Hialeah High School
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hialeah High School is a secondary school located at 251 E 47th Street in Hialeah, Florida.
| Established | September 1954 |
|---|---|
| Type | Public secondary |
| Principal | Lorenzo Ladaga |
| Students | 3,780 |
| Grades | 9–12 |
| Location | Hialeah, Florida, USA |
| District | Miami-Dade County Public Schools |
| Campus | Urban |
| Colors | Scarlet and royal blue |
| Mascot | Thoroughbreds |
| School hours | 7:30–2:30 |
| Average class size | 35 |
| Website | hhs.dadeschools.net |
Contents |
[edit] History
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Hialeah High School was built in 1953 and opened its doors to students and staff in 1954 to serve the ever growing communities of Northwestern Miami-Dade County. It is one of the oldest secondary schools in the county, having celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2004. Hialeah was one of the ten Miami-Dade high schools that was given a grade of "F" for the 2006-2007 school year according to the FCAT examinations.
Despite being given a grade of "F", Hialeah has had many students go on to Ivy League universities and top schools around the nation such as Dartmouth, Harvard, Boston, Yale, Princeton, Pennsylvania, Columbia, Stanford, MIT, Johns Hopkins, Duke, and George Washington.
Hialeah's growing pains began in the early 1960s when a population boom in the area began due to a large migration of expatriate Cubans from the Cuban Revolution of 1959, causing housing developments to boom in the then mostly rural Northwestern Dade County which was largely served by Hialeah. As a response to this, Miami Springs High School, which opened in September 1964, was built to relieve this overcrowding problem, but the initiative failed as the student population growth in the area was larger than the capacity of both high schools. Because of this, Hialeah-Miami Lakes High School was also built, opening in 1971, to relieve both schools from their growing population problems, dividing the city of Hialeah into three school zones still in effect today, Hialeah High School mostly serving the Eastern and Central portions of the city.
During construction of both reliever high schools, students were placed on three separate shifts to relieve the overcrowding, with seniors generally attending from 7:30 AM to 2:30 PM, juniors attending Miami Springs Senior High School from 8:30 AM to 3:30 PM and sophomores attending from 9:30 AM to 4:30 PM. Ninth grade students were removed from the school in an attempt to relieve overcrowding by being placed at the local middle schools, and sixth grade was moved to the local elementary schools, remaining this way until 1997 when Hialeah High School regained ninth grade students. The school also experienced a district milestone due to this overcrowding as the class of 1965 graduated approximately 1190 students, the largest in the district's history. This was mostly because despite being open and operating, Miami Springs High School only took in students starting from the class of 1966, so many 1965 seniors were from the Miami Springs area and were forced to continue attending Hialeah High School despite having an operative high school in their own neighborhood.
Up until the early 1970s, Hialeah High School (as well as the surrounding area) was predominantly white; due to a large influx of immigrants, primarily of Cuban descent, the majority of the school's population became Hispanic over the 1980s and 1990s. Currently, the school is 95% percent Hispanic.
In 1987, an asbestos problem forced the closure of Miami Springs Senior High School. Miami Springs Senior High School students and staff temporarily relocated to Hialeah Senior High School. A split shift was established where Hialeah High students attended the first part of the day and Miami Springs students attended the second half.
Hialeah High's campus was greatly expanded between 1999 and 2003 adding an entirely new building, expanding and renovating its auditorium and classrooms, and adding extra parking space. Due to a population increase in the city of Hialeah in the early 2000s, the school was fast becoming one of the most populated in the area and a proposal to build another high school in the city of Hialeah was put before the school board, and Westland Hialeah High School was constructed.
Hialeah has a long, notable, athletic rivalry with nearby Hialeah-Miami Lakes High School which began in the 1970s. It also has a less formal rivalry with Miami Springs High School left over from the 1960s, and a historical rivalry with Miami Jackson High School which is no longer in effect.
[edit] Athletics
The Hialeah Senior High boys volley ball team started running once again in 05 and has won the district title ever since, reaching the regional semi finals vs. Columbus and Coral Park and coming up short in both. The boys volleyball team is getting closer and closer to states each year. The T-Bred Boys Swimming Team has won the District title three years running and six times out of the last seven years. The Boys Water Polo team similarly has won the District Tournament two years running, having given the Dr. Michael Krop team defeats each year.
[edit] Notable alumni
- Harry Casey, member of KC and the Sunshine Band.
- Bucky Dent, former professional baseball player.
- Ted Hendricks, former professional football player.
- Angel Hernandez, professional baseball umpire.
- Charlie Hough, former professional baseball player.
- Roell Preston, former professional football player.
- Ricardo "Rock" Preston, former football standout at Florida State University.
- Rick Sanchez, CNN anchor/correspondent.
- Jon Secada, Grammy Award-winning musician.
- Pedro Zamora, MTV's The Real World personality.
- Mayra Veronica, singer, actress, model (FHM 100 sexiest in the world, Maxim's sexiest music artist alive)
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Hialeah High School
- Miami-Dade County Public Schools
- Hialeah High Baseball
- The Record Paper Online
- Golden Thoroughbreds
