Type Private to public Status Open Grades 6th-8th Founded 1899 Colors Green, Orange | Established 1899-1966 Principal Shelley F. Stroleny Phone +1 305-444-7388 Lowest grade Sixth grade | |
School district Dade County Public Schools Address 4901 Lincoln Dr, Coral Gables, FL 33133, USA District Miami-Dade County Public Schools Mascot G.W. Carver Middle School Hornet Similar Ponce de Leon Middle Sc, Miami‑Da County Public Sc, George W Carver Elementa, Sunset Elementary School, Coral Gables High Sch | ||
George Washington Senior High School is located in Coral Gables, Florida, and is under the supervision of the Dade County Public Schools. It opened in 1899 as a black school, for black students residing in Dade County, although it traces its beginning to an earlier private school for black children, informally known as "The Little Schoolhouse," which opened in 1899 as the private Dade Training School.
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When the school first opened, it served students from K-12. Because this school then belonged to the black community, its colors were borrowed from Florida A&M University: orange and green. Its mascot is the Hornet.
After Florida schools desegregated during the 1966-1967 school year (with the class of 1966 being the last class to graduate from Carver), Carver became a seventh-grade center. Seniors, juniors and sophomores were forced to attend Coral Gables Senior High. Most of those students called the school Carver Gables.
Some residents thought that the school was in Miami's Coconut Grove neighborhood, but it is actually located in Coral Gables because Brooker Street is the line that separates the two. Therefore, when the school converted to a seventh-grade center, the former high school students (i.e., sophomores, juniors, and seniors) were transferred to Coral Gables Senior High to complete high school. It later became a junior high school.
The school is named for George Washington Carver.
Athletics
During the High School Days of Carver, football teams used to play other high schools, including Miami Northwestern High School, Booker T. Washington Senior High of Dade County, North Dade Junior/ Senior High School, Arthur and Polly Mays Senior High, George S. Middleton High of Tampa, Howard Blake High of Tampa, Dillard High, Attucks High of Broward County, and Gilbert High of Jacksonville, Gifford High of Vero Beach.
Alma mater
The school's alma mater was composed by Tommy Sands in 1956. "All Hail Carver, O' Let us Live" was sung in 1983 in a National Racism Free Zone Project (NRFZP) conference, when Carver was still an all-black school.
It is a tradition at G.W. Carver to recite the alma mater every Monday after the morning announcement.
Notable alumni
2012 school bus scandal
In March–April 2012, several students in the upper grades were accused of throwing heavy objects at passing cars from school bus windows. On March 29, 2012, on a bus en route to the South Miami area, one student allegedly threw a mini-building, which was designed for an architecture course, causing a car to swerve out of control and crash into the Coco Plum bridge, located in Coral Gables. Another student allegedly cut off all the steel seat belts on a school bus and threw them into oncoming traffic. Other incidents occurred, but through a school-wide investigation, and acquisition of suspected students' text messages, a ring of students were discovered who partook in the so-called "scalping" of automobiles. The students were tried on charges of disturbing the peace, destruction of property, and battery, by a class-action lawsuit, which was finally brought to court in December 2014. Three students pleaded guilty to the offenses and received sentences of 100 community service hours each, along with a ten-session anger management course.
Coverage of the scandal was featured on many local news networks, such as WSVN, and WFOR. After this incident, new rules of window construction were put in place by the Miami-Dade County Public School System's disciplinary board.