Jasper High School

6800 Archgate Drive

School District

Plano Independent
Grade

9-10
Teacher/Student Ratio

1:18
Type

public

School Map for Plano Independent School District

GreatSchools Rating

The school rating calculation is based on four ratings: the Student Progress Rating or Academic Progress Rating, College Readiness Rating, Equity Rating, and Test Score Rating each designed to show different facets of school success. Learn more about GreatSchools Ratings

Reviews

Submitted by student on February 24, 2025

I love the fine arts programs, humanities course is too hard - teachers are fine, HGAP teachers are the worst that have ever taught in history.
Submitted by parent on May 03, 2024

This school is one of the best in Plano. It feels safe, the students and staff are friendly, and they take academics seriously. The administration is very welcoming and they work hard to maintain a high-quality education for our students. Although this school is ranked the highest in the area, it still has some opportunities for growth. I noticed that the Black and Hispanic populations historically score low (reports are on the website) and I am not quite sure if an effort is given to modify strategies that will engage these groups of students. My son is a higher performer so this isn't a direct impact for us, however, my son has reported that the school does not engage Black and Hispanic students with options for clubs and extracurricular and the only options they have are sports - basketball, football, track - which perform at a mediocre level. The school struggles to maintain a diverse group of teachers and staff members, which studies show can benefit ALL children, so education is quite unapologetically Eurocentric. It focuses heavily on "prestigious" extracurriculars like chess, choir, and tennis, and my son complained throughout his schooling that this school isn't good for the mental health of students. They feel extremely restricted and are treated like prisoners. Many times, he had to take mental health days because of the mundane routine and robotic methods of teaching was getting to him. His quote was, "I feel like cattle that's required to milk out good test scores. Teachers don't have lessons that let us discuss or show we are learning. We just sit in rows and take notes all day." There were a few drug instances (individual-based), but overall, the school is the best for parents who are concerned about safety and academics. I do think, though, the area should focus on reaching all groups of students and not just the high performers.
Submitted by student on April 15, 2024

Overworking us to the max. I barely have time for any activities outside of school and I barely have time to even take care of personal daily matters and I barely get about 5 hrs of sleep. This school is so competitive and is filled with students and teachers that are unhealthily obsessed with grades. It’s as if grades are more important than actually learning. The environment is so depressing and draining. 100% would not recommend.
Submitted by student on October 18, 2023

Pretty good school overall. Some outstanding many teachers deeply care about their students learning (Mr. Walden, Mrs. Poovey). However, some teachers are quite annoying. Students are very self-enveloped and are often focused on themselves or homework. English I H is a good class, but 45 minutes to complete a perfect essay is tough, and I have yet to get 100 on a single one. Still, teachers are amazing for the most part.
Submitted by other on August 25, 2023

I've been an incredibly high achieving student my entire life. I've taken multiple APs and pretty much exclusively honors classes. Jasper HS was supposed to be "perfect" for students like me, but I instead found it a horrible experience. This school will suck you dry of self esteem, time, and apathy for those around you. The school atmosphere is incredibly depressing, with nearly every conversation between students being about classes or school. Students here have quite literally no time for anything else other than homework. On average I would have about 3 hours or more of homework every night, and over the entirety of last year I saw my friends after school about twice. This is absolutely no way to live as a high schooler. And this isn't just to blame for me taking "high-level" courses. I recently moved schools because of how bad my Jasper experience was, and I'm taking significantly harder classes at my new school. At this school, I have around half the homework and far more time to be a teenager. While there were some fantastic teachers at JHS during my time there, there was also an astounding amount of low quality teachers. If you're thinking of having your kid go here for the "incredible education and teaching", be warned that most of it is a sham. You can find an education that is just as good or better at dozens of high schools in the area. Nearly all teachers here have an incredibly demeaning attitude towards their students. I remember being shamed by multiple teachers for not studying or working enough when I had high grades in their classes. The atmosphere of the staff here forces them to only think about their classes, and not about their student's needs or lives. Jasper as a whole felt extremely suffocating. Nearly everybody I know that has also gone through the school feels the same way. There's practically no support systems within the school for anybody, and the counselors are genuinely not good at their jobs. Jasper will teach you how to hate learning and burnout unlike any other school can.
Submitted by parent on August 29, 2022

