Хайленд Парк және Университет Паркі округінің тарихы

School district in Texas, United States
the district which serves the cities of Highland Park and University Park and part of North Dallas

John Scarbrough Armstrong was one of the major founders of the town and contents of Highland Park because he owned significant portions of the land that would become the town. In 1906, Armstrong purchased 1,400 acres of prairie land north of downtown Dallas. After his death on April 26, 1908, his widow and sons in law—Edgar Flippen and Hugh Prather—took over his work. 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. From 1909 until this time, children wishing to attend school had attended classes in a little red frame house operating under the name of "Highland Park School" that had been moved to the 4700 block of Abbott by community leader Michael Costello and a group of citizens. However, the judge granted the petition for an independent school district on May 5, 1914, and HPISD was born. Once the school district held an election for the first Board of Trustees, the Board began searching for a suitable location for the new school. Mrs. Alice Armstrong, widow of the late John S. Armstrong, generously donated the needed land in the area bounded by Cornell Avenue, Byron Avenue, and St. John's Drive in memory of her husband, thus helping found the HPISD and its first school, appropriately named Armstrong. The Board of Trustees approved $30,000 in bonds to build the new Armstrong School on July 16, 1914. Highland Park residents spearheaded the creation of the HPISD and asked the neighbors to the north to become a part of the district; taxes were lower since the district included University Park's population. Initially the district did not receive funds from the U. S. federal government. Its student body was entirely white. The servants' quarters in the houses did not have black children as the wealthy white families did not hire servants with families. 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. The federal court orders to integrate had no effect in HPISD since it did not receive federal money. 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.

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. The staff at the time included one principal, Belle Francis, and two teachers. The fourth room was not needed and thus served as a Sunday school room. 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. After the passage of a couple years to 1916, the staff had grown in size to include twelve teachers, most without college degrees, and the student enrollment had grown to 140 students, ranging from kindergartners to high school sophomores. Students wishing to complete high school had to go to Bryan Street High School in Dallas (originally called Dallas High School and later Crozier Tech). Some of the Armstrong School staff at the time included Francis herself as well as Mary Inis (kindergarten), Katherine Mansfield (first grade), and Anne Rose McLean (second grade). 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. It was dedicated to Mrs. Armstrong with the following inscription:

TO HER who has ever proven in every way a faithful friend of our beloved school, and an ardent sympathizer in and promoter of its best interest, to Mrs. John S. Armstrong, this, our first volume is affectionately dedicated. Following the approval of the 2015 bond package, Armstrong Elementary School will receive a much needed addition and renovation which began in December 2017.

In 1922, a second school was added to the district: a new building between Normandy Avenue and Granada Avenue which would house Highland Park High School. Grades eight and above moved to the new high school, and the first class graduated from Highland Park High School in 1924. Superintendent Gable moved his office from Armstrong School to the high school. and uses a Spanish Colonial Revival style. Foshee & Creek designed the school building with a cost of $68,200. The building permit was filed in 1930. Following the approval of the 2015 bond package, Bradfield Elementary School will be torn down and rebuilt beginning in the summer of 2018. 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. UP Elementary School students attended classes in the new building on Wentwood Drive during this time—what would become the fifth elementary school. They were the first students to ever use the new building on Wentwood Drive. Meanwhile, a new building for UP Elementary School was being built with a parking garage underneath it. The new UP Elementary School is on track to open in August 2018 for the 2018–2019 school year.

In the 2015–2016 school year, HPISD had a student population of 7,171 people, of whom 2,114 were at Highland Park High School. The areas from which HPISD draws, Highland Park and University Park, have a reputation for being affluent, predominantly white areas. The student body went from being almost 99% white, to 86.5% white in 2015. The next biggest sections are a 6% Asian population and a 5% Hispanic population. 0.0% of the district's students are economically disadvantaged. The rate of violent or criminal incidents at every single campus in the district in 2015 2016 was 0.0%. 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.