Stratford High School is a secondary school in Houston, Texas, United States. The school is one of four high schools in the Spring Branch Independent School District (SBISD), the district's westernmost secondary school (serving grades 9 through 12). Stratford High School serves several neighborhoods, including Westchester, Sherwood Oaks, Nottingham Forest, Nottingham West, Wilchester, Gaywood, Wilchester West, Yorkshire, Memorial Townhomes, Village on Memorial Townhomes, Memorial Way, Rustling Pines, Memorial Plaza, and the SBISD portions of Thornwood and Ashford Forest. Stratford provides courses in the traditional academic subjects, as well as several foreign languages, technology, vocational education, athletics, and fine arts. Several different Advanced Placement (AP) courses are offered at Stratford. In keeping with the theme of its mascot, Stratford's student newspaper is The Oracle, and its yearbook is Mnemosyne. Feeder patterns Elementary schools that feed into Stratford include: Meadow Wood Nottingham Thornwood Wilchester Rummel Creek (partial) Sherwood (partial) Spring Woods Middle schools that feed into Stratford include: Spring Forest Middle School Memorial Middle School (partial) Feeding from private schools Students of some private schools, such as First Baptist Academy, Grace School, and John Paul II School, continue to Stratford. History Stratford first opened in the 1973–1974 school year. It was built to relieve the overflow of students at the nearby Westchester High School. The overflow had been caused by of the rapid development of subdivisions like Yorkshire, Wilchester, and Nottingham. The school district quickly decided to open a new school when the student population at Westchester nearly tripled to 4,000. Prior to the opening of the Stratford facility, Stratford's students were housed in temporary buildings on the Westchester campus. The opening of Stratford was not completed on schedule due to construction delays, causing students to continue to languish in cramped quarters. The 1974 Freshman Class graduated in 1977 as the first four class of the school. The first class to graduate from Stratford was the 1975 Class. In the 1980s, the population of Spring Branch Independent School District fell drastically. This was attributed to jobs lost to the oil crisis that affected the Houston area. Many Houston families left or moved out of the upper, middle-class area, causing an underutilization of campus space. The school district voted to close four schools: Spring Branch High School, Westchester High School and two junior highs. Students from both high schools were sent to Memorial High School with most Westchester students going to Stratford. (Westchester