Sandalwood High School

Infobox Secondary school
name = Sandalwood High School

motto = "Good to Great!"
established = 1971
principal = Victoria Schultz
type = Public School
grades = 9–12
city = Jacksonville
state = Florida
country = USA
enrollment = 3700+
mascot = Mighty Saints
colors = Blue and Gold
website = http://www.dreamsbeginhere.org/sandalwood/

Sandalwood High School is a public high school in the Duval County Public School district of Jacksonville, Florida. It is the largest high school in Duval County as well as on the First Coast with over 3,700 students.

Mission

The mission of Sandalwood High is to educate students within the guidelines established at the national, state, and district levels. The administration, faculty, staff, students, and parents share the responsibility for creating an environment in which learning takes place, while preparing the students to enter the workplace, military, or college with the skills necessary to succeed.

History

Sandalwood High was built in the Sandalwood corridor of the southside of Jacksonville. It is a magnet school and is well known school for its AFJROTC unit FL-939, Sandalwood Marching Saint's Band, and many different athletics, particularly football. In 1989, the 9th grade was moved from Junior High Schools to Senior High Schools, county-wide. Sixth grade was moved from Elementary Schools to Junior High Schools, which were renamed, "Middle Schools". Although for many years in the past it was rated as an F grade school Sandalwood currently has a C grade [cite web
title = School Demographic, Assessment, and Accountability Data
publisher = Duval County Public Schools
date = April 25, 2008
url = http://www.duvalschools.org/reseval/Schools/SchoolResearchData.asp?School=237
accessdate = 2008-04-25 ]

Criticism and the Local Media

However, Sandalwood is also widely known across the county for its allegedly violent atmosphere. [ [http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/080706/met_p3sandalwoodmain.shtml Florida Times-Union: Aug 7, 2006-Tested by trials, rewarded with hope] ] The principal has made some significant changes in security and enforcement of more strict rules to help alleviate the problem, with very little success. The school has been rated a "D" in the Florida school grading system for the past two years after consistently being a "C" school throughout the program's history. Many students, parents, and faculty have found the media to only report the negative occurrences rather than the positive on multiple accounts. Many students of Sandalwood have noticed this trend and have reported it to the local newspaper. The Florida Times Union did a story on it by interviewing the opinions of real students. [ [http://www.jacksonville.com/sandalwood/sandalwood_videos.shtml Florida Times-Union: Feb 26, 2006-Violence must stop at Sandalwood High School] ]

Electives

Sandalwood High offers an array of extracurriculars and electives. The new Sandalwood Academy of INformation Technology, Baseball, swimming, Saint's Band, Lacrosse, Field and Track, Home Economics, AFJROTC, Woodshop, Computer Science, Football, Soccer, and Drama are only some of the elective courses that are open to the students.

Improvement

Sandalwood was one of 11 schools nation-wide selected by the College Board for inclusion in the EXCELerator "School Improvement Model" program beginning the 2006-2007 school year. The project was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Notable Awards/Recognition

Sandalwood's AFJROTC FL-939 Silver Eagle Drill Team has won the titles of Air Force National Drill Champions twice,(2005-2006 and 2006-2007) State Champions four years in a row, (2004-2005, 2005-2006, 2006-2007, and 2007-2008) and just recently the Southeast Regional Champions of Florida (2006-2007). Also in 2005 Sandalwood's award winning marching band won Grand Champion at both the Kingdom of the Sun Festival and the Ancient City Presentation of the Bands and placed during Semi-Finals at State Competition. Sandalwood also won the Superintendent's Academic Challenge, also known as Brain Brawl, in 2003, defeating Stanton College Preparatory School in the Final round.

ports

Football

The JV football ball team was undefeated in 2007 with a record of 6-0, raising expectations for the Varsity team in 2008.

Lacrosse

Sandalwood lacrosse began competing two years ago. Their record for that span is 8-12.

wimming Pool

The school has an outdoor pool which is used by the athletic teams and physical education classes during the academic year; then it becomes a free public pool operated by the City of Jacksonville Parks & Recreation Department during the summer months.

References

External links

* [http://www.duvalschools.org/sandalwood Sandalwood webpage]
* [http://www.duvalschools.org/sandalwood/afjrotc.html Sandalwood Air Force Jr. ROTC webpage]
* [http://www.sandalwoodband.net/sandalwoodband/page.html Sandalwood Band webpage]
* [http://www.duvalschools.org/ Duval County Public Schools website]