Bell Middle School, formerly Bell Junior High School, is a middle school

Middle school

Middle School and Junior High School are levels of schooling between elementary and high schools. Most school systems use one term or the other, not both. The terms are not interchangeable...

 in the South Bay Terrace neighborhood of San Diego, serving grades 6-8.

History

The school first opened in 1969 and was named after inventor Alexander Graham Bell

Alexander Graham Bell

Alexander Graham Bell was an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone....

. For 2006, a school Accountability Report Card listed student demographics as 39.5% Filipino

Filipino American

Filipino Americans are Americans of Filipino ancestry. Filipino Americans, often shortened to "Fil-Ams", or "Pinoy",Filipinos in what is now the United States were first documented in the 16th century, with small settlements beginning in the 18th century...

, 36.2% Hispanic

Hispanic

Hispanic is a term that originally denoted a relationship to Hispania, which is to say the Iberian Peninsula: Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain. During the Modern Era, Hispanic sometimes takes on a more limited meaning, particularly in the United States, where the term means a person of ...

, 19% black

Black people

The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...

, and 5.5% white

White people

White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...

. An Academic Performance Index

Academic Performance Index

The Academic Performance Index is a measurement of academic performance and progress of individual schools in California, United States. It is one of the main components of the Public Schools Accountability Act passed by the California legislature in 1999...

 in 2006 placed it schoolwide at 681 where 800 is the California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 State goal. As of 2007, the school changed from a junior high school to a middle school.

Landfill

Part of the school site was used as a sanitary landfill from 1961 to 1967. The landfill is currently known by various names including "Bell Junior High School Landfill", "Paradise Valley Landfill" and "Sweetwater II Landfill". The school buildings are not on the landfill, but the students' playing field is built over the top deck of the landfill. In 2005 the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board reported that groundwater

Groundwater

Groundwater is water located beneath the ground surface in soil pore spaces and in the fractures of rock formations. A unit of rock or an unconsolidated deposit is called an aquifer when it can yield a usable quantity of water. The depth at which soil pore spaces or fractures and voids in rock...

 monitoring at the site had detected 26 volatile organic compounds and found concentrations of chromium

Chromium

Chromium is a chemical element which has the symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in Group 6. It is a steely-gray, lustrous, hard metal that takes a high polish and has a high melting point. It is also odorless, tasteless, and malleable...

, iron

Iron

Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...

, manganese

Manganese

Manganese is a chemical element, designated by the symbol Mn. It has the atomic number 25. It is found as a free element in nature , and in many minerals...

, selenium

Selenium

Selenium is a chemical element with atomic number 34, chemical symbol Se, and an atomic mass of 78.96. It is a nonmetal, whose properties are intermediate between those of adjacent chalcogen elements sulfur and tellurium...

, and vanadium

Vanadium

Vanadium is a chemical element with the symbol V and atomic number 23. It is a hard, silvery gray, ductile and malleable transition metal. The formation of an oxide layer stabilizes the metal against oxidation. The element is found only in chemically combined form in nature...

that were above "water quality objectives."