Miami Springs High School

Miami Springs Senior High School

Miami Springs Senior High in 2013
Address
751 Dove Ave
Miami Springs, Florida 33166
United States
Coordinates 25°49′51″N 80°17′41″W / 25.83071°N 80.29467°W / 25.83071; -80.29467Coordinates: 25°49′51″N 80°17′41″W / 25.83071°N 80.29467°W / 25.83071; -80.29467
Information
School type Public, high school
Established September 1964
School district Miami-Dade County Public Schools
Principal Edward Smith
Grades 9-12
Enrollment 2,470
Campus type Suburban
Color(s) Garnet and Gold          
Mascot Golden Hawk (Hank the Hawk)
Newspaper Zeitgeist
Website miamisprings.dadeschools.net

Miami Springs Senior High School is a secondary school located at 751 Dove Avenue in Miami Springs, Florida, United States; its principal is Edward Smith. The school is part of Miami-Dade County Public School's nationally-accredited magnet program, specializing in travel and tourism, the oldest of its kind in the state of Florida (established in 1987).

As of 2011, Miami Springs offers IGCSE (International General Certificate of Secondary Education) courses and the iTech academy; hosting advanced computer programming and mechanical engineering courses.

Miami Springs serves ninth through twelfth grade students in the city of Miami Springs, the village of Virginia Gardens, the town of Medley, the southern portion of the city of Hialeah (south of 29th Street, and south of 25th Street after Hialeah Park) and a small unincorporated residential neighborhood east of Miami International Airport. It used to serve the western Miami suburb of Doral until 2006, when a new high school was built in that area.

Beginning in the 2007-2008 school year, the opening of Westland Hialeah High School in the southern portion of Hialeah removed the entire portion of southern Hialeah served by the school and located West of Palm Avenue; however, all portions of the boundary located east of Palm Avenue in Hialeah remained served by the school.

History

Construction at Miami Springs Senior High School began in 1963 with the clearing of a large wooded lot at the site of the current campus. There were no homes built directly on the site, which was one of the last areas of thick jungle growth in the incorporated Miami Springs. The first day of classes at Springs was delayed due to Hurricane Cleo striking Miami on August 27, 1964. Springs first opened its doors after Labor Day the following week, in September, as an overcrowding reliever for nearby Hialeah High School. The first school year, 1964–65, served 9th 10th and 11th grade students, and the second, 1965–66, offered classes for 10th, 11th and 12th grades. Therefore, the first graduating class of Miami Springs was the Class of 1966.

This was one of three high schools in the district seriously affected by overcrowding in the early 2000s during the county's largest population growth since 1980. Its student population in the 2001-02 school year peaked at 4,750. The same year, it implemented a "split shifts" schedule in which 9th and 10th grade students would attend classes in the afternoons, while 11th and 12th grade students, as well as student-athletes, attended in the morning. Despite being the third most populous school in the district after G. Holmes Braddock High School and Barbara Goleman Senior High School, Springs was considered the most overcrowded, as its capacity was only 2,500 students, while Braddock and Goleman's capacities each surpassed 4,000. The school resumed a regular schedule for the 2005-2006 school year as overcrowding was relieved upon the opening of Ronald W. Reagan Doral High School, a school in the nearby suburb of Doral that was previously served by Miami Springs.[1]

Miami Springs Senior High has been a Title I school since the program was expanded to Miami-Dade Public Schools in 2002, due to its extremely high rate of foreign-born students (66.9% in 2013, 70.7% in 2005 and 52.2% in 1997). In 2013, Miami Springs was ranked as the public high school with the highest proportion of foreign-born students nationwide, followed closely by Ronald W. Reagan Doral High School at 65.8% and Miami Senior High School at 61.2%.

