History
A yellow brick schoolhouse, the Armstrong School, opened on October 12, 1915. It served children only through ninth grade. [10] [11] In 1922, the school moved to Normandy Avenue after HPISD purchased 11 lots in 1920. Tenth grade was added in 1922, and 11th grade in 1923. In 1924, 34 students became the first graduating class of the Highland Park Independent School District when they participated in HPISD's first high school graduation ceremony on June 2, 1924 [12] (at that time, only 11 years of school were required before college; 12th grade was added in 1937). [13] The school's yearbook for that year, the 1924 Highlander, had a paragraph reading:
Many schools live merely on the momentum and traditions they have gathered in the more flourishing days of past. We are proud of our short past, but we are prouder of the Highland Park High School that is to be. [11]
This first location (at the corner of Normandy Avenue and High School Avenue) later became the district's middle school in 1937 when the current Highland Park High School building was erected on Emerson Avenue. The old building became Highland Park Junior High School, later 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 grades 5 and 6 upon moving to a new facility; the old building was demolished. [14] The street adjacent to the current middle school is named High School Avenue to this day.
Eugene Lawler was the first principal. The complete list of principals through the present day is as follows:
Principals of Highland Park High School [15] | Years Active | Name |
|---|
| 1923–28 | Eugene Lawler |
| 1928–63 | Ben Wiseman |
| 1963–66 | C. D. Bowlby |
| 1966–73 | Everett Hart |
| 1973–82 | E. A. Sigler |
| 1982–86 | Tom Munroe |
| 1986–90 | Jim Gibson |
| 1990–94 | Don O'Quinn |
| 1994–95 | Linda Springer |
| 1995–98 | Jean Rutherford |
| 1998–2000 | Robert Albano |
| 2000–02 | Robert Jolly (interim) |
| 2002–10 | Patrick Cates |
| 2010–20 | Walter Kelly |
| 2020–2024 | Jeremy Gilbert |
| 2024 [16] –Current | Kevin Hunt |
Wiseman, Sr. was principal for 34 years, retiring in 1962. He was a decorated Captain in the United States Army and served in combat during World War II. [11] Wiseman was featured in Look Magazine's May 1960 edition. He is credited for developing the first language laboratory in a U.S. public school. Convinced that students learned quickly by ear, he solicited funds from several prominent Highland Park business owners to provide the reel-to-reel tape recorders needed to record and replay the daily lesson plan. He then created a language lab. Wiseman had the first remedial reading classes in a U.S. public school for the condition known today as dyslexia. He tutored his grandson. [11]
In 1987, the HPISD school board voted not to petition the University Interscholastic League (UIL) to keep Highland Park High School in athletic class 5A; the UIL had the power to demote Highland Park High School to athletic class 4A as part of its biannual reclassification. [17] Since then, a joke told around the UIL's biannual reclassification is that the cutoff for Class 4A is "Highland Park plus two", though, in practice, the school's enrollment has been well below the normal cutoff. In the 2014 reclassifications, the school moved up to 6A (a new classification the UIL added as part of a larger reclassification). In the 2016 reclassifications, the school moved down to 5A. In the 2022 reclassifications the school returned to the 6A division, but after the 2024 reclassifications it is now back in 5A. The average class size is 30 students per teacher, with about 550 students per grade. [5]
In 2003, a four-year remodeling of the school was completed that added a new wing to provide more classroom space and allow for a new, larger cafeteria. In 2015, a $361.4 million bond package passed HPISD board approval and citizens' vote [18] that allowed for new parking spaces and renovations to the attached tennis center and natatorium—eventually eliminating the natatorium and replacing it with classrooms. [19]
Highland Park High School is the only high school in the Highland Park Independent School District. [4] Other schools in the district include University Park Elementary, Robert S. Hyer Elementary, John S. Armstrong Elementary, John S. Bradfield Elementary, and Michael M. Boone Elementary. These five schools feed into Arch H. McCulloch Intermediate School and Highland Park Middle School, both of which are in the same building.
Recent events
In 1999, Dallas police issued 200 alcohol and curfew violation 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 deliver students to and from the party safely, 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 people. [20]
In 2004, Simon & Schuster published 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. [21]
In 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, Mexicans, maids, and other caricatures of racial minorities. Some pointed to this as support for the general perception of HPHS 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 it was published, two swastikas were spray-painted on a sign in front of the school.
In 2005 and 2006, Highland Park students received a multitude of state and national awards and set several new records in Texas. [22] The UIL Science Team, under the leadership of AP Chemistry teacher Wenzen Chuang, won state for the second time in school history. In 2005, The Bagpipe received the Gold Crown Award for excellence in journalism. Later that year, HPHS was one of 15 high schools in the country to win an NSPA Pacemaker. Also in 2005, 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. The Bagpipe received a second Gold Crown Award in 2011 for the previous year's newspaper. The Highlander has won several awards, including a Gold Crown Award in 2018 and a Pacemaker award in 2019.
In the winter of 2012 and spring of 2013, numerous bomb threats were found across the campus. Students and faculty were released three times early, and the FBI was eventually called in. An arrest was made in April 2013.
In 2013, the stage of the high school's auditorium (Palmer Auditorium) was honorarily named after Linda Raya, a longtime drama teacher at the school. Raya's 40+-year career at Highland Park saw countless theatrical productions, which now continue on the newly named Linda Raya Stage. [23]
In 2014, HPISD, HPHS, and Superintendent Dawson Orr received national attention for the controversial banning of seven books previously used in high school English studies after a group of parents protested the books' contents. [24] The books were The Art of Racing in the Rain , by Garth Stein; The Working Poor: Invisible in America , by David K. Shipler; Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse; The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian , by Sherman Alexie; An Abundance of Katherines , by John Green; The Glass Castle , by Jeannette Walls; and Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison.
On September 29, 2014, Orr reversed his decision to ban the books, writing in an email to parents, "I made the decision in an attempt to de-escalate the conflict, and I readily admit that it had the opposite effect. I take full responsibility for the decision, and I apologize for the disruption it has caused." [25]
In 2015, Orr retired and was replaced by Tom Trigg, who had previously served as the superintendent of Blue Valley Unified School District in Overland Park, Kansas. Trigg's salary upon hiring was notable for its size, coming in at a base of $325,000 (compared to Dallas ISD's superintendent salary of $306,000). [26]
Admissions
According to The Dallas Morning News , in 2005, the high school's ethnic makeup was about 99% white. [27] In 2014, 90.3% of the graduating class was white; in 2015, 89.1% of the graduating class was white. [28] In the 2015–16 school year, 88.4% of the Highland Park High School student body was white. [29]
In the 2010–11 school year, HPHS had no low-income students. [30] By the 2015–16 school year, that number remained at 0.0% economically disadvantaged students for the entire district. [31] In 2010–11, 7.9% of the students were considered "at risk," [30] but in 2015–16, that rose to 11.4%. [31] About 80% of students participate in extracurricular activities, and over 50% participate in athletic teams.
The Park Cities (Highland Park and University Park) are often called "The Bubble." [27] The Texas Education Agency campus profiles state that the funds spent per student at Highland Park are similar in amount to those spent per student at Woodrow Wilson High School. [32] The average teacher's salary at HPHS was $60,770 compared to the state average of $51,891. [29]
