School History
Hillsboro High School officially opened October 22, 1939, with an enrollment of 164 students and seven faculty members. Two years later, Medford Bowman, the first principal, was succeeded by John Koen, who directed Hillsboro to a distinguished level of excellence before his retirement in 1964. Initially, the school served a rural area. Later population increases, re-zoning, the Vocational Educational Act, and 20th century influences have resulted in changes from a two-story red brick building in a pastoral setting to a set of massive white buildings which were designed by nationally recognized architects. On October 31, 1952, the first school was destroyed by fire. With admirable espirit de corps, a unified student body and a dedicated faculty never skipped a beat, thanks to the generosity of two local churches who kindly provided facilities. Several renovations have occurred since the replacement of that building in the 50's. Hale Harris, Taylor Hagen, and Dr. William Hicks followed the highly respected and greatly admired Koen, and continued to lead Hillsboro forward until 1979 when Dr. Jean Gray Litterer was appointed as principal. After a 20 year career as principal, Dr. Litterer stepped down from her office. In 1999 James Overstreet, a long-time member of Hillsboro's staff was named principal. Replacing Mr. Overstreet in 2003 was Robert (Bob) Lawson who was principal until his retirement in 2007. Roderick Manuel was appointed principal at that time.
Hillsboro High School is an urban school operating 180 days per year from 7:15 am-2:15 pm. The building was renovated in 1995 and operates year round, offering traditional and summer school opportunities to students because of its central location within the city and access to public transportation.
In Hillsboro High School’s rich sixty-eight year history, it has focused on engendering an environment that fosters development of the well-rounded student. The school offers:
1. Excellence in college preparatory and liberal arts academics
2. Authentic technical preparation for the 21st Century
3. Competitive athletics in one of the area’s toughest districts
4. Exemplary experiences in drama, music, and visual and performing arts
5. A full spectrum of leadership opportunities and co-curricular offerings
Hillsboro High School is led by an executive principal who is assisted by three assistant principals. There are nine department head faculty members who are teacher leaders who help with instructional decisions. There is also a faculty advisory committee of teacher elected teachers who meet to help solve problems that surface within the school. There is an active PTSA that has an athletic booster club as a subcommittee of it. In addition, there is a student government association that represents all students in grades 9-12. Each 2nd period class has a representative that attends a monthly meeting to keep students informed, in addition to class officers.
There is a rigorous curriculum offered at Hillsboro High School. In 2004, we became an IBO World School. We offer both AP and IB courses for students who desire college level curriculum. We offer Spanish and French foreign languages. We are the only high school to offer a vision program for visually impaired students and we also offer the deaf program as well. We have a behavior program and a wide variety of special education programs from multiple disabilities to students who have mild learning disabilities. We also offer Language!, a research based reading program that builds reading skills in students who fall beneath the 35th percentile in reading scores. In addition, we serve a large ELL population, serving students from over 40 countries who speak more than 30 different languages. Our curriculum is varied, researched based, rigorous, individualized, yet has high expectations for student learning.
We take great pride in the high quality of instruction that is provided in our school. Among our faculty is a variety of award winning teachers, many of whom have been generous in sharing their ideas with other teachers. Our in-service opportunities have been focused on building the instructional capabilities of our teachers. Specifically, we have focused over the past five years on the quality of work we give students, grading, innovations, and classroom management.
Assessment and evaluation are among the most important things teachers do at Hillsboro High School. Each grading period teachers submit a bar graph displaying the grade distribution their students earn. The graph is important because it demonstrates how effective teachers have been in teaching so students could learn. We spend a great deal of time engaged in conversations about assessment and evaluation. For example, how do we know if students have learned? At what point should we know? How should we know? In what ways should we know? Our teachers implement a wide variety of informal and formal assessment strategies in their classrooms. We use individual dry erase boards in all academic areas to informally assess student progress in addition to hand signals, unison, team, and individual oral response to questions. Formally we use projects, papers, quizzes and tests, both norm referenced and criterion referenced, standardized and objective. In addition, we meet as departments to discuss student progress in terms of student learning by course to determine if there are gaps by class or teacher to facilitate collaboration and sharing of resources.
There is effective communication and relationships within our school. The single lunch program, now in its fifth year has brought a wonderful break to the hectic school day for our school community. For 52 minutes each day all 1250 students eat lunch at the same time. All teachers are free at the same time as well. Students may eat, go to a teacher for tutoring, play intramural basketball, or attend a club meeting. The lunch has increased opportunities for students to forge social ties with one another and develop mentoring relationships with faculty members.
In addition, we are in the third year of implementation of Burro Time, an advisor-advisee program. Students meet in single grade groups with their advisor who is a certified staff member (teacher, principal, counselor, or librarian) weekly. Burro Time has helped to build effective communications and relationships with and among stakeholders.
Hillsboro High School does a significant amount to develop civic, social, and personal responsibility. Each year students challenge a rival high school to a canned food drive that last year raised over 35,000 cans of food for Nashville’s needy. Our students gather coats for needy children through the “Warm Coats for Warm Hearts” initiative. The school “adopts” angels from the preschool aged children of the housing project that is zoned to our school and we buy clothing, toys, and books for those children to make sure those children will have gifts for the holidays. (Those angels will eventually become our students!) In addition, our clubs rotate to earn money at the recycling lot helping community members with their recycling materials on Saturday morning for community service. Our IB students have community service hours built into their IB diploma requirements.
We believe in continuous improvement. Our philosophy is that we continue to evolve and grow and that improvement is not designed for remediation; rather everyone and everything can improve. It is this commitment to growth that separates dynamic organizations from static ones and it is what makes Hillsboro High School a learning organization designed to meet the needs of a 21st century student. While there are not unlimited resources at Hillsboro High School, we are fortunate that we have a supportive PTSA, many supportive parents, a wonderful faculty, effective leadership, and a terrific student body. There is a genuine momentum that has been built where all of the key stakeholders believe in the mission and vision of Hillsboro and value each of the segments of the population.