This exceptionally high rate makes Miami Springs one of the most unusual public schools in the US, with over 70% of its course offerings either in Spanish or reformulated in English for Spanish speakers. This has been a boon to its extensive Advanced Placement program, and Springs was ranked among the top 10 high schools nationwide for Hispanic students performance in the AP program - 65% passing rate across all subjects - with first-generation immigrant Hispanic students receiving the highest scores.

The school has a strict policy to remove students not living within its boundaries. As a result, the school's overcrowding has been significantly reduced. This policy may have helped improve Miami Springs' test scores, helping raise it from a D rating in 2003 to a B rating in 2005 and 2006. As of 2013, Miami Springs is an A school.

In 2009 Hialeah Gardens High School opened, taking attendance boundary territory from Barbara Goleman High School and Miami Springs High School. In turn, Goleman took territory from American High School.[2]

Prior to January 2012, many students had left, going to magnet schools and charter schools. In late October 2011, Principal Tom Ennis moved to Miami Killian High School. Under his term, the school's MCAT rating went from B to C, and Bill Daley of the Miami Herald stated that there was a low morale at the end of Ennis' term. Anna Rodriguez became principal in 2011. Daley stated that Rodriguez, at the beginning, "invigorated the school."[3]

As of August 2015, Miami Springs Senior High School switched to the common - period, 32-credit schedule and graduation requirements to meet the standards and requests of the PTSA and other high schools in the district who had already adopted the schedule.

In 2015 a plaque honoring Bruce Wayne Carter, an alumnus of the school who became Private First Class and died in the Vietnam War, was installed.[4]

School uniforms

The school uniform policy was first implemented in 2006.[5] As of August 2015, shirts must be collared and may be white, yellow, gold, garnet, or red. Pants must be black, blue jeans, or khakis.

Miami Springs is one of the few entirely closed campuses in the Miami metropolitan area. It was one of the most expensive high schools to build because it was also the first to include climate control (unlike the Mediterranean courtyard-style architecture used in most other high schools), and thus was able to succeed in the humid, tropical climate of Miami.

School administration

Demographics

In 2013, Miami Springs High was 80% Hispanic (62% Cuban, 16% South American, 2% Central American), 12% Black non-Hispanic, 8% White non-Hispanic and 0% Asian.

In 2005, Miami Springs High was 83% Hispanic (42% South American, 41% Cuban, <0.5% Central American), 9% White non-Hispanic, 8% Black non-Hispanic and 0% Asian.

In 1997, Miami Springs High was 66% Hispanic (58% Cuban, 7% South American, 1% Central American), 19% White non-Hispanic, 15% Black non-Hispanic and 0% Asian.

Just as in the city of Miami Springs, over the years the proportion of Hispanics has been steadily rising as whites have continued to leave the area, while other races have maintained stable proportions since the school desegregated in the late 1970s.

Notable alumni

Government

Entertainment

Sports

Football

MSSH currently has produced one player who is currently playing in the NFL:

Former NFL players:

Baseball

Publications

Notable clubs and extracurricular activities

Academics

The State's Accountability program grades a school by a complex formula that looks at both current scores and annual improvement on the Reading, Math, Writing and Science FCATs.

The school's grades by year since the FCAT began in 1998 are:

See also

References

  1. ↑ Amador, Gladys. "REAGAN HIGH NAMED WITH PRIDE". Miami Herald. October 1, 2006. Section Neighbors, p. 6NW. NewsBank record # 0610030338.
  2. ↑ "HGHSBoundaryMap.pdf" (Archive). Hialeah Gardens High School. Retrieved on February 11, 2009.
  3. ↑ Daley, Bill. "New principal has big plans for MSSH " (Archive). Miami Herald. January 18, 2012. Retrieved on January 11, 2016.
  4. ↑ Fleischman, Gaby. "Memory Of War Hero Lives-On At Miami Springs High School" (Archive). CBS Miami. June 3, 2015. Retrieved on November 1, 2016.
  5. ↑ http://miamisprings.dadeschools.net/Uniform/Uniform.htm
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