Highland Park Independent School District
The District is run by a school board consisting of seven elected, unpaid members.
On April 14, 1914, the newly incorporated town of Highland Park petitioned the Dallas County Judge to allow them to establish an independent school district.
As a result, HPISD had no black children in the 1950s and 1960s, when other Dallas-area school districts dealt with racial integration and white flight.
[8] As a result, values of HPISD-zoned properties in University Park rose dramatically and the demographic makeup became wealthier, with smaller houses being replaced by larger ones circa the 1970s.
[9] HPISD first opened its doors on October 12, 1914, with John S. Armstrong School, a one-story cream-yellow brick building on Cornell Avenue with only four rooms and a basement.
There being no easy transportation system, students simply walked to school each morning across the open fields that would later become residential areas of Highland Park.
To accommodate these increases in size, a second story was added to the original Armstrong School building in 1916 which allowed for an additional four classrooms, a clinic, and an office.
The first-ever HPISD yearbook was published following the 1916–1917 school year under the title The Highlander, a name which remains to this day.
Following the approval of the 2015 bond package, the building will receive a parking garage built underneath the existing athletics fields.
[10] As the student body size increased, the district added another school in 1926, Bradfield Elementary, located between Southern Avenue and Mockingbird Lane.
[10] In 1928, the District added University Park Elementary School on Lovers Lane with the remaining funds from the 1925 bond election discussed above.
On May 17, 2017, before the demolition of the school, the District allowed former students and educators a chance to visit one last time.
[13] The demolition also affected longtime janitor Jesus Gonzalez who had lived in a District-owned house on the UP campus for years; in 2017, the community surprised Gonzalez and his wife with a check for $53,000 and the District agreed to provide them housing for the rest of their lives.
The new building featured 32 classrooms, 2 gyms, 2 auditoriums, a library, a cafeteria, an armory, a clinic, offices, a public address system, tennis courts, a greenhouse, and a football field with permanent seats.
[5] Today, Highland Park High School features three large plaques just inside the main entrance on Emerson Avenue which list the names of all HPHS alumni who went on to serve in the U.S. Armed Forces.
The building would have opened in 1941 if not for a steel shortage caused by World War II which delayed the construction.
Newton L. Manning was the first principal of Hyer and frequently brought chickens, goats, and other animals to entertain the students.
Key elements included larger classrooms, flexible group learning spaces, an underground parking garage, and an exterior appearance that mimicked that of the existing HPISD schools.
[citation needed] In 2009, the school district was rated "exemplary" by the Texas Education Agency.
[26][10] In February 2016, the District sold $225 million in bonds with a 20-year amortization at an interest rate of 2.95%—lower than had been originally expected.
The District is run by a seven-member school board of trustees who are elected to three-year terms each May.
From 1914–2017, HPISD has been led by eight superintendents as follows: In 2016, the Moody Foundation presented Highland Park ISD with a grant of $5.8 million (equivalent to $7,363,394 in 2023) to fund Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) education in the district.
Teachers across the District have formed a joint Design Team to implement the Moody Innovation Institute's programs in classrooms.
[47] From 1997 to 2016 the number of non-Hispanic white students increased and the district never gained any significant low income population, contrasting with the white flight and increase in low income students in other Dallas County districts.
