South Forsyth High School

History

South Forsyth High School first opened in 1989 as both a middle and high school, named South Forsyth Junior High. An additional building, East Hall, was later added to allow the high school and middle school to operate separately. In 1998, a new middle school, South Forsyth Middle School, was built on a separate property, allowing the high school to utilize the entire campus. After this, students were moved from Forsyth County High, now Forsyth Central High School, to alleviate overcrowding. Eventually South Forsyth High School experienced its own overcrowding, which prompted the construction and opening of West Forsyth High School in 2007, and Lambert High School in 2009.

Renovations

As a result of district-wide overcrowding at all of the middle schools, such as Lakeside Middle School, Piney Grove Middle School, and South Forsyth Middle School, a $195 million bond referendum was passed, which included significant improvements to South Forsyth High School. These included a new cafeteria, a new 42,000 square foot competition gym, improved traffic flow, a new administration center, 23 new classrooms, a new front façade, and a new courtyard in front of East Hall featuring walkways to connect the several separate buildings on campus. The renovations were designed by Manley Spangler Smith Architects. Balfour Beatty was selected as the construction manager, with a maximum of $25.7 million budgeted for the project. In July 2016, the new additions were opened to the public. The new additions include administrative offices, nine new classrooms, a large dining hall, a competition style gym, and the South Forsyth Plaza. Renovations to older buildings are expected to be completed in August 2017.

Athletics

South Forsyth currently competes in Region 6-AAAAAA (Area 3 AAAAAA for lacrosse), and has since 2012. SFHS has seven varsity sports for boys and girls. The school fields junior varsity teams for most sports and freshmen teams in football and volleyball. The school is a member of the Georgia High School Association. South Forsyth is currently the region champion in football for Region 6-AAAAAA.

In 2015, the varsity football team finished with a school high 11-2 record, beating rival school Lambert by a long shot, winning the Region 6-AAAAAA Championship and making it to the quarterfinals of the GHSA Playoffs until ultimately losing to Colquitt County High School.

The school has won state championships in competition cheerleading in 1997 and 1999, girls' cross country in 2016, and Men's Quartet in 2009.

Other studies

South Forsyth High School offers a fairly wide selection of Advanced Placement (AP), and International Baccalaureate (IB) accredited classes. South Forsyth is currently the only school in the Forsyth County School District to offer the IB program. South Forsyth also offers other study alternatives, including Work Based Learning and Dual Enrollment. The former allows students to work during part of the day for the variety of companies, while the latter allows students to take college classes for both college and high school credit at either the Lanier Technical College, University of North Georgia (UNG), or Georgia Institute of Technology. Through the Move On When Ready program, some students take all their classes at a college (typically UNG) and never come to South Forsyth's campus, save for the occasional counselor visit.

South Forsyth High School has more students temporarily enrolled in Gateway Academy - Forsyth County's correctional education campus - than any other high school in the county.

Clubs and organizations

South Forsyth has a handful of extracurricular activities, mainly confined to the most popular student interests. These include FBLA, Academic Bowl, TSA, FCA, drama, band, and DECA.

DECA

South Forsyth is home to the "World's Largest DECA Chapter." The chapter was started in 1999 and has since grown to almost 1,500 members. In DECA, students can compete against other students from around the world in fields such as business, marketing, finance, and hospitality. South Forsyth DECA has received multiple awards in competitive events, video challenges, and local marketing competitions.

TSA and Robotics

South Forsyth created a Technology Student Association (TSA) chapter in 2010. With the exception of the first year, South Forsyth has ranked in the top 10 statewide every year. In 2011 they were ranked 7th, from 2012-2015 they were ranked 3rd, in 2016 they were ranked 2nd, and in 2017 they were ranked 1st in the state, overtaking the previous state champion Parkview. TSA host over 70 competitive events, including website design, dragster design, engineering, biotechnology, fashion design, and coding.

In addition to TSA, South Forsyth boast a wide variety of robotics, including Vex Robotics (Team 1961), BEST Robotics (Team 119), and FIRST Robotics (Team 4112). South Forsyth has consistently seen performance among the best in the state at all types of robotics, including several state championship and even ranking third in the world at the 2013 Vex World Championship. South Forsyth commonly competes with the name "Eaglebots" across all types of robotics.

Student data

Students are drawn from Piney Grove Middle School, Lakeside Middle School, and South Forsyth Middle School. South currently serves students in grades 9-12. Students can also ask to transfer to South from other schools in order to participate in the competitive IB program or specified sports programs if they fill out an out-of-district form.

Notable alumni