springfield public schools fights. (houses, best school, income)

[jennie654321]

i live in seattle wa. my family and i are moving springfield mo this year.
my oldest son will be a junior, my youngest son a freshman.
my kids will be attending central or hillcrest highschool, we dont know yet.
i have heard there are a lot of fighting in these 2 highschools among race
[skin color] wise. is this true. if so do you recommend private schools or homeschool?

[Angieio]

I have lived in Springfield most of my life and attended Hillcrest High School. I thought it was a very good school at the time, and didn't witness fights due to race.

Hillcrest has a super-fantastic media program.

As far as Central, I know it is the home of the IB program and the middle years gifted program. I hope I've been a little help.

[jennie654321]

do you not think hillcrest is not good now?

[huntman58]

I would believe this would be about the same in frequency as you find in Seattle or any area a few but over all not many. Have been reading the papers from this area as it is also some were I plan to move soon and have not read any thing about it at all.

[manhattanman]

I went to both of these high schools. 9-10 at Central and 11-12 at Hillcrest.
I would say that you should be cautious of misperceptions about these schools.
From my experience the high schools in Springfield were labeled in the early 70's and these labels have been hard to shake.

Central was known as the "******" school when I was growing up. I remember families members actually being worried that I was going there and suggested that my mother move to another part of town. My grandfather offered to let us use his home address as the address we gave in hopes to avoid me going to Central.
It was however not anywhere like what they had thought. Maybe this has changed, but it probably hasn't. Most fights took place amongs white kids or black kids. There wasn't a lot of fights at Central. I remember fondly the teachers that I had at this school.

Hillcrest was known as the "stoner and hicks" school. There weren't a lot of fights at this school either, but I would admit there were more than at Central. Race was not an issue as much as social class was. But not really any problems. The teachers at Hillcrest were the best. I loved them. They really encouraged me to do my best as corny as that sounds. We had the oppurtunity to come into the Art Class on Saturday's. I remember that room being full of people every Saturday.

Both schools in my opinion suffer from negative sterotypes because of the income level of some of its students. This is just simply wrong.

[jennie654321]

Originally Posted by manhattanman

I went to both of these high schools. 9-10 at Central and 11-12 at Hillcrest.
I would say that you should be cautious of misperceptions about these schools.
From my experience the high schools in Springfield were labeled in the early 70's and these labels have been hard to shake.

Central was known as the "******" school when I was growing up. I remember families members actually being worried that I was going there and suggested that my mother move to another part of town. My grandfather offered to let us use his home address as the address we gave in hopes to avoid me going to Central.
It was however not anywhere like what they had thought. Maybe this has changed, but it probably hasn't. Most fights took place amongs white kids or black kids. There wasn't a lot of fights at Central. I remember fondly the teachers that I had at this school.

Hillcrest was known as the "stoner and hicks" school. There weren't a lot of fights at this school either, but I would admit there were more than at Central. Race was not an issue as much as social class was. But not really any problems. The teachers at Hillcrest were the best. I loved them. They really encouraged me to do my best as corny as that sounds. We had the oppurtunity to come into the Art Class on Saturday's. I remember that room being full of people every Saturday.

Both schools in my opinion suffer from negative sterotypes because of the income level of some of its students. This is just simply wrong.

thanks, i just read your response. i found out my kids will be in the
hillcrest disrtict.
my husband tells me not to worry because there will be fights in every school
in the world. thank you so much!!!!!!!!!!

[hannibalboy]

I have alot of friends in Sprinfield who go to Central, great school, yes there are many fights, and its the school in the hood...But its also the best school, your kid will have alot of oppurtunities there, state of the art media center, the funding to that school is phenomenol

[Hornetta]

Central High school has been refurbished and updated and has the most sophisticated state of the art equipment and programs in the area. In fact, kids now apply to go to that High School because of their academic superiority. It is a center city school so there are a wide variety of personalities there, but I have not heard of any major problems with fighting or racial activity. Hillcrest is my old school, so therefore, I am prejudice! It is an excellent school. The academics are great as well as the athletic teams. My best friends kids go to school there and there is not any major fighting that goes on. It is defiantly nowhere to be afraid! The person that said it was just a wide variety of income levels was correct. It ranges from the kids that live in the $300,000 houses north of the school to the kids that live near the school that probably qualify for free lunches! Everyone still seem to get along though! Either school is a fine choice, I just would recommend living near Hillcrest! Hope this gives you some insight! Good luck!

[la_missourienne]

I agree that all schools will have some fighting going on, you can't avoid that. Still, I would homeschool (if possible) rather than send my kids (if I had any) to any Springfield schools based off of the experience I had with them (as a training teacher about 5 yrs ago). I guess that makes me the dissenting opinion here. Homeschooling is a great thing to do, IMHO (and I'm a public school teacher saying this!) but most people don't have that option anymore for various reasons.
But then again, I never had personal experience with Hillcrest--heard it was supposed to be really good, nothing like the 'branding' it's received, so your kids will most likely be fine. Hope I didn't sound too discouraging, just trying to be honest here!

[2beamissourian]

I dont know of either ..were watching and learning about this area. Thanks for the post.

However I would like to add.. dont just go by a schools appearance - you can have a brand new building and teachers that dont give a crap! And you can have a crappy building and teachers that love to teach!
Where we live were experiencing this now .. "MY JOB ENDS AT 330"
And we have a new state of the art building ..actually 2 and guess what our kids are not making the grade!!
Check the site that tells you if the school is making the grade.

There will be fighting anywhere.....my advice to that is if your children walk a straight line they wont be involved in such activities!