Lake Clifton Eastern High School
Encyclopedia
Lake Clifton Eastern High School, now referred to as Lake Clifton Campus, was a public high school
located in Northeast Baltimore City, Maryland
in an area known as Clifton Park
, the result of a merger of Lake Clifton High School and Eastern High School.
The school was equipped to hold 4,800 students. The exact student population for the 2002-2003 school year was 2,400. Dropout
rates, violence, low test scores and low attendance plagued the school for years.
In January 1995 an electrical fire destroyed the school's library
, cafeteria, and administrative offices. In 1998, a state-of-the-art
media center was built at the cost of $4 million (1998), which would be $5,344,512.24 if adjusted for inflation in 2010.Lake Clifton's library is the newest in the whole city school system.
, school faculty members and administrators met and planned new, small, learning communities to open within Lake Clifton. But before the school could complete its restructuring, the board changed plans and decided on new uses for this valuable campus property and scattered the school population to other schools. As of 2010, Lake Clifton contains three small schools, Doris M. Johnson High School
#426 (this school is defunct and was closed down at the conclusion of the 2009-2010 school year)
, Heritage High School
#425 and The Reach! Partnership School #341. There are ongoing rumors about closing the building and moving the students to save money. The community vigorously opposed such action due to the disruption to the students. There are also ongoing rumors that Johns Hopkins
plans to purchase the building from the city schools for an unknown purpose.
, swimming
, track and field
, basketball
, football
, and tennis
. Lake Clifton also has an independent theater group, Unchained Talent.
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
located in Northeast Baltimore City, Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
in an area known as Clifton Park
Clifton Park, Baltimore
Clifton Park is a public urban park located in the Belair-Edison neighborhood in the northeast section of Baltimore, Maryland. USA. It is roughly bordered by Erdman Avenue to the northeast, Sinclair Lane to the south, Harford Road to the northwest and Belair Road to the southeast...
, the result of a merger of Lake Clifton High School and Eastern High School.
History
Lake Clifton Eastern High School was built in the early 1970s on top of Lake Clifton Reservoir, a fact which has raised fears that the school may be sinking. It was originally known as simply Lake Clifton High School. The school has an area of 441.11 acres (178.5 ha), in the Lake Clifton 2002 yearbook on page 2 which talks about the history of Lake Clifton Eastern High School, it states "was [in the early 1970s], and perhaps remains, the largest physical plant high school in the nation." The cost of constructing and equipping Lake Clifton Eastern was approximately $17 million (1970) which would be approximately $99,258,764.27 if adjusted for inflation in 2010. In 1985, Eastern High School merged with Lake Clifton, and the Baltimore City School Board (part of the Baltimore City Public School System) changed the school's name to reflect this. In 1995, the school became a pilot high school for the Sylvan Learning Center and reconfigured its curriculum as a result. From 1995-2003, Lake Clifton Eastern had six smaller learning communities which were The Academy of Finance and the Law, the School of Business and Commerce, the School of Human Services, the School of Communications and Technology, the School of Humanities and Fine and Cultural Arts, and the Ninth Grade Achievement School. The goal of Lake Clifton was "to provide an educational program that relevant to the needs of all students to prepare them for college/post secondary education, or the world of work."The school was equipped to hold 4,800 students. The exact student population for the 2002-2003 school year was 2,400. Dropout
Dropping out
Dropping out means leaving a group for either practical reasons, necessities or disillusionment with the system from which the individual in question leaves....
rates, violence, low test scores and low attendance plagued the school for years.
In January 1995 an electrical fire destroyed the school's library
Library
In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
, cafeteria, and administrative offices. In 1998, a state-of-the-art
State of the art
The state of the art is the highest level of development, as of a device, technique, or scientific field, achieved at a particular time. It also refers to the level of development reached at any particular time as a result of the latest methodologies employed.- Origin :The earliest use of the term...
media center was built at the cost of $4 million (1998), which would be $5,344,512.24 if adjusted for inflation in 2010.Lake Clifton's library is the newest in the whole city school system.
