Bellaire High School (Bellaire, Texas)
| Bellaire High School | |
|---|---|
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| Address | |
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5100 Maple Street Bellaire, Texas 77401 United States |
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| Coordinates | 29°41′28″N 95°28′7″W / 29.69111°N 95.46861°WCoordinates: 29°41′28″N 95°28′7″W / 29.69111°N 95.46861°W |
| Information | |
| Type | Public Secondary |
| Established | 1955 |
| School district | Houston Independent School District |
| Principal | Michael McDonough |
| Grades | 9-12 |
| Enrollment | 3,671 (2014-15) |
| Campus | Urban |
| Color(s) | Red & White |
| Mascot | Cardinals |
| Newspaper | Three Penny Press |
| Yearbook | Carillon |
| Website | School website |
Bellaire High School is a secondary school of the Houston Independent School District, and its campus is located in Bellaire, Texas (USA) in Greater Houston.
The high school serves the incorporated city of Bellaire and the Houston community of Meyerland, as well as other Houston neighborhoods. It has a racially and socioeconomically diverse student body.
The school opened in 1955. It was originally an all-White high school. Because of the large number of Jewish students, the school had the nickname "Hebrew High."
Bellaire introduced International Baccalaureate programs in 1980.
In the mid-to-late 1980s families began moving into Bellaire and Meyerland. They would tear down many older houses and build new ones. This gave Bellaire High School a population of wealthier students. At the same time apartments formerly housing White singles began to house low income immigrants. Bellaire added Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs to encourage White parents to send their children to Bellaire. Parents strove to get their children into the classes. Mimi Swartz of the Texas Monthly said "But these outstanding academic programs created, over time, a school within a school, in which the smartest kids with the most advantages took the IB and AP tracks, while everyone else was relegated to classes that, for various reasons--discipline problems, less talented teachers, lower standards--just weren't as good."
In January 1987, Bellaire was offering the Arabic language for the second year. In 1987 the school also offered Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Latin, Russian, and Spanish.
In September 1991 Bellaire was one of 32 HISD schools that had capped enrollments; in other words the school was filled to capacity and excess students had to attend other schools.
By the 2000s Bellaire placed on the lists of the top performing high schools in the United States. Athletic and academic programs won national and international awards. Many graduates headed for prestigious American universities. At the same time, disciplinary infractions increased. Swartz said "The case could be made that the school has triumphed despite being under enormous social pressures. But success has not come without pain." From the 1999-2000 school year to the 2003-2004 school year, the total number of disciplinary actions increased from 441 to 1,082 and the number of in-school suspensions increased from 336 to 855. In February 2006, a stabbing involving two male freshmen occurred in a school stairwell. The victim survived the stabbing while the perpetrator was arrested and prosecuted.
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Wikipedia