Original Shawnee Mission Rural High School - Opened in 1922
In 1969, several school districts unified to become the Shawnee Mission School District. These districts were Greenwood District 39, Shawnee District 22, Lenexa District 500, Districts 10 and 90, Valley View District 49, Overland Park District 10, Linwood District 1, Roeland District 92, Merriam District 99, Antioch District 61, Westwood View District 93, Prairie District 44, and Corinth District 82.
South Park Elementary school, in Merriam, Kansas, played a role in school desegregation before the unification of the Shawnee Mission School District. South Park opened in 1948 for white students, leaving African-American students in the inadequate Walker Elementary using an outdated curriculum. Corinthian Nutter, an African-American teacher, resigned in protest and taught the students from her home. In 1949, the Webb vs. School District 90 case paved the way for Brown v. Topeka Board of Education five years later.
McAuliffe Elementary School in Lenexa, Kansas, was one of the first schools in the nation named in honor of Christa McAuliffe.
The district converted from the 7–8–9 junior high model to the 7–8 middle school model in 1986.
The Superintendent is Michelle Hubbard and was selected by the Board of Education on February 22, 2021.[4]
On Feb. 12, 2024, the Board of Education announced the selection of Michael Schumacher as the next Superintendent of the Shawnee Mission School District
[5]
Shawnee Mission Rural High School opened on September 12, 1922, having cost $950,000 to build. It had 12 faculty members and a senior class of 20. The school colors are Red, Black, and White, and the school mascot was the Indian.
There had been a vote on September 21, 1921, on a "proposal to organize a rural high school district." The school was named ' Shawnee Mission Rural until 1945 when senior Robert F. Bennett was sent to Topeka to petition the legislature for a name change to more accurately reflect the school's suburban status. Later elected Governor of Kansas, Bennett was named North's first Distinguished Alumnus by the class of 1975. It was thus named Shawnee Mission High School until 1958 when Shawnee Mission East High School opened and Shawnee Mission High School was renamed Shawnee Mission North High School. The student body of Shawnee Mission High School had petitioned the school board to name the new school anything other than Shawnee Mission East High School in an attempt to avoid a renaming of their school.
In the 2023–2024 school year, enrollment is approximately 1,507 students.[6]
Shawnee Mission South's school colors are green and gold and its mascot is the Raider. The school's mascot was chosen by the first graduating class of 1967. The Raider was chosen as a mascot because of the popular band Paul Revere and the Raiders. Juniors from Shawnee Mission East and Shawnee Mission West were assigned to Shawnee Mission South the first year the school opened. Most of the students from the South come from the middle school Indian Woods.
South has a newspaper called The Patriot and a yearbook called Heritage.
In the 2023–2024 school year, enrollment is approximately 1,594 students.[8]
Shawnee Mission West's mascot is the Viking and the official school colors are black and gold. West opened its doors in 1962; since then, it has been remodeled several times. Additions have also been made to the school, the most famous of which is "the bridge," an actual bridge between halves of the school that later had classrooms added beneath it. It is in Overland Park at 85th Street and Antioch Road.
West is home to both an award-winning school newspaper, the Epic, and a yearbook, SAGA. The Epic was ranked the fifth-best news magazine in the country by the Scholastic Press Association in 2010. West has twice (1986 and 2007) placed second at the National Forensic League tournament for policy debate.
West's student body population is 13.3 percent Black students, which is the highest population of Black students of any Shawnee Mission high school.[9] West is the most ethnically diverse high school in the district with 46.1% of students coming from Hispanic, Asian, or Black backgrounds.[9] West draws its student population from Overland Park, Lenexa, and small parts of Shawnee.
In the 2023–2024 school year, enrollment is approximately 1,618 students.[10]
Shawnee Mission Northwest High School's mascot is the Cougar, and the school colors are black and orange. It is in Shawnee, at 12701 West 67th Street, between Pflumm Road and Quivira Road.
In the 2023–2024 school year, enrollment is approximately 1,619 students.[11]
There were 93,221 households, of which 29.9 percent were people living alone, 63.4 percent were families, and 6.7 percent were non-families with two or more people. 52.2 percent of households (or 82.4 percent of families) were married couples living together and 28.6 percent (or 45.1 percent) had their own children (persons under the age of 18) living with them. Of the 11.2 percent of households that had a householder with no spouse present, 44.4 percent were women living with their own children. The average household size was 2.33, and the average family size was 2.93.
The 50,632 children in the district were 23.0 percent of the total population, and 13,283 (6.0 percent) were under the age of 5; 13,605 (6.2 percent) were from 5 to 9; 14,874 (6.8 percent) were from 10 to 14; and 8,870 (4.0 percent) were from 15 to 17. 48.8 percent of the children were female. For 95.1 percent of the children in the district, the householder was the child's parent and 77.3 percent live in married-couple families, but 1.1 percent were not related to the householder. 21 householders or spouses were under the age of 18.
