 Due to overcrowding of Hazelwood Senior High School (now known as Hazelwood Central), students attended classes on split shift in afternoons.The building that would partially become Hazelwood West opened in 1969 as a junior high school, Howdershell Jr. High.A greatly expanded building opened as a six-year facility in the fall of 1976, the present Hazelwood West High School, housing students from grades nine through twelve.