Public school in Texas, United States
Clear Lake High School is a public secondary school located in Houston, Texas, United States.
The school, which serves grades 9 through 12, is a part of the Clear Creek Independent School District. The school serves portions of Houston (including most of Clear Lake City, Taylor Lake Village and Pasadena (including Clear Lake City). It previously served the cities of Seabrook, El Lago, and the El Jardin del Mar portion of Pasadena, until Clear Falls High School in League City opened. Its colors are red, blue, and white. Its mascot and symbol is the Falcon.
History
Clear Lake High School opened in 1972 to alleviate overcrowding at what was then the district's only high school, Clear Creek High School with the first class graduating in 1973. The current campus has a field house, and athletic fields, all across the street from the University of Houston–Clear Lake.
The ninth grade annex was first added to the Clear Lake High School campus in 1978. Later, the 9th grade center was used as Space Center Intermediate School but returned to a 9th grade center when SCIS moved to a newly built campus for the 1999–2000 school year. When Clear Lake was rebuilt the district began to use the ninth grade annex has a building for Robotics, the Gifted and Talented Program and more.
In 1984 psychologists enacted anti-suicide seminars at Clear Lake HS after a wave of suicides of students in CCISD, which took place outside of school campuses.[2]
For the 1986–87 school year Clear Lake High School became a National Blue Ribbon School.[3]
Clear Lake High School is currently the largest school in Texas with a Texas Education Agency (TEA) ranking of Recognized.[citation needed]
The school discovered large-scale cheating in an English IV final examination in 2012.[4] The school invalidated all English IV final exam results, allowing students who did not cheat to have a final grade without the final or to take the final again. The students who cheated received scores of zero.[5]
Suicides in 1984
In the 1980's, Clear Lake was perhaps most known for the 5 suicides that occurred in 1984. Three 19 year old dropouts ended up committing suicide. The first one shot himself on a highway access road on Aug 9th and a month later his friend who attended his funeral, took his own life as well and shot himself in his neighbors front yard. Two days after that a third dropout who knew the second victom through drug rehab hung himself at home. The next two deaths were unrelated but still shook the community. Next was a young 15 year old who was depressed about having to move into the area from Alabama and didn't know any of the other victims and a 16 year old boy around the same time who hung him self over his parents divorce. The third victim of carbon monoxide poison happened 20 min south of Clear Lake and attended Clear Creek High school. [6][2]
Loren Coleman, author of The Copycat Effect: How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrow's Headlines, wrote that "Needless to say, the community was alarmed by the deaths and feared more."[7]
In January 1985 area police department stated that since October 1984 there had been no suicides of teenagers. "[8]
Demographics
The demographic breakdown of the 2,396 students enrolled in 2015-2016 was:
- Male - 52.0%
- Female - 48.0%
- Native American/Alaskan - 0.3%
- Asian/Pacific islanders - 15.4%
- Black - 6.6%
- Hispanic - 23.8%
- White - 49.7%
- Multiracial - 4.2%
19.9% of the students were eligible for free or reduced-cost lunch.[9]
Campus
In May 2013 voters in CCISD approved a $367 million district bond. According to the referendum, Clear Lake High will get new campus buildings, valued at $98.6 million total.[10] PBK Architects designed the new additions, a two-story classroom building and a fine arts center. Construction was scheduled to begin in April 2014.[11]
Construction was finished in January 2018 and the constructed building is still used by Clear Lake High School now as their primary building.
A soccer ball carried aboard the fatal final flight of Space Shuttle Challenger by astronaut Ellison Onizuka, whose children attended Clear Lake High School and who coached the soccer team, is displayed in the school.[12]
In 2005 the school had 525 students enrolled in its music classes. That year, the school was named a Grammy Signature School. Its music department received a grant for $2,000.[13]
