Shawnee Mission School District

The Shawnee Mission School District logo (as of January 2008)

The Shawnee Mission School District (Kansas Unified School District 512) is one of the major school districts in the Kansas City metropolitan area. It is in northeast Johnson County, Kansas, and enrolled 27,648 students in the 2017–2018 school year. As of 2017, the district comprises five high schools, five middle schools, 33 elementary schools, and six instructional centers. Its headquarters are in Overland Park.^[1][2][3]

History

In 1969, several school districts unified to become the Shawnee Mission School District. These districts were Greenwood District 39, Shawnee District 22, Lenexa District 500, Districts 10 and 90, Valley View District 49, Overland Park District 10, Linwood District 1, Roeland District 92, Merriam District 99, Antioch District 61, Westwood View District 93, Prairie District 44, and Corinth District 82.

South Park Elementary school, in Merriam, Kansas, played a role in school desegregation before the unification of the Shawnee Mission School District. South Park opened in 1948 for white students, leaving African-American students in the inadequate Walker Elementary using an outdated curriculum. Corinthian Nutter, an African-American teacher, resigned in protest and taught the students from her home. In 1949, the Webb vs. School District 90 case paved the way for Brown v. Topeka Board of Education five years later.

Skyline Elementary School was presumed to have been named for the fact that one could see the Kansas City, Mo., skyline from the area around the school.

McAuliffe Elementary School in Lenexa, Kansas, was one of the first schools in the nation named in honor of Christa McAuliffe.

The district converted from 7–8–9 junior high model to the 7–8 middle school model in 1986.

In 2017, Kenny Southwick was named interim superintendent after Jim Hinson retired. Hinson had served as superintendent since 2013.^[4]

Shawnee Mission North High School

Shawnee Mission Rural High School opened September 12, 1922, having cost $950,000 to build. It had 12 faculty members and a senior class of 20. The school colors are Red, Black and White and the school mascot is the Indian. The average annual enrollment is approximately 2,000 students. Shawnee Mission North was formerly known as the Original Shawnee Mission High School.

There had been a vote on September 21, 1921, on a "proposal to organize a rural high school district." The school was named Shawnee Mission Rural until 1945, when senior Robert F. Bennett was sent to Topeka to petition the legislature for a name change to more accurately reflect the school's suburban status. Later elected Governor of Kansas, Bennett was named North's first Distinguished Alumnus by the class of 1975. It was thus named Shawnee Mission High School until 1958, when Shawnee Mission East High School opened and Shawnee Mission High School was renamed Shawnee Mission North High School. The student body of Shawnee Mission High School had petitioned the school board to name the new school anything other than Shawnee Mission East High School in an attempt to avoid a renaming of their school.

Shawnee Mission East High School

Shawnee Mission East High School opened in 1958. As of 2015, enrollment was 1,642, making it the second-largest school in the Shawnee Mission School District. The mascot is the Lancer and the colors are Columbia blue, black, and white.

Shawnee Mission East is at the southwest corner of 75th Street and Mission Road in the Kansas suburb of Prairie Village, Kan., and serves Prairie Village along with the other Kansas suburbs Westwood, Westwood Hills, Mission Hills, Mission Woods, Fairway, Leawood, and Overland Park.

Shawnee Mission South High School

Shawnee Mission South's school colors are green and gold and its mascot is the Raider. The school's mascot was chosen by the first graduating class of 1967. The Raider was chosen as a mascot because of the popular band Paul Revere and the Raiders. Most of the students from South come from the middle school Indian Woods. The school's population in 2006 was 1,805 students, down from a peak around 2,400 in 1975. South has a newspaper called the Patriot and a yearbook called Heritage.

Shawnee Mission West High School

Shawnee Mission West's mascot is the Viking and the official school colors are black and gold. West opened its doors in 1962; since then, it has been remodeled several times. Additions have also been made to the school, the most famous of which is "the bridge," an actual bridge between halves of the school that later had classrooms added beneath it. As of 2006, the school had 2,042 students. It is in Overland Park at 85th Street and Antioch Road.

The former principal, Karl Krawitz, was the NEA III District Educator of the Year for 2004–2005.

West is home to both an award-winning school newspaper, the Epic, and a yearbook, SAGA. The Epic was ranked the fifth best newsmagazine in the country by the Scholastic Press Association in 2010. West has twice (1986 and 2007) placed second at the National Forensic League tournament for policy debate.

