Springfield, Oregon renovation project, completed at a cost of $3.1 million. There are 15 elementary, 4 middle, and 4 high schools in the Springfield School District, making it one of the largest in the state. The largest public high schools, by enrollment, are Thurston High School and Springfield High School. Pioneer Pacific College also has a campus in the Gateway area of Springfield. The city took third in the voting to choose one of the sixteen possible Springfields in the U.S. to host the premiere of "The Simpsons Movie." The show's creator, Oregon resident Matt Groening, sent a plaque to the city
Springfield (The Simpsons) federal standardized testing regimens. The impetus being the maintenance of artificial school-wide averages and therefore basic levels of government support—a practice not unheard of in the United States and other systems where funding is tied to test results. Established in the episodes "Separate Vocations" and "Pokey Mom", the school's mascot is a puma. It is revealed in the episode "Lisa Gets an "A"" that Springfield Elementary was at one time voted "The Most Dilapidated School in Missouri"—it was then moved, brick-by-brick, to Springfield. It has been stated several times that the school is filled with asbestos, and the underfunding of