Springfield High School

Springfield High School is a public secondary school located in Springfield, Illinois, United States. It is the oldest of the three high schools in Springfield Public Schools District 186 . The school draws mainly from the west side of Springfield.While the school opened in 1857, the current building was opened in 1916. A number of notable alumni have called the school home, with the writer Vachel Lindsay being the most associated with the town, which featured prominently in his writings.Building history and architectureSpringfield High School opened on 4 September 1857 in a small building on Market Street, now known as Capitol Avenue. It was located in this building for only a single school year before it moved to the Academy Building on South 5th Street near Monroe until 1864. In 1865, a $65,000 school building was completed for the high school and was located on 4th and Madison Street. Due to congestion, Central High School was built in 1897, but was already overcrowded by 1915.In 1915, plans were made to erect a new school in Forest Park. Once the site of a church and Hutchinson Cemetery, the church was gone, but there were still gravestones and remains that were moved to Oak Ridge Cemetery before construction could begin. The new school was completed in 1916.There are four mosaics on the exterior walls of the building completed by Henry Chapman Mercer. The original molds are a part of the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works.AcademicsIn 2008, SHS had an average composite ACT score of 22.0, and graduated 91.0% of its senior class. Springfield High School has not made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) on the Prairie State Achievement Examination, which with the ACT, comprise the State of Illinois' assessment as part of the federal No Child Left Behind Act. The school, overall, did not meet AYP in mathematics, and two student subgroups failed to meet AYP in both mathematics and reading.