In the first year only a few hundred students enrolled, but the school grew rapidly as new housing developments were completed along Kiest Boulevard and Ledbetter Drive.

This type of racial turnover was common in the US during the white flight era of the 1960s, but it was rare to see it happen in such a newly developed area.

Most of the homes, businesses and shopping centers in this area of Oak Cliff were less than ten years old when the racial changes began.

In January 2018 students were moved to Village Fair, along Interstate 35E, previously used as a shopping complex, so the permanent building may be remodeled.

[6] In December 2019, $52 million worth of renovations were completed on the original campus and students began classes there beginning in January 2020.

[17] The South Oak Cliff Golden Bears compete in the following sports: Baseball, Basketball, Cross Country, Football, Golf, Soccer, Softball, Swimming and Diving, Tennis, Track and Field, Volleyball, and Wrestling.

With this win, SOC became the first Dallas ISD school to win a state championship in football since 1950 (Carter defeated Converse Judson in the 1988 Class AAAAA final, but the University Interscholastic League stripped Carter of the championship over two years after the game was played, due to the alleged changing of one grade of one player; which ultimately came down to one contested assignment).

Off the court, however, the team was forced to forfeit the titles in 2005 and 2006 after teachers were found to have changed failing grades in order to maintain the eligibility of basketball players.

[26] A 2008 investigation within the Dallas school district's Office of Professional Responsibility found that then-principal Donald Moten as well as other school officials staged cage fights among troubled students, making them fight in a steel utility cage inside a boys locker room.

[29][30] South Oak Cliff High was stripped of its 2005 and 2006 state basketball championships after investigators determined Moten had coerced teachers into changing athletes' grades.

District reports also confirmed unauthorized pep rally fundraisers that Moten used to fund personal gambling trips.

Moten had a previous checkered work history at the Dallas Police Department – one that included staging his own kidnapping and the fatal shooting of an elderly crime-watch volunteer.

Moten was moved from South Oak Cliff High to Jackson Elementary School in 2006, and resigned from the district in 2008.