Jasper is not everyone. If your kid is high achiever, then Jasper is the right school.
Submitted by student on August 26, 2022

Pretty cool school. Mr Johnson and Mr. Stanton are cool.Homework is a slight issue though
Submitted by student on August 26, 2022

This is a tryhard school dont go there.
Submitted by parent on June 11, 2022

I would not recommend this school to anyone simply because of the amount of homework given to my child that seemed to be excruciating at times as he put it. He would tell me how it always seemed as though these teachers would say they cared about our time/mental health, but he would find that very hard to believe considering that they would give the students even more homework as they said that. This year, however, the school has done students a poor job with the Humanities program, and this is referring to the teacher assigned to teach the freshman class at the start of this year. I'm surprised he is even considered a teacher based on how badly he performs his job. He would never teach the class, and would always sit at the corner of the room doing whatever as the sophomore teachers would actually teach the students. You would think that he would be grading assignments, but that couldn't have been possible, since he always graded at the very last instant. There was one scenario where this particular teacher graded on the day of the semester exam for the course, and the assignment being graded was one students had completed two months prior. Whenever this teacher would grade, he would give students a grade solely based on how he viewed them, and I say that because he would not give out any advice/tips to improve on the content asked to be completed in the assignment. I had even heard that two other students had submitted the exact same paper, and this teacher being as unprofessional as he is, gave one of the papers an 85 and the other a 100. How unqualified do you have to be to not even notice? I seriously began asking myself if the people who hired him literally just found him on the street and decided to give him a job. The fact that the staff at this school aren't planning on taking action just shows how poorly this school cares about its students.
Submitted by student on December 02, 2021

To be honest with you, Jasper is definitely not the best school I've ever seen. The amount of stress and work is bothering me so much that my head is starting to hurt every day. It's not like I'm doing that bad in school either. I have As in every class but it's at the expense at my health. I don't know how to summarize how annoying and savage this school can possibly be, but I'll give you a few examples:Homework: It's not like the homework is so much for me right now, but it's how the teachers handle these things. My English II Honors teacher found out that most of us have outside activities outside of class, thus she's not letting us do any assignments over weekends or even outside of school. WHYY??!!! It's not like we're confined to those places so bad that we must go there. It's their choices to go somewhere else, so it's their responsibility to get their work done on time. But now we can only work on things during class (which is about 50 minutes and we only get like 20 minutes to actually work since our teacher spends 2/3 of the time giving instructions). I usually wouldn't have a big fuss about this but our teachers grade not insanely - but SAVAGELY INSANELY hard, and even if we try our best, the maximum grade we can possibly get is an 80. Anything the teacher doesn't like and you automatically fail. All of this is because we don't get enough time to work.Teachers: Of course there are exceptions to this (there are quite a few), but the majority of the teachers either don't teach, test extremely hard, or are just downright savage. One of my teachers this year gave two "surprise" major evaluations (60% of my grade) back to back and hasn't even taught us anything yet. I got good grades on those but only because I studied from outside sources for the past 2 months and did some last minute brain-damage cramming. Some other teaches teach decently but then give like 70 question tests that we would have to complete in 40 minutes. Then there are those other teachers who are legit brain washers and talk nothing but politics in core classes. So overall, although the best teachers are seriously the best I've ever seen, the majority are still really bad (and I'm telling you this first hand because I've got the strictest/harshest teachers ever since 7th grade, so TRUST ME).
Submitted by student on September 22, 2020

there is soo much homework, competition and pressure at this school, in addition to this, it doesn't have a good learning environment.
Submitted by student on August 28, 2020