West's student body population is 10 percent African American, which is the highest African American population of any Shawnee Mission high school. West is the most ethnically diverse high school in the district. West draws its student population from Overland Park, Lenexa, and small parts of Shawnee.

Shawnee Mission Northwest High School

Shawnee Mission Northwest High School's mascot is the Cougar, and the school colors are black and orange. Its principal is Lisa Gruman. As of the 2005–2006 school year, Northwest had 1,859 students. It is in Shawnee, at 12701 West 67th Street, between Pflumm Road and Quivira Road.

District centers

• McEachen Administrative Center
• Arrowhead Administrative Center
• Horizons High School
• Broadmoor Technical Center
• Indian Creek Technical Center
• SM Instructional Support Center

Former schools

• Middle/Junior High Schools
  • Antioch Middle School (Formerly Milburn Junior High School)
  • Broadmoor Junior High School
  • Indian Creek Junior High School (Now Indian Creek Technical Center)
  • Mission Valley Middle School (Formerly Meadowbrook Junior High School)
  • Old Mission Junior High School (closed in 1986)
• Elementary Schools
  • Antioch Elementary School (Now part of the Shawnee Mission Medical Center in Merriam, KS)
  • Arrowhead Elementary School (Now Arrowhead Administrative Center)
  • Cherokee Elementary School (Now New Haven Seventh Day Adventist Church)
  • Don Bonjour Elementary School (Now Shawnee Mission Unitarian Universalist Church)
  • Dorothy Moody Elementary School (Closed at end of 2011–2012 school year)
  • Flint Elementary School (Merged with Bluejacket to become Bluejacket-Flint Elementary School)
  • Greenwood Elementary School (Now a Walmart Supermarket)
  • Hickory Grove Elementary School (Now Horizons High School)
  • Katherine Carpenter Elementary School (Merged with Oak Park to become Oak Park-Carpenter Elementary School) (Now SM Instructional Support Center)
  • Linwood Elementary School
  • Marsha Bagby Elementary School
  • Mohawk Elementary School (Now Mohawk Park)
  • Nall Hills Elementary School
  • Osage Elementary School (Now Osage Park)
  • Porter Elementary School (Now Porter Park)
  • Ridgeview Elementary School (Now Kansas City Christian School)
  • Roeland Park Elementary School (closed in 2003)
  • Sequoyah Elementary School
  • Shawnee Elementary School
  • Skyline Elementary School
  • Somerset Elementary School
  • South Park Elementary School (Merged with Merriam to become Merriam Park Elementary School)
  • Valley View Elementary School (Now Holy Cross Catholic School)
  • West Antioch Elementary School (closed in 2003)

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, the district has a population of 219,949 with 93,221 households (or occupied housing units) and 59,084 families. 69.0 percent of the housing units are occupied by the owner. The racial makeup of the district is 91.0 percent White, 2.6 percent Black or African American, 0.3 percent American Indian and Alaska Native, 2.8 percent Asian, less than 0.1 percent Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander, 1.6 percent of some other race, and 1.6 percent of two or more races. 4.3 percent of the population is Hispanic or Latino.

There are 93,221 households of which 29.9 percent are people living alone, 63.4 percent are families, and 6.7 percent are non-families with two or more people. 52.2 percent of households (or 82.4 percent of families) are married couples living together and 28.6 percent (or 45.1 percent) have their own children (persons under the age of 18) living with them. Of the 11.2 percent of households that have a householder with no spouse present, 44.4 percent are women living with their own children. The average household size is 2.33, and the average family size is 2.93.

The 50,632 children in the district are 23.0 percent of the total population, and 13,283 (6.0 percent) are under the age of 5; 13,605 (6.2 percent) are from 5 to 9; 14,874 (6.8 percent) are from 10 to 14; and 8,870 (4.0 percent) are from 15 to 17. 48.8 percent of the children are female. For 95.1 percent of the children in the district the householder is the child's parent and 77.3 percent live in married-couple families, but 1.1 percent are not related to the householder. 21 householders or spouses are under the age of 18.

District Superintendents

On February 12th, 2018, the Shawnee Mission Board of Education named Dr. Michael Fulton as the new Superintendent.^[5]

See also

• List of unified school districts in Kansas

References

• National Center for Education Statistics. School district demographic data.

External links

• Official website
• Summary of the school district from the Kansas State Department of Education website]
• School Closing History
• Myers Reports on Military to Oldest Friends, a September 2005 article about the return of General Richard Myers to Shawnee Mission North
• Corinth Elementary School