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Hightower High School

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L.V. Hightower High School is a secondary school (grades 9-12) located at 3333 Hurricane Lane, Missouri City, Texas, United States.

Hightower is administered by Fort Bend Independent School District and its mascot is Poseidon, but they are known as the Hightower Hurricanes.

Hightower serves parts of Missouri City (including Lake Shore Harbour), all of the city of Arcola, the unincorporated area of Fresno, parts of the unincorporated area of Rosharon, and the Fort Bend ISD portion of the city of Pearland (including some of Shadow Creek Ranch), as well as the master-planned community of Sienna Plantation, which is located in the extraterritorial jurisdiction of Missouri City.

The school is named after Lockhart Valentine (L.V.) Hightower, a former principal in the district.

History

Hightower opened in fall 1998; at the time less than 600 students were enrolled at Hightower. At the time 50 teachers taught at the school. As of October 2006, there are 2,834 students enrolled on the campus, which makes Hightower the largest school in the FBISD. Hightower was built to accommodate around 2,200 students.

Patricia Paquin controversy

On June 29, 2006, the Houston Press posted an article [1] about Pavlos Karnezis, a 12th grade honors student who was sent to jail and later expelled from school for bringing a knife to class. Despite the fact that Patricia Paquin, the Hightower High School principal as of 2006, was allowed to give him a lesser punishment since Karnezis did not intend to hurt anyone that day and had a clean disciplinary record, Patricia Paquin chose to expel him from school. Karnezis' parents, Thomas and Kathy Karnezis, fought and succeeded to reverse the decision.

The article cited [2] an early version of the Hightower High School Wikipedia entry [3] as a way of showing the malcontent with Patricia Paquin handling of the Karnezis affair and other Hightower incidents:

"Many petitions have been formed as a catalyst for her removal," reads the Wikipedia entry about Hightower High School. The online encyclopedia, written and edited by unnamed volunteers -- some of whom may well be disgruntled former Hightower employees -- includes a section devoted to controversies surrounding Patricia Paquin .

Feedback to the Houston Press expressed anti-Paquin sentiment [4].

Academies

Hightower High School offers four academies for incoming freshmen; Media, Engineering, Medical Sciences and Computer Sciences. 8th graders must apply during their fall semester and they must have teacher recommendations, excellent grades, no disciplinary action taken against them and a well written letter of intent. Its Medical Academy is known for its placings each year in HOSA nationals. The Engineering department is known for its Robotics Club. One teacher, Don Ruggles, helped pioneer the Infinity Project, and was previously an Engineer in the Silicon Valley.

Clubs

There are a vast amount of clubs and extracurricular activities, both UIL related and unofficial. Some of the clubs include the Science and robotics club, photography, and Math and science.

Associations

Hightower has chapters in various national associations including National Honor Society (NHS), Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA), PALS, Future Business Leaders of America-Phi Beta Lambda (FBLA), National Art Honor Society (NAHS), National FFA Organization (popularly "Future Farmers of America"), SNHS, and various others involved in every aspect of Hightower life. In 2006, Hightower qualified 16 students for the National HOSA competition in Anaheim, of which all 16 placed top 4 or higher in their respective categories. [5] In addition, 2 students qualified for the FBLA national competition in Nashville, Tennessee.

Like most highschools, the elective classes of Hightower High school's main goals are to succeed in UIL competitions. Some of these classes include the Marching band, Concert band, literature team, math and science team, debate, dance, orchestra, choir, robotics, and various other teams.

Athletics

Hightower has all of the sports that are usually associated with a high school, with exception to wrestling. These include: Football, baseball/softball, swimming, soccer, tennis, golf, marching band, dance, and bowling. Hightower competes in the UIL 5A classification, and as of the school year 2006-2007, they will be assigned to district 23-5A, which covers all ten high schools in Fort Bend ISD. Those schools were previously assigned to district 20-5A.

The school also has a varsity hockey team which competes in the Interscholastic Hockey League. The team combines players from Dulles High School, Elkins High School and of course, Hightower itself. In the 2004-2005 season, the team won the Adams Prep City Championship.

In its short six year history of varsity sports, the Hurricanes have made quite a showing in football, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls track, and cheerleading. Hightowers football teams made the state playoffs for its first five years of exsistence and won the district 20-5A title in 2002. In 2004 they were 10-0 for the season, but were forced to forfeit two games due to rules violation; therefore they officially did not win the district championship. They advanced to the third round of the playoffs three times (2001,2003 and 2006) and played in the region III football finals in 2001, losing to Houston's Madison High School, led by future NFL star Vince Young 54-22.

The Hurricanes missed the playoffs for the first time in 2005 with a 5-5 record under new head coach Eugene Johnson, who was previously at Klein Forest High School from 2001-2003.

The Hurricanes QB from the 2001 team Dacor Rogers, also known as Cory Rogers, was in the first class that Division I-A athletic scholarships were given to Hurricane football players. He received his scholarship from Texas Christian University, and became the first Hightower athlete to be picked in the National Football League NFL draft as a wide receiver in the fourth round of the 2006 draft by the Green Bay Packers.

Hightower boys and girls basketball teams each made it to the state semifinals in 2002, with the boys going back in 2003 after being ranked #1 in the state of Texas for most of the season.

Among some of the notable students who have played basketball at Hightower include, Lanny Smith, c/o 2003 and currently the starting point guard for the University of Houston, Nic Wise, who played his sophomore year at Hightower in 2004, and signed a scholarship with the University of Arizona for 2006, and DJ Augustin, a transfer student from New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, who was ranked as the number seven guard in the USA, according to Rivals.com. Augustin, who previously committed to the University of Texas, became the district 20-5A MVP, was voted first team all greater Houston by the Houston Chronicle, second team all state by the Texas basketball coaches association, and was selected to play in the McDonalds High School All American game, the most prestigious all star game for high school basketball athlethes.

Hightower boys and girls track teams have each won multiple regional titles, with the boys winning region III in 2002 and 2003 and the girls winning in 2003 and 2004.

The Hurricanes Baseball team made the state playoffs for the first time in 2006 after three near misses, and won their first series ever, defeating Mayde Creek High School two games to none, before losing in the second round to Tomball High School 6-3 in a one game series.

Student body

According to the Hightower High school website, [6],the student bodies as of May 2006, Hightower has 2,642 students and 144 teachers with another 23 staff members, including principals, counselors, and office admin. Ethnic makeup of Hightower is 52.38% black (1384 students), 22.94% Hispanic (606 students) 15.29% white (404 students) 9.24% Asian (244 students) and 0.15% American Indian (4 students).

Feeder patterns

Blue Ridge, Burton, Goodman, Palmer, Scanlan Oaks, and Sienna Crossing Elementary Schools feed into the following middle schools: Lake Olympia, Quail Valley and Baines Middle School (opened in August 2006), which all feed into Hightower.

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