Baker High School (Alabama)

Baker High School is located in unincorporated Mobile County, Alabama, west of Mobile, and is a public high school operated by the Mobile County Public School System. The school educates students in grades 9-12. Baker High School is the largest high school in Mobile County with over 2,300 students enrolled and the second largest school in the state of Alabama.

History
Baker School (Now Baker High School), established in 1903, was originally a one classroom school for grades 1-12. In 1927, the school became an official part of the Mobile County Public School System. This change brought new buildings to the campus. In 1930, the building to the right of the original school house would serve as the main building. The school received so much growth to the extent that a state-of-the-art building had to be built behind the historic structure. In the 1960s the school was split in two with lower and upper class levels. Also, new buildings were built with the lower elementary school absorbing the original building, and a 2-story building built for the high school. Later after the school districts were reformed, the elementary school would be renamed to Elsie Collier Elementary and moved to Snow Road. The old buildings became Causey Middle School. Causey was later moved to Snow Road, and the old Causey buildings were once again added as part of Baker High School. In early 2008, the school system decided to demolish the 107-years-old building. The old "annex" that was once Baker School, then Baker Elementary, then Causey Middle, still remains and is now the "Freshman Academy".

Building
The current main building was built in the late 1970s to accommodate a growing West Mobile population. The building was built as a Bomb/Storm Shelter with no exterior windows in the original design. The walls are steel reinforced concrete. A concourse connects the main structure to the gym and new auditorium. The school was remodeled starting in 2001 and ending in 2004. The gym was expanded 40 yards, an auditorium was built, the main building was repainted, walls replaced, a sprinkler system added, and new doors installed with windows, the football stadium was expanded to twice the previous capacity and two new buildings were added to the campus as a freshman annex. The school has its own baseball field, softball field, football and soccer stadium, basketball gym, track, and practice field for football, soccer, and band. The original building from 1903 was torn down in early 2008 and was listed as a historic landmark by the County of Mobile.

Publications
Baker High School publishes a semi-monthly newsletter called the Hornet Herald.

Uniforms
As part of the Mobile County Public School System, Baker High School conforms to a uniform policy.

Academic competition
Baker High School became the first ever school from Alabama to win a nationwide Hi-Q championship, narrowly beating out Pennsylvania's Delaware County Christian School for the title in 2021 by a single point. Baker won the match on the final question, which was in mathematics.

Scholar's Bowl
Baker High School's Scholars Bowl academic team (known as quiz bowl elsewhere) has achieved great success in recent years, on both the state and national levels.

Pre-2019
Before 2019, Baker's Scholars Bowl team competed exclusively, with few exceptions, in the annual Mobile County Scholars Bowl Tournament hosted by Coastal Alabama Community College. Resources were divided between the Scholar’s Bowl team and Baker's Hi-Q team; prior to 2019, Baker placed disproportionate focus on the latter. Linda Keller coached the team until 2019, when assistant coach Tonya Parker assumed the position of head coach.

2019-2020 Season
The 2019-2020 Season saw Tonya Parker become head coach alongside Timothy Williams, who left the school at the end of the 2019-2020 school year.

2019 saw Baker's first breakout performance outside Mobile County at the televised 2019 Alabama Scholars Bowl tournament, aired on Alabama Public Television, where they placed 2nd in Division I, beating notable state contenders like Sparkman and Alma Bryant. The team was led by team captain senior Thomas White.

2020 saw Baker's first and only appearance at a History Bowl competition. With sponsor Barbara Waltsgott, the team participated in Alabama's regional History Bowl competition at Spain Park High School on March 7 and placed 1st in the Varsity division, narrowly defeating Hoover in the finals by a score of 250 to 240. The 10 point difference was the smallest possible margin of victory using History Bowl scoring.

Baker's year of breakout success was halted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in the school's closing for the rest of the school year and the cancellation of the rest of the season's state and national tournaments.

2020-2021 Season
Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, many quiz bowl tournaments across the country went virtual, with most of them being held via Discord or Zoom using online buzzing tools like Buzzin.live. During this time, Baker continued to compete and achieved modest success in several online tournaments run by the American Quiz Bowl League. Tonya Parker continued as head coach, while Ryan Lee replaced Timothy Williams as assistant coach.

Baker ended the season with a 3rd-place finish at the 2021 ASCA Alabama Division I state tournament and a 49th-place finish at the 2021 HSNCT, the team's inaugural national tournament appearance. Both tournaments were held online.

The 2020-2021 season also saw the breakout individual success of Baker's team captain, junior Will McCurley, who placed 13th at the 2021 IPNCT. McCurley was also 1st overall Division I MVP at ASCA State, and was 2nd overall MVP at the 2021 HSNCT.

2021-2022 Season
Following the unorthodox 2020-2021 competition season, the 2021-2022 season saw a return to a degree of normalcy. Many quiz bowl tournaments across the country returned to being held in-person, with many requiring face masks and/or vaccination for attendees.

On the heels of their first national tournament appearances at the end of the 2021 season, Baker's Scholars Bowl program had its most successful year to date in the 2021-2022 season. Once again coached by Tonya Parker and Ryan Lee, the season saw Baker finish 2nd at the televised 2021 Alabama Scholars Bowl tournament, 2nd at the 2022 ASCA Alabama Division I state tournament, and 15th at the 2022 HSNCT, where the team defeated 4th-place finisher Kinkaid in a resounding upset in the preliminary rounds and finished the tournament with the overall seventh-highest points-per-game.

The season also saw the continued individual success of team captain Will McCurley, now a senior, who placed 2nd at the 2022 IPNCT, which he lost by the margin of only a single tossup question. Despite great sickness, McCurley was also 1st overall Division I MVP at 2022 ASCA State and 3rd overall MVP at the 2022 HSNCT.

2022-2023 Season
Baker continued their pedigree of success in the 2022-2023 competition season. Tonya Parker and Ryan Lee remained head coaches for the third year in a row, and junior Henry Bylinowski assumed the role of team captain. Led by the strong duo of Bylinowski and senior Will Simm, the team placed 3rd at the televised 2022 Alabama Scholars Bowl tournament. They then went on to place 5th at the 2023 ASCA Alabama Division I State Tournament, narrowly missing the playoffs on a procedural protest in their fifth preliminary game against James Clemens despite finishing with the overall third-highest points-per-game. The team finished the season with a 5–5 prelim record at 2023 HSNCT, just missing playoffs in a tight game with Princess Anne High School.

The season also saw Henry Bylinowski's breakout individual performance on the national scale at the 2023 IPNCT, where he placed 28th. Bylinowski was also 2nd overall MVP at 2023 ASCA State, at which Baker player Will Simm was 9th overall MVP.

2023-2024 Season
Baker has seen good success in the 2023-2024 competition season. Tonya Parker and Ryan Lee remain head coaches, and Henry Bylinowski remains captain, now in his senior year.

Henry Bylinowski attended the 2024 IPNCT in April, where he placed 34th out of IPNCT's all-time largest field of 261. He notably placed in the Top 5 in the Literature category and had the fifth-highest number of powers in the field.

Notable alumni

 * Blaine Clausell, former offensive tackle for the National Football League
 * Dewarick Spencer, professional basketball player Zamalek of the Egyptian Basketball Super League
 * Flo Milli, American Rapper