Pretty stressful, but the Hum teachers are cool.
Submitted by other on July 31, 2018

Too much homework how can students learn like that
Submitted by parent on July 29, 2018

10/10! I have three teens that have been to Jasper!
Submitted by student on October 04, 2016

the competition at the school is incredibly insane. let me tell you I've never seen any school with students that obsess so much over gpa like students here. and honestly, I think it's simply unhealthy for any student who wishes to have a healthy academic, social, and a healthy life in general. there are students here taking almost 4 ap classes sophomore year even though its not even offered at Jasper (so they drive to another school for credit), and to sum it up, Jasper is just students trying to game and manipulate the gpa system. parents, just think twice before sending your child here, because even an average kid, or even averagely smart kid WILL have their gpa and rank completely destroyed. It is NOT appealing to colleges even IF jasper is such a rigorous school, so if you wish for your child to achieve academically, they can do much better in another school. I know this isn't the teacher's or administrations fault (though I'd wish to see a limiting # of ap classes), because you can literally see their tears of frustration when a 9th grader is trying to take calculus.Not only that, but the social environment is incredibly weak, with a few fights and minor high school things. smarter kids tend to have more friends and school spirit is practically non existent. A majority of students wishing to be at another school just shows that a good high school allows for a healthy, enriching academic and social life, better potential for students to achieve their goals and at least 7 hours of sleep:)
Submitted by other on January 05, 2016

Jasper is full of selfish and snobby kids. I hated every moment that I went to this school
Submitted by student on July 27, 2013

I just graduated from Jasper, and I genuinely thought it was a pretty good experience. Yes, there is a lot of work. Yes, these is a lot of competition. However, I really liked all my teachers (Mr. Stanton is absolutely amazing; Mrs. Radebaugh for English was great too.) For people who discuss workload: This year I took 4 honors, 2 APs, and one regulars class. I never slept past one o'clock the entire year, and I would usually sleep at midnight. Even though I didn't have as crazy of a sleeping schedule as some of my peers, I was still able to maintain middle and high A's in all of my classes. I don't think the workload is excessive; I just feel as if a lot of people don't know how to manage their time well. I was involved in a plethora of extracurricular activities and was gone almost every weekend for debate competitions, but I still had enough time to sleep and balance schoolwork. I really liked Jasper, and I know it has a really poor reputation among students, but I do feel as it really helped me develop as a person and a learner.
Submitted by student on June 12, 2013

I just graduated from Jasper this year, and I can say that it's really prepped me for the future. The academics are very competitive and very challenging, but once you get to Senior High/college, it will prepare you a lot more for what's to come. The vast majority of the teachers at this school are willing to educate you properly and actually make sure that the students understand the material. Some of the counselors are a bit snooty, however--they tend to get irritated with people taking too many AP courses. They have excellent extracurricular programs in LASER, HOSA, fine arts, etc. and also a really good Humanities program. Many students that go to this school end up getting into TAMS, and the competition for GPA and grades is very intense as a result. This school has helped many students achieve excellence. I have learned a lot about myself as a person through Jasper, even though I really had to push myself, it really did turn my life around. Even though your grades will go down in the beginning, you will get used to it, and you can pull them back up again. This school stands out among others in Plano based on the drive it places in other students to succeed in life.
Submitted by parent on May 15, 2013

sorry to say that jasper high school is o.k school. some teachers really have attitude, if they don t like a student he or she gets detention for every move like smiling detention, ask teacher something detention, wants to use bathroom detention .I went to talk to the counselor about it for ten minutes he was fixing his classes he still did not ask me please come in or can i help you nothing, or sit down nothing it is understood what kids are learning ,because my child was with me watching him do all this
Submitted by parent on February 03, 2013

Jasper is a wonderful school. The Humanities teachers are excellent. The music programs are excellent. Jasper has high-performing students, and my kids have had a wonderful experience there.