Ronald Reagan High School (San Antonio)


Ronald Reagan High School is a public high school located in the North East Independent School District in San Antonio, Texas, and named for U.S. President Ronald Reagan. The school serves a portion of Timberwood Park.
In 2013 Reagan was ranked fifth on Children at Risk's ranking of the top 10 high schools in Greater San Antonio.

History

San Antonio, like many Sun Belt cities, experienced explosive growth in its suburbs beginning in the early 1990s. This growth was particularly evident in affluent areas formed by people moving to the city. In Stone Oak and Sonterra north of Route 1604 and between the Blanco Road and US-281 corridors, this rapid growth caused severe overcrowding at nearby Winston Churchill High School. At the time Churchill was the farthest-north school in the North East Independent School District, and its student population grew to 3,400 at a school designed for not more than 2,500. The district recognized this problem, and included an allocation to build a new high school in the area as a part of its 1997 bond issue. The property for the school was purchased from descendants of rancher William Classen prior to passage of the bond issue.
After voters approved the bond issue, construction began on the campus. Spaw Glass was the general contractor for the project. The name "Ronald Reagan" was chosen by future students of the school from a list selected by the district's Board of Trustees. A spirit committee selected the mascot "Rattlers" from three finalists and chose green, silver, and black as the school colors.
As construction nearing the end, problems with the tiling in some classrooms led to the discovery of a previously unknown spring under the foundation of the building. This caused cracks and potentially long-lasting damage to the brand new school. Despite this, Reagan opened to much fanfare in August 1999, although constructions issues related to the underground spring prevented use of some classroom facilities well into the school's first year.
The opening of Lady Bird Johnson High School in 2008 relieved overcrowding at Reagan as San Antonio's population continued booming in the early part of the 2000s.

Organization

Like most NEISD high schools, Reagan is organized into departments, each with an instructional dean or department head who oversees and organizes the activities and efforts of that department and reports to the administrative staff. Each department in turn consists either of a teacher who oversees a class schedule, or a sub-department, which can be made up of one or more teachers. Each class has an elected group of class officers with the student council senate presiding over the entire student body.

Academics

Classes are graded on a 100-point grading scale, and the grades students earn over their four-year high school career contribute to their ultimate class ranking. The 100-point grade is then converted to a four-point scale grade which appears on their high school transcripts. Special weights are attributed to classes based on their rigor. Advanced placement courses are weighted with a 29% increase in GPA, while pre-AP courses are weighted with a 15% increase in GPA. Less rigorous courses might actually count against the student.
NEISD does not award competitive honors to students – any student earning a GPA of 100 or higher is a summa cum laude graduate. In some schools, this can lead to a very large number of summa graduates as a result of large graduating class sizes and the extra weight given to advanced placement classes. Cum laude, magna cum laude and summa cum laude awards are given based on the student's 100-point scale GPA upon graduation.

Band

The Ronald Reagan High School Marching Band has been in existence since the school was opened. The band has been placed in the finals at every regional entered since the opening of the school until 2009 under the direction of Levi Chavis. In 2009, the Reagan band missed BOA Arlington regional finals for the first time since they began competing on the BOA circuit. Not only does the Ronald Reagan Marching Band compete in the Texas University Interscholastic League marching competition held every other year, it also enters annually in various Bands of America events including the regionals in Arlington, Texas, and Houston, Texas, the Super Regional in San Antonio, as well as the Grand National BOA competition held in Indianapolis, Indiana. The band placed second in 2003 and 2005, eleventh in 2002 and 2012, and seventh in 2016. The band also participated in nationals in 2007, making semi-finals but missing finals. In 2006, Reagan tied for third in the state of Texas at the UIL State Marching Contest Finals. In 2012, Reagan placed third at the UIL State Marching Contest Prelims, and in 2014 the band placed 5th in the state. In 2018, the band placed second at BOA Super Regional San Antonio with their astounding show “Loop”. They are currently under the direction of Dan Morrison. The band has been selected to march in the 2018 Rose Parade in Pasadena, California and the 2019 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City. In 2019, the band was crowned the BOA San Antonio Super Regional Champion with their record-breaking show, "Secret World". With their finals performance, they achieved the highest BOA Regional score of all time, with a 97.3.

The Reagan Rattlers compete in these sports -