Overview

Classen School of Advanced Studies -- Classen SAS -- is not one school but two public specialty schools serving grades 5-12 in Oklahoma City Public Schools: Classen SAS Middle School and Classen SAS High School @ Northeast, at separate addresses in separate ZIP codes. The program was founded in 1919 and reopened under its current name in 1994. It participates in the IB Diploma Programme and offers art, drama, and music courses to any qualifying student. Its motto is Qui non proficit deficit, its colors royal blue and gold, and its teams the Comets, competing in OSSAA Class 5A.

The enrollment figure above covers grades 9-12 only. Because the institution spans grades 5-12 across two campuses, its total enrollment is higher than 810 and was not stated in the sources found. Treat 810 as a partial count, not the school's size.

Academics

Wikipedia's page describes Classen SAS High School @ Northeast as one of the state's premier high schools academically and states it has been ranked among the top 100 public high schools in America. The same page's infobox lists a U.S. News & World Report ranking of 926.

Those two claims sit on the same page and don't reconcile: a national rank of 926 is not a top-100 placement. The "top 100" claim may refer to a different year, a different publication, or a different ranking methodology, but the page as written gives a reader two incompatible impressions of the same school. We're reporting both rather than choosing the more flattering one, and neither should be treated as this school's current standing without checking the ranking source directly.

No Oklahoma State Department of Education report-card data was located for this profile. Check OSDE directly for current school-level results.

Neighborhood

The high school campus sits in northeast Oklahoma City. CrimeGrade reports that residents generally consider the northeast the safest part of the city, with victimization odds ranging from 1 in 13 in central neighborhoods to 1 in 37 in the northeast. Nextdoor's Northeast OKC page is more mixed: it notes discussion of two unrelated fatal shootings under Oklahoma City police investigation, while observing that many residents still consider the area generally safe. DoorProfit separately names Martin Luther King and Culbertson East Highland among the city's lowest-graded neighborhoods at D-, and North Creston Hills at F+ -- so "northeast" is not uniform.

Crime & safety

Oklahoma City's sources broadly agree on the raw figure -- roughly 37 to 38.5 crimes per 1,000 residents -- and agree that property crime dominates while violent crime runs below national norms. Nextdoor puts violent crime at 6.6 per 1,000 against a national 13.32, with property crime at 31.61. NeighborhoodScout finds property crime at 29 per 1,000 (1 in 35) but flags one of the higher murder rates in the nation. DoorProfit reports 84% of the city's 238 analyzed neighborhoods earning an A or B grade, with elevated crime concentrated in five neighborhoods representing about 2-3% of the city.

Where they diverge is in the verdict, and the reason is instructive.

Three sources describe Oklahoma City's crime relative to "the national average" and reach three different conclusions: DoorProfit says 1% below it, Nextdoor's figures put the city about 14% above it, and Relocation Genius says 36.9 per 1,000 is "significantly above the national average." The city's own rate is roughly the same in all three. What differs is the benchmark: Nextdoor states the national average as 33.37 crimes per 1,000, while Relocation Genius states it as 23.0 per 1,000 -- a 45% gap in the yardstick itself. This is a more fundamental problem than the neighborhood-grade disagreements elsewhere in this directory. When providers don't agree what "average" means, a phrase like "above the national average" carries no fixed information, and readers comparing two sites are not comparing like with like.

Our calculated rating

We don't publish a single proprietary score. Here the academic evidence is internally contradictory within a single source, the enrollment figure is partial, and the safety comparisons rest on national baselines that differ by 45% between providers. See our ratings methodology.

Sources

  1. Wikipedia, "Classen School of Advanced Studies" (addresses, founding, NCES IDs, staffing, enrollment, ratio, IB programme, colors, conference, USNWR ranking, top-100 claim, principals, superintendent).
  2. Wikipedia, "Oklahoma Centennial High School" (district school closure and "Path to Greatness" plan).
  3. CrimeGrade.org, "The Safest and Most Dangerous Places in Oklahoma City, OK" (citywide rate, directional victimization odds, cost of crime).
  4. Nextdoor, Oklahoma City crime and safety resource page (overall, property, and violent crime rates versus stated national averages).
  5. Nextdoor, Northeast OKC crime and safety resource page (recent incidents, resident perception).
  6. DoorProfit, Oklahoma City crime rate and statistics, updated July 2026 (C+ grade, national comparison, victimization odds).
  7. DoorProfit, Oklahoma City crime map (neighborhood grade distribution, lowest-graded neighborhoods).
  8. NeighborhoodScout, Oklahoma City crime rates and statistics (victimization odds, murder rate, property crime rate).
  9. Relocation Genius, Oklahoma City crime rates and safety statistics 2026 (local rate and stated national baseline).