Sharpstown Middle School

Sharpstown Middle School is a secondary school in Houston, Texas located at Coordinates: 29°41′54″N 95°31′54″W / 29.69833, -95.53167 8330 Triola Lane with a zip code of 77036. Sharpstown Middle School, which serves grades 6 through 8, is part of the Houston Independent School District.

Sharpstown Middle School, which is located in Sharpstown area, has an architectural and graphic design magnet program offering graphic designing classes to students who wish to become designers in the future. The school was named after Sharpstown, the community it is located in.

Sharpstown MS offers one foreign language class, Spanish, for high school credit and Introduction to Keyboarding class for high school credit. In the school year, 2004-2005, all students who had the Introduction to Keyboarding class passed the class with a high school credit. Sharpstown also hosts summer school for HISD. As of the 2006-2007 school year, Sharpstown offers Algebra for high school credit.

Sharpstown Middle has an Advanced Placement Program (PreAP/AP).

The school's mascot for its sports team is the "Viking". One major activity that Sharpstown Middle offers to students and their parents is their annual Winterfest. Winterfest happens every first Tuesday of December offering many games and activities both students and parents can enjoy throughout the night.

History

Sharpstown Middle School was originally built in 1967 as a high school. It was named Sharpstown Junior/Senior High School housing grades 7 - 12. The area around the school grew quickly, and in the early 1970s, a new Sharpstown Senior High campus (serving grades 10 - 12) was built on Bissonnet Street. The older campus became Sharpstown Junior High, serving grades 7 - 9. At the beginning of the 1980-81 school year, Sharpstown Junior High became Sharpstown Middle School (grades 6 - 8), and Sharpstown Senior High became Sharpstown High School.

A gathering of students at a convenience store, which was often a meeting place for Sharpstown Middle School students, across from the school before 8:00 AM on Thursday, February 3, 1994 became a fight and lead to three Sharpstown Middle School students receiving hospitalization. A 15-year old boy with a stab wound to the neck received surgery. A 15-year old boy with a stab wound to his back and a 12-year old with a cut on his forehead were also hospitalized. Police took one 15-year old boy into custody and referred him to juvenile probation authorities.¹² The fight resulted in 500 students not attending classes the following day. On Monday, February 7 about 120 students did not attend classes.³

In the late 1990s, Sharpstown was granted a magnet program, Architecture and Graphics. Since the early 1990s, Sharpstown has hosted "Winterfest," which was changed to "Evening with the Arts."

According to the October 2006 "For Your Information" newsletter, Sharpstown was one of three middle schools that took the most Hurricane Katrina evacuees.

Location

Sharpstown is located in the Sharpstown Area of Houston. Sharpstown Middle is a few minutes away from the Sharpstown Center at Bellaire Boulevard and U.S. Highway 59 (the section next to the school is named the "Southwest Freeway"). Also, Sharpstown is a few minutes from the Memorial Hermann Hospital Southwest on Beechnut and U.S. Highway 59. The surrounding area consists of Sharpstown homes. Landsdale Park is located east of Sharpstown where special school activities take place.

Student body

Sharpstown Middle School opened as a predominantly White middle school. As of 2006, Sharpstown Middle School is a majority Hispanic school. [1] During the 2005-2006 school year, Sharpstown had an enrollment of 1,264 students.

During the 2004-2005 school year, Sharpstown Middle School was 70% Hispanic, 6% Asian, 24% African-American, and 1% White. More than 90% of the students qualify for free or reduced lunch.

Neighborhoods served by Sharpstown

Many parts of Houston southwest of Downtown Houston that are inside Beltway 8 and outside the 610 Loop are zoned to Sharpstown.

The school serves half of the community of Sharpstown, which was Houston's first-ever master planned community. In addition, Sharpstown High School also serves the communities of Braeburn Glen, a portion of Braeburn Valley, a portion of Robindell, a portion of Sharpstown Country Club Estates and Sharpstown Country Club Terrace.

Transportation

Houston ISD provides school buses for students who live more that two miles away from the school or who have major obstacles between their houses and the school.

School uniforms

Sharpstown Middle School has a mandatory school uniform policy. Uniforms consist of T-shirts bought from the school and long khaki trousers. [2]

The Texas Education Agency specified that the parents and/or guardians of students zoned to Lamar may apply for a waiver to opt out of the uniform policy so their children do not have to wear the uniform [3]; parents must specify "bona fide" reasons, such as religious reasons for philosophical objections.

Feeder patterns

Elementary schools that feed into Sharpstown Middle include Bonham, McNamara, Neff, and White.

Sharpstown Middle feeds into Sharpstown High School and Lee High School (any student zoned to Lee may also attend Lamar or Westside High Schools).

References

Wikipedia content modification information:

• This page was last modified on 1 January 2009, at 01:04.

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