Dr. Michael Krop High School opened at the dawn of the 21st century, and in 15 years has established itself in many areas. It has a highly competitive fine arts magnet program called the Star Performing Arts Academy, which includes jazz, orchestra, dance, theater, and visual arts.
The Lightning boys and girls tennis teams have won a combined nine state championships. The boys soccer team is the reigning district champion, softball has become a powerhouse program, girls basketball has been dominant, and the boys’ team had a great season. All of that pales in comparison to the school’s academic triumphs.
“We have a real college focus, we’re kind of more like your neighborhood college prep high school, so it’s what we do, 96, 97 percent go to college, that’s a tremendous statistic for us,” said Dawn Baglos, Krop High’s principal.
Krop has 2,650 students with about 600 in the senior class. 90% will graduate, and of those, about 97% will go on to college. The school has always boasted a full range of Advanced Placement courses and electives. Now they’ve added the College Board’s AP Capstone program, one of the newest elite academic sequences in the nation. Every year, Krop sends graduates to the finest universities and colleges.
“We have acceptances from Princeton and Cornell and Stanford and Brown, Duke, MIT, Chicago, all over, Harvard last year too, just amazing college acceptances from our kids,” said Baglos, pointing out that one of those kids is NBC 6 reporter Ari Odzer’s daughter, Jamie Odzer, who graduated from Krop last year and is now a freshman at Brown.
All that academic excellence is happening with perhaps the most diverse student body in South Florida, a United Nations of culture, race, religion, and class, which feeds into athletic excellence as well. Tennis coach Mike Kypriss says different backgrounds means interests in different sports.
“We have such a great, diverse culture here at Krop that it’s almost like everybody has their own little pocket for sports so I think we cover that whole gamut because of our diversity,” said Kypriss, who is currently nominated for national high school coach of the year.
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Krop’s menu of tasty programs includes culinary arts, as part of its hospitality and tourism academy.
A new international finance and business program that partners with the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and many more. It’s a perennial “A” school. You might say it’s the cream of the Krop.