Southwest’s New Northern Neighbor

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Cadi Wilbeck

Lincoln Public Schools will be opening a new high school, called Lincoln Northwest, in fall of 2022. The school is located NW 48th and Holdrege Street, and will be the seventh high school in the district. 

The principal will be Cedric Cooper, current principal at Schoo Middle School. Schoo, along with Arnold Elementary will feed into Lincoln Northwest once the school opens. 

The school will partner with Bryan College of Health Sciences to house a Medical Science Focus program for juniors and seniors, which is a new venture for LPS. The district currently has six other “focus programs,” like The Career Academy and the Science Focus Program, but has not offered any healthcare-only programs before. Northwest is the first to have a focus program housed within a normal school. As a result, Southwest may lose some of its students to Northwest, mostly those interested in a career in the healthcare field.

Northwest’s mascot will be the “Fighting Falcon,” which some students at Southwest have deemed too similar to Southwest’s Silver Hawk. The logo features a falcon wearing goggles as a nod to the Air Park neighborhood, where most of the future students reside. Before the area was converted to a neighborhood, it served as an Air Force base. 

“I think the design of the logo in general is very good,” senior Dominic Sander said. “But I do wish they would do something new and different and not just another bird mascot. It’s too similar to Southwest’s.”

The new school’s colors will be purple, gray and white.

“I really like the colors,” senior Dominic Sander said. “It adds so much diversity to the color palate of the district which is really nice.”