Fort Worth, Texas through 2021. She was first elected to the nonpartisan office on June 18, 2011. Price previously served 2½ terms as the elected Tarrant County tax assessor-collector, from 2001 to 2011. She is a Republican who describes herself as fiscally conservative, deplores polarization and extremist tendencies in both major parties, and professed a commitment to work for the entire community as an elected local official.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">South Hills High School (Texas)</span> Public secondary school in Fort Worth, Texas, United States

South Hills High School is a 9-12 public high school in Fort Worth, Texas, United States. It is one of 14 zoned high schools in the Fort Worth Independent School District.

Preston Murdoch Geren Jr. was an American architect. A lifelong resident of Fort Worth, Texas, Geren designed or served as associate architect for many of Fort Worth's most notable buildings constructed during his working life.

Preston Murdoch Geren Sr. was an American architect and engineer. Part of a prominent architectural family in Texas, he designed or served as associate architect for many of Fort Worth's most notable buildings constructed during his working life.

References

  1. "Arlington Heights High School". Archived from the original (English) on December 10, 2008. Retrieved December 29, 2008.
  2. 1 2 3 "Search for Public Schools - School Detail for ARLINGTON HEIGHTS H S". nces.ed.gov. Retrieved June 4, 2024.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Weiner, Hollace. "Low scores at Arlington Heights called no surprise." Fort Worth Star-Telegram . Monday August 5, 1996. 9 Metro. Retrieved on December 12, 2011.
  4. Kennedy, Bud. "Teens' talk turns to tales of hate and killing." Fort Worth Star-Telegram . Thursday March 26, 1992. 2 News. Retrieved on December 12, 2011. "News central: Millionaires and wealthy families live in Westover Hills and the Rivercrest neighborhood, and their children go to Arlington Heights High."
  5. "For Western Hills HS". Fort Worth Star-Telegram. September 7, 1968. p. 4. Retrieved August 28, 2023.
  6. "For Western Hills High". Fort Worth Star-Telegram. January 28, 1969. p. 2. Retrieved August 28, 2023.
  7. "Arlington Heights High School - Dennett Construction". Dennett Construction. Retrieved September 4, 2024.
  8. "Arlington Heights High School - Home". schools.fortworthisd.net. Archived from the original on February 8, 2007. Retrieved January 26, 2022.
  9. "Arlington Heights High School".
  10. 50 years ago, Paschal flew into history, with a high school prank gone wild Fort Worth Star Telegram
  11. KENNEDY, BUD (September 5, 2013). "50 years ago, Paschal flew into history, with a high school prank gone wild Fort Worth Star Telegram". Fort Worth Star-Telegram .
  12. 1 2 Kennedy, Bud (September 13, 2022). "In 1963, Paschal flew into history, with a high school prank gone wild". Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Retrieved February 16, 2024.
  13. Jarvis, Jan (October 17, 2022). "Doomsday". D Magazine. Retrieved February 16, 2024.
  14. JARVIS, JAN (July 1, 1985). "DOOMSDAY". D Magazine. Retrieved August 28, 2023.
  15. 1 2 3 Arlington Heights Yearbook
  16. "Getting his due Coast Guard hero receives honor posthumously". Fort Worth Star Telegram. September 17, 2000. Retrieved December 2, 2011. (subscription required.
  17. Turner Gill Official High School Football Statistics, Arlington Heights Yearbook
  18. Patricia Busa McConnico (June 2018). "The Good Fight". Texas Bar Journal. p. 448.
  19. "SchoolSite Locator".
  20. Texas High School Monthly, Fall 2008