Recent years
A decision was made in early 2003 by the city school board to close and split Lake Clifton into a smaller school after the graduation of the Class of 2003 (a previous attempt to split up Lake Clifton Eastern caused mass confusion among not only the students but the staff as well since it was attempted in the middle of the 2001-2002 school year and the school system was forced to merge the schools again and a successful attempt was made the following school year by effecting the closing and split at the end of the 2002-2003 school year), a trend that is occurring throughout the city school system with large high schools. With support from the Small Schools WorkshopSmall Schools Workshop
Founded in Chicago in 1991, the Small Schools Workshop has become a premier resource for small schools creation, design and restructuring. The Workshop provides schools and school districts with an experienced team of school design coaches and teacher professional development experts that can guide...
, school faculty members and administrators met and planned new, small, learning communities to open within Lake Clifton. But before the school could complete its restructuring, the board changed plans and decided on new uses for this valuable campus property and scattered the school population to other schools. As of 2010, Lake Clifton contains three small schools, Doris M. Johnson High School
Doris M. Johnson High School
Doris M. Johnson High School is a public high school located in northeastern Baltimore City. School #426 was operational in the 2003-2004 school year as a result of the breakup of Lake Clifton Eastern High School, into two smaller high schools. In 2005-2006 the high school was formally named Doris...
#426 (this school is defunct and was closed down at the conclusion of the 2009-2010 school year)
, Heritage High School
Heritage High School (Baltimore, Maryland)
Heritage High School is a public high school located in Baltimore, Maryland which was an expansion school that housed in Lake Clifton Eastern High School, since Clifton was closed down in 2003 and the school currently shares the Lake Clifton Campus with the REACH! Partnership School since Doris M...
#425 and The Reach! Partnership School #341. There are ongoing rumors about closing the building and moving the students to save money. The community vigorously opposed such action due to the disruption to the students. There are also ongoing rumors that Johns Hopkins
Johns Hopkins
Johns Hopkins was a wealthy American entrepreneur, philanthropist and abolitionist of 19th-century Baltimore, Maryland, now most noted for his philanthropic creation of the institutions that bear his name, namely the Johns Hopkins Hospital, and the Johns Hopkins University and its associated...
plans to purchase the building from the city schools for an unknown purpose.
Athletics
Lake Clifton's athletic teams (as of the 2002-2003 school year) included wrestlingScholastic wrestling
Scholastic wrestling, sometimes known in the United States as Folkstyle wrestling, is a style of amateur wrestling practised at the high school and middle school levels in the United States. This wrestling style is essentially Collegiate wrestling with some slight modifications. It is currently...
, swimming
Swimming (sport)
Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native...
, track and field
Track and field
Track and field is a sport comprising various competitive athletic contests based around the activities of running, jumping and throwing. The name of the sport derives from the venue for the competitions: a stadium which features an oval running track surrounding a grassy area...
, basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
, football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
, and tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
. Lake Clifton also has an independent theater group, Unchained Talent.
Layout
The layout of Lake Clifton is unique in that it has a central core containing the main office, a 1,000-seat auditorium, two cafeterias, two gymnasiums, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, main entrance, media center, and other administrative offices. That central core is connected by bridges and passageways to two buildings that each contain a common area which then radiates to four distinct small units with entrances of their own that house the classrooms on a lower basement level, 1st floor and 2nd floor. The units are referred to as A unit, B unit, C unit, and D unit; A and B units are connected on the left side of the central core and C and D units on the right side. The units are identical in their layout and the classroom numbers actually corresponded to what floor the classroom was on. For example, B208 would be a classroom located in B unit on the second floor, B108 would be a classroom in the same unit however on the 1st floor, and B08 would be a classroom located on the basement level. A101, B101, C101 and D101 housed unit school offices with their own unit administrators in addition to a principal and assistant principal.Notable alumni
- Josh SelbyJosh SelbyJosh Selby is an American professional basketball player with the Memphis Grizzlies of the National Basketball Association. He played one year of college basketball for the University of Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball team. Selby had declared his intention to enter the 2011 NBA Draft...
, point guard for the Kansas JayhawksKansas JayhawksThe sports teams at the University of Kansas are known as the Jayhawks. They are one of three schools in the state of Kansas that participate in NCAA Division I. The Jayhawks are also a member of the Big 12 Conference...
, No. 1 overall recruit in the Class of 2010 according to Rivals.comRivals.comRivals.com is a network of websites that focus mainly on college football and basketball recruiting. The network was started in 1996 and currently employs more than 300 personnel.-Schools:The individual collegiate sites can be found...