As the numbers increased, so did the concerns. Southwest Early College Campus, still referred to by many as simply Southwest High School, began its 2010-2011 school year Aug. 30 with an increase of about 1050 students. The school currently has an enrollment of over 1500 students, many of whom are from the former Westport High School, which closed at the end of the previous school year due to Kansas City Missouri School District’s ‘right sizing’Â plan, that, according to fox4kc.com, closed about half the district’s schools. According to Ms. Fifi Weideman, a former school board member and founder of ‘Community Volunteers to Support Southwest,’Â Southwest is now the biggest high school in Kansas City, Missouri.
‘This year is very different,’Â Hannah Rodgers, a sophomore at Southwest Early College Campus, said. ‘[The student population] went from like 400 to like 1800 kids. I personally don’t feel safe at that school anymore.’Â
According to nbcactionnews.com, the old Westport High School had one of the District’s highest disciplinary incident rates, while Southwest has one of the lowest. The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education records show 16 student suspensions at Southwest in 2009. That same year, Westport recorded 187 suspensions. Police records indicate that from 2008 through April 2010, 71 calls for service and eight arrests were made at Westport. During this same period at Southwest, records show 20 calls for service with one arrest.
‘I didn’t really like [school],’Â Alex Hernandez, a sophomore at Southwest, said of his first week of class. ‘It was way too crowded. Way too many fights.’Â
Rodgers agreed with Hernandez and experienced similar problems.
‘My first week of school was terrible,’Â Rodgers said. ‘There were fights almost every day of the week. Long story short, my school has turned into a very bad school. The people that went [to Southwest] last year, including me, want the Westport kids out.’Â
Considering the high number of incidents at Westport in the past and the fact that Westport has now been merged with Southwest, there is some public concern that there may be problems that will flow from the Southwest schoolyard onto the neighboring homes and businesses.
‘I worry about the rumors that I’ve heard about the security issues and kids at the school,’Â Ms. Leslie Reller, neighbor of Southwest and mother of STA freshman Kennedy Reller said.
Ms. Fifi Weideman , a former school board member, recently founded an organization, known as ‘Community Volunteers to Support Southwest.’Â The group, which consists of over 100 members, strives to ensure that the community is involved and supports the efforts for Southwest to succeed.
‘When I learned that Southwest was going to be having this significant increase in students, I became concerned that, neighborhoods, the community around [Southwest] was not aware and might not be very happy with [the current situation at Southwest],’Â Weideman said. ‘I wanted to do whatever I could, as a community person, to make things go well and make the school successful.’Â
Although, there were students who felt that they were negatively affected by the student body size and numerous violent incidents at the school, others had opposing opinions. Many students at Southwest felt that they did have a successful first week of school.
‘The first week was exciting, with a new school and new people and teachers,’Â Charles Williams, a junior at Southwest, who prior to this year attended University Academy High School, said.
While experiences and opinions vary among the students, one thing is certain’â€the school population has greatly increased.
