Moore Public Schools

A district seven times the size of its town

Moore Public Schools covers about 176 square miles by the district's own count, and only about 23 of them sit inside the city of Moore. The other 153 are in south Oklahoma City, below 82nd Street. So most of the students in Moore Public Schools go home at night to an Oklahoma City address.

Deer Creek is a district with no town at all. Moore Public Schools is a district whose town is a small part of it. Those are two different facts about two different districts, and both of them matter to anyone shopping on the edges of the metro.

The Moore page on this site tells the story of the city itself. This page is about the much bigger stretch of south Oklahoma City that shares the schools without sharing the city limits. The district reaches past both of them, into northern Norman as well.

Six junior highs, eighty years apart

The district has six junior highs: Brink, Central Junior High, Highland East, Highland West, Moore West and Southridge.

Central Junior High dates to 1935. Southridge opened in 2015. The oldest and the newest are eighty years apart, and both of them answer to the same district today.

That spread is worth holding onto when you look at a house down here. A family can land at a junior high with eight decades behind it or at one that has only just started building its history, and the street address will not tell you which.

Thirty-five sites, one district

By the district's own directory, Moore Public Schools runs 35 school sites. There are 25 elementaries, the six junior highs, and three high schools, Moore High School, Westmoore and Southmoore. The Moore city page covers how those three high schools came to be, so I will leave that story there.

VISTA Academy is the district's alternative program, and it counts as one of the 35.

The district serves more than twenty-two thousand students. Its own website shows a few different current figures depending on where you look, so that is as precise as I am willing to be. A number that changes from one page to the next on the district's own site is not a number I am going to put on mine.

Shelter, by the district's own account

After its 2015 bond, the district says that all of its students have access to a storm shelter. That is the district's own claim, in its own words, and I am passing it along as exactly that.

It is a change from what a careful buyer could say not long ago. The Moore city page tells families to ask the district about shelter at a specific school, and that is still a good habit for anyone who wants to see it for themselves. By the district's own account, the answer to that question is now yes for every student.

The rest of it is routine. Every school runs tornado drills, as state law requires. During severe weather, the district keeps a live line open to the National Weather Service in Norman, so the people making decisions for the schools are hearing from the forecasters directly.

The address and the district

A house with an Oklahoma City address can sit inside Moore Public Schools. So can a house with a Moore address. The city printed on the mailing label does not decide the district, and down here it often points the wrong way, because the district's name is on the smaller city.

Which school serves a specific house is a question for the district office, and only the district office can answer it. I make that call early, on any house where the district is part of the reason we are looking, so the answer is settled before anyone has fallen for the house.

Moore gave the district its name. Over the years the district has become the schools for a much larger place, most of it south Oklahoma City, and it still carries the name of the town it started with.