Wilmer-Hutchins High School

Wilmer-Hutchins High School (nicknamed "The Hutch") is a public secondary school in Dallas, Texas (USA). A part of the Dallas Independent School District, Wilmer-Hutchins High was formerly part of the now defunct Wilmer-Hutchins Independent School District.

Located at 5500 Langdon Road in far south Dallas, the school serves students in grades nine through twelve. It serves portions of Dallas, most of Hutchins, Wilmer, a small portion of Lancaster, as well as unincorporated areas in southeastern Dallas County.^[1]

History

Wilmer-Hutchins High School was originally established in 1928, after four smaller school districts consolidated. A new $60,000 campus was built on Highway 75, midway between Wilmer and Hutchins. The building was expanded in the 1950s with the addition of a large gymansium and an annex housing a junior high school.

The district's population grew rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s as hundreds of black families moved into new home developments located in the Dallas portion of the district. However, none of their children attended WHHS, as it was designated a "whites only" school. Black high school students were bused to Dallas' Lincoln High School until 1964, when Wilmer-Hutchins opened John F. Kennedy High School and Milton K. Curry Junior High School in the northern portion of the district.

The school district was forced by courts to integrate in 1968. Kennedy High School was closed after only four years (it was combined with its sister campus to form Kennedy-Curry Junior High School) and all high school students attended WHHS. White families began fleeing the district, and by 1972 the school's population was almost 100 percent black.

In 1983, a new campus was built on Langdon Road in Dallas, north of Hutchins and closer to most of the student body. The old campus became C.S. Winn Junior High School, which was later used as an elementary school before being abandoned in the early 2000s.^{[citation needed]}

The school won the 1990 Class AAAA state football championship.^[2]

From 1991 to 1996 the school had six different principals. In August 1995 the school district hired 60 new teachers for the school. By October 1996, 20 of those teachers hired remained.^[3]

In 2004 the board voted to close Wilmer Hutchins Performing Arts High School. Students were moved to Wilmer Hutchins high school in January 2005.^[4]

In 2005 WHISD closed. The Dallas Independent School District (DISD) took over WHISD's boundary. Wilmer-Hutchins High School closed, and the entire senior class of Wilmer-Hutchins High School attended South Oak Cliff High School.^[5] Ron Price, a member of the DISD board of trustees, preferred that the seniors attended Madison High School, but the WHISD seniors preferred South Oak Cliff since it was closer to their residences. In a telephone survey most seniors said that they would prefer staying together in one school rather than being divided across many schools based on the locations of their residences.^[6] The other high school classes were divided between South Oak Cliff, David W. Carter High School, A. Maceo Smith High School, and Roosevelt High School.^[7] The high school stayed closed for six years.^[8]

DISD planned to convert the former Wilmer Hutchins campus into a magnet school. In 2008 police, acting on a tip, entered the closed school building and found plants which they believed to be marijuana plants in a classroom.^[9]

At the time of the district's closure, the WHHS campus (then only 22 years old) was in extreme disrepair. DISD is heavily remodeling the WHHS campus and reopened it in the fall of 2011.^[10]

Six years after WHISD closed,^[11] the school re-opened as a Dallas ISD school in 2011. It absorbed students from A. Maceo Smith, which became a technology magnet school in fall of 2011. Funds from the $1.35 billion bond were used to renovate the school. The district completely renovated the auditorium, the career education building, and the interior.^[12] The school district enclosed the plaza entrance and added air conditioning and geothermal heating systems.^[13]

In addition to taking territory from Smith,^[1][14] WH High School also took territory from Carter,^[15] Roosevelt,^[16] and South Oak Cliff.^[17]

In April 2012 Marion Brooks, the principal, said that children zoned to 22 other schools, including some schools not within DISD, are attending Wilmer-Hutchins.^[18]

Extracurricular activities

Football

Wilmer-Hutchins has made 20 Playoff appearances in 38 games, Winning the 1990 Class 4A State Championship by defeating Austin Westlake 19-7 at Floyd Casey Stadium in Waco, Tx. Switching Districts in 2000 from 4A to 3A, The Eagles were flying high and were one of the premier football teams in Class 3A. Due to the shutdown, the football team had disbanded.

The First Home Return Game for The Eagles will be August 26, 2011 against The Moisés E. Molina High School Jaguars.

Band

The Wilmer Hutchins Band is also known as the "Marching Music Machine".

School enrollment (1988-2005)

The ethnic composition of students in the 2004-2005 school year was 74% African American, 23% Hispanic, and 3% White. Of the 669 students, 355 (53%) were considered economically disadvantaged.

Student performance

Wilmer-Hutchins High Schools's performance on the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS), a state standardized test used from 1991 to 2003, was generally at or below state standards. The school received the rating of "acceptable" on six occasions (1993–94, 1995–96, 1997–98, 2000–01, 2001–02, and 2002–03) and the state's worst rating of "low performing" four times (1994–95, 1996–97, 1998–99, and 1999-00).

A new standardized test, the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) was introduced in 2003. WHHS received a rating of "academically acceptable" for the 2003-04 school year and "academically unacceptable" for the 2004-05 school year. This was due to lower than acceptable passing rates on the test in Reading ("All Students" category and 1 of 3 analyzed subgroups) and Mathematics ("All Students" and all 3 analyzed subgroups).^[19]

Notable alumni

• Royce West is a Democratic African American member of the Texas Senate.
• Spud Webb is a retired NBA basketball point guard.
• Ricky Grace is a former NBL player
• Rickey Dixon is a retired NFL football player.
• Keith LeMon Washington is a former American football defensive end.
• Christopher J. Jones is a 1992 4A Texas State 400 meter champion, Standout Two Time Southwest Conference 400 meter Champion for Rice University, Conference USA 400 meter Champion and Conference USA record holder for the University of Houston, School Record Holder for Rice University and the University of Houston, and 1997 Outdoor 4x400 meter World Champion.

References

External links

• Wilmer-Hutchins High School
• Archive of the Wilmer-Hutchins ISD site