Westchester High School (Los Angeles)

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Westchester High School

Established	1962
School type	Public school
Religious affiliation
Principal	Anita L. Barner
Location	Los Angeles, California, USA
Color(s)	Red and Black
Mascot	Comets
Homepage	www.westchesterhs.org

Westchester High School is a high school located in Westchester (Los Angeles, California).

The school's mascot name is The Comets. It is part of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The high school, although in a primarily Caucasian oceanside community, is dominated by African-American students from the small LAUSD portion of Inglewood and the LAUSD-zoned areas adjacent to Inglewood who are placed in Westchester by LAUSD districting. Windsor Hills and Fox Hills are within the Westchester High School attendance zone.

Westchester High School is notorious for being known as one of the places Stanley Tookie Williams, founder of the Crips gang, first went to for recruitment. There is no strong gang presence at this campus and most students are from solid middle class or working class backgrounds.

Orville Wright Middle School feeds into Westchester.

1 History
2 Student body
3 Notable alumni
4 External links

[edit] History

Westchester High School opened to 500 students in September of 1962.

[edit] Student body

During the 2004-2005 school year, Westchester had 2726 students [1].

56% were African-American
35% were Hispanic
6% were White
2% were Asian
<1% were Filipino
<1% were Pacific Islanders
<1% were Native American

For the 2005-2006 school year, LAUSD opened up a series of new schools to relieve overcrowding in the district. LAUSD opened two high schools, Southeast High School in South Gate, California [2] and the Santee Educational Complex in Los Angeles [3] [4]. As a result, Westchester's student population dropped to about 1,938 - close to the level of previous years. [5] This was a welcome change for many parents who complained of the overcrowding and disruption caused by busing more students from central Los Angeles to the Westside school.

During the 2005-2006 school year, Westchester had 1938 students.

68% were African-American
25% were Hispanic
4% were White
2% were Asian
<1% were Filipino
<1% were Pacific Islanders
<1% were Native American

The Westchester campus also houses an Aerospace Magnet School that enrolled an additional 361 students in the 2005-2006 school year. [6]

For 2005 - 2006, Westchester Aerospace Magnet had 361 students.

55% were African-American
32% were Hispanic
9% were White
2% were Asian
<1% were Filipino
<1% were Pacific Islanders
<1% were Native American

Three additional high schools, Arleta [7], East Valley [8], and Panorama [9], opened in fall 2006, again decreasing the number of transfer students in many schools.

Sharla Berry, a guest columnist for YES! Magazine who attended Westchester from fall 2002 to summer 2006, stated that the school's different ethnic groups interacted with each other frequently [10].

[edit] Notable alumni

Notable alumni of Westchester High School include:

Tim Story, filmmaker
Regina King, actor
Nia Long, actor
Karyn White, singer
Shireen Crutchfield, actