Talk:Virgil Grissom High School

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[edit] Racism

this is one of the most low key racist articles on wikipedia...of course the school's in Alabama! lol. I tried to make it a much more neutral article. Implications of the article: the only blacks in the school play sports, asians and whites are smarter, and intergration is a problem. But hey, that's Alabama for you. examples: African-Americans are well represented on the sports teams, i.e., football, basketball and track black side of town. Their high asian and white demographic percentage helps Grissom maintain their academic excellence. Elimination of the busses helped prevent severe integration minority students may apply to attend the mostly white Grissom High if they can find their own transportation.

Was this feces written by a child? Wake up Alabama, this is the 21st century. Oh, I see whoever wrote this neglected to mention Grissom's rampant drug abuse. If you're reading this and go to Grissom, you know exactly what I'm talking about. p.s. the article was kind of funny though. --Poopoomagoo 09:29, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I am a student of Grissom and there is no "rampant drug abuse". If you are referring to the small pool of scum that every high school seems to collect, then yes, it would be rampant among them. Grissom High School also happens to have a nationally acclaimed jazz band program, within the past six year they have gone to the North Sea Jazz festival and has been invited to play at the Jazz Lincoln center for the Essentially Ellington program. It would make sense to include a section about them, but i dont know enough. oh well.

• As a previous student of Grissom, I can definitely attest to the veracity of drug claims. I would not be surprised to find that the problem has received some attention, but with family members currently attending and reporting, I'm of the opinion that anybody attempting to say otherwise is blind to the circumstances. Despite all that, however, the school does boast a lot of really great things. The jazz band is, as has been stated, excellent. Unfortunately, the theater program has greatly declined in recent years. Lee.crabtree 19:19, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I should like to add that grissom is the most ethnically diverse high school in Huntsville, and that this is reflected in all of its classes. As a former football player, i can assure you that the football team is in no way ethnically "stacked". Facts about busing reflect common view point in Huntsville and perhaps most of the south that busing was a bad thing. Anytime you attempt to move people around, integration, or even partition of countries, chaos does to some extent result. However, in this case integration was worth its costs. The only way I would refer to Grissom as being segregated would be with regards to socio-economics, but even this doesn't really hold up. Indeed, I would guess that Huntsville is the rich, old money school with contacts in the Chamber of Commerce, City Council, and School Board. ````55

[edit] Prison

Grissom's symmetry isnt the reason why we call it a prison. its because of its drab and windowless appearance. Ive also never heard of the whole "looking like a flower because it was built in the 60s thing." It might look like an ugly flower though. I have heard teachers mention the reason for the schools characteristic design is because of "innovative teaching methods" like open classroom learning environments, etc. that were being introduced at the time. obviously the school teaches students much like any other school now. -current grissom student.

[edit] Let's get a little more encyclopedic here

Most of this article fails the criteria for WP:NOT, but ignoring that for the moment, the tone is also very unencyclopedic at times. A classic example is in the section on the school paper, where it refers to "Mr. Whilhoite and Coach Collins." Guess what, kids? I and the rest of the world have no frikkin' idea who these guys are. At a minimum, could you at least use their full names and refer to who they are, e.g. "English teacher Bob Wilhoite" or whoever the heck he is?

Also, the section on the Track team. "The high school has a track team." heh... you've got to be kidding me. --Jaysweet 20:04, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Geez, be bold and remove cruft like this, horrible to think stuff like this slips through. I saw "best" and "greatest" and the like all over this article, and removed them. No one cares about the layout of the school. No one cares that students dread the lack of windows, even though you go on to say now the school is full of windows. The article still needs to be rewritten, but I removed the majority of total crap. If it weren't for the school being named for Virgil Grissom, the article would already be gone. SpigotMap 16:03, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I've reworked a handful of the items that were initially deleted as they contained useful facts or descriptions. You may not need to know the room-by-room layout but noting that the building is "roughly octagonal" seems within the bounds of useful description. And let me throw the potential conflict of interest flag at myself on the reference to my father. However, it is the city's major daily newspaper, the Huntsville Times, that called him "an important part of Grissom history" not me and the two sentences included here are relevant, well-sourced, and non-controversial. As the article expands to cover other notable teachers (Kay Cornelius, Sandra Shipman, et al.) a section called, well, "Notable teachers" would be warranted.- Dravecky (talk)

Looks much better. Didn't mean to offend you if I did, but there was just a lot of unneeded info and claims in there. Someone would have done it eventually, sorry to ruthlessly remove someone's hard work, but it was way more then the average encyclopedia reader needs to know. Good day! SpigotMap 17:53, 14 August 2007 (UTC)