Duncanville High School held its first accredited graduating class in 1936. Classes moved in 1954 to a new location, now Reed Middle School. Eleven years later, it moved to its current location. Construction started on Sandra Meadows Memorial Arena in 2003. A new classroom wing was added, along with major renovations, in 2004.
Campus
Duncanville High School is the second largest high school campus in the United States. The campus is more than twice as large as the nearby Mountain View College, and it is over the size of four combined Wal-Mart Supercenters.
Extracurricular activities
Athletics
The school mascot is the Panther. With the exception of softball and girls track and field, the school has won state titles in every major team sport, including football. The school's most notable success has been in girls' basketball, where it has won ten state titles, including three consecutive from 1988-1990 while winning 134 consecutive games in the state's largest enrollment classification before losing in the 1992 state semifinal. They also won 105 consecutive games and two consecutive state titles 2012-2013 before losing in the 2014 state final. The girls teams were undefeated champions in 1989, 1990, 1997, 2013, and 2016.
Duncanville is the only 5A band program in the history of the Texas Music Educators' Association Honor Band competition to win three State Honor Band titles.
Marching band
The Duncanville High School Marching Band has been the UIL state champion in 1986, 1990, and 2002.
Journalism
The school is also known for its journalism program, which publishes the Panther Tale yearbook, Panther Prints newspaper, and the district's public relations publication, Class Magazine. The yearbook and newspaper have won numerous awards, including a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and Gold and Silver Crown awards from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. For the first time in 2002, Duncanville received a Gold Crown for its newspaper and its yearbook, one of only two high schools in the nation to capture both honors that year.
Controversies
A video of a student from Duncanville, 18-year-old sophomore Jeff Bliss scolding his social studies/history teacher, went viral in May 2013, and was picked up by media. CBS local news quoted the student: The video was caught on video on a cellphone, posted on YouTube, and picked up by Reddit, PhillyD and Gawker. The official reaction of the Duncanville Independent School District was not to discipline the student, but to offer private and public reminders that there are other ways to make a point. The district issued a statement, saying, in part: "He makes a number of valid statements about how classrooms across America need to change, and we view this as an opportunity to have more conversations about transforming our schools to better meet the needs of our students." A video of students protesting the school's strict dress code were sent to several of the local media outlets, who reported on the incident. The Duncanville Independent School District said about 170 students were found in violation of the school's dress code and sent home. The crackdown on students violating the dress code is what led to a spontaneous mass protest. Administrators responded to the protest with a large police presence on campus a day afterward, which remained until the last day of the school year.
