Suncoast Community High School
Suncoast Community High School
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Suncoast Community High School

Suncoast Community High School (abbreviated SHS) is a public magnet high school (grades 9–12) in Riviera Beach, Florida. The school's campus was built in 1955 as Riviera Beach High School. It was desegregated in the 1960s and renamed in 1970. It became a magnet school in 1989 and has selective admissions.

Suncoast Community High School's students belong to one or more of the school's four magnet programs: Math, Science, and Engineering (MSE), Computer Science (CS), International Baccalaureate (IB), or Innovative Interactive Technology (IIT). The school's teams compete as the Chargers.

The school campus was built in 1955 as Riviera Beach High School. During the 1950s and 1960s, Riviera Beach High School was known for both its academics and its athletics.[citation needed] The Riviera Beach High Hornets were particularly strong in men's basketball, with games against rival Palm Beach High School routinely drawing packed crowds.[citation needed]

Suncoast was the target of an investigation beginning June 2, 1987 by the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. The investigation began after parents complained in a letter-writing campaign to state and federal officials that the School Board and then-Superintendent Tom Mills allegedly allowed Suncoast and John F. Kennedy Junior High to become segregated black schools, allowing enrollment to decline and facilities to become run down. Two years earlier Mills had proposed busing white students from southern Jupiter to integrate Suncoast, but Jupiter parents opposed the plan and it was dropped.

In 1989 Suncoast, along with Atlantic High in Delray Beach and S.D. Spady Elementary School, became a magnet school. The institution of magnet programs was originally opposed by several black organizations and some teachers' unions. The principal at the time was Kay Carnes, who remained Suncoast's principal for 15 years before stepping down at the end of the 2004 school year.[citation needed]

Suncoast students and prospective students were required to apply in late spring, and minimum GPA and new dress code were adopted.

About 150 former Suncoast students left the school this year and moved to either Palm Beach Gardens or Jupiter High School (which the previous school year had enrollments of more than 2000 compared with Suncoast's 666). About 350 Suncoast students stayed.

The introduction of the IB program greatly improved racial balance at the school; in this year of the introduction of the magnet program 71 percent of Suncoast's students were black (despite improving its racial balance by 19.3 percent that year).

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