Wilson Magnet High School

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Joseph C. Wilson Magnet High School, sometimes referred to as Wilson Magnet or just Wilson, is a high school in Rochester, New York. It is in the Rochester City School District. It is consistently rated among the top high schools in the United States; it was ranked #24 on the 2006 version of Newsweek's Top 1200 U.S. high schools. 87% of its teachers have Master's degrees. It has offered a large variety of AP courses for many years, and has recently also offered a number of IB courses. Among the AP courses it has offered are Latin BC (2nd year AP Latin), Calculus BC (2nd year AP Calculus), and Physics BC (2nd year AP Physics); it currently offers 15 AP courses. It also offers courses such as first and second year Japanese, a post-AP computer science class, photography, astronomy, and a marine biology mini-class, which is based around an annual marine biology laboratory field trip to the Bahamas. 83% of its alumni go on to college, including to Harvard, Princeton, Cornell, MIT, and Stanford.

Contents

[edit] History

Wilson began as West High School in 1905 on what was then the edge of Rochester. It was renamed the Joseph C. Wilson Junior High School in 1972, in honor of Joseph C. Wilson, founder of Xerox Corporation, a longtime pillar of the Rochester economy.

During the 1970's, Wilson became plagued with a poor academic record, a high suspension rate, high teacher turnover, and the lowest attendance in the district. In an effort to turn the school around Wilson was converted into a "magnet school" in 1980 with a School of Performing Arts, an "Academy of Excellence" focusing on the Humanities, and the Academy of Science and Technology. School of Performing Arts was later moved to its own wing of Monroe High School, and the Academy of Excellence has also since been dropped, leaving the focus now solidly on the Academy of Science and Technology.

By 1985 the school was named one of the 10 best senior high schools in New York. In 1998 it was in the top 1.5 percent of high schools in the nation based on percentage of enrollment taking AP exams.

In May 1989, four months after taking office, as part of his campaign to be known as "the education president", President George Bush visited Wilson for an hour, praising the school. "You are an example for the entire world," Bush told students. Wilson was chosen because of its national reputation as an urban school, which had become academically excellent through the help of private industry. The Secret Service had arrived at Wilson two weeks ahead of Bush, and spent that time covering many of the windows with black tape, installing metal detectors, and making other security precautions. Ironically, Bush's visit to promote education overlapped with and disrupted the AP Physics exam.

Twenty Wilson 9th-10th. graders and 20 Xerox Corp. engineers met with President Bush at the White House in 1992 to celebrate their victory in the U.S. FIRST Design Engineering Competition and to receive the Chairman's Award for most outstanding partnership between a high school and its mentor company. Another major Rochester-based corporation, XEROX, has also been actively involved with Wilson, organizing and funding a robotics club the X-Cats with senior engineers volunteering their time.

In 2000, Wilson became one of only 270 U.S. high schools approved to offer International Baccalaureate (IB) classes.


Willie the Wildcat became the school mascot when Wilson became a high school. The student body voted on black and white with a red accent for the school colors and The Wildcat as the mascot.

[edit] Diversity

Wilson Magnet has a strong diversity of backgrounds among its students and faculty. The majority of the students are African American; there is also strong representation by Caucasians, Hispanics (many from Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic), and Asians,(Anzy is my friend)including significant representation from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, and a significant number with a mixed ancestry background.

[edit] Sports

Wilson has traditionally had a very competitive basketball team, and solid teams in football, soccer, and swimming. It has a popular ski club, and it started a golf team in 1989.

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../w/i/l/Wilson_Magnet_High_School_5ab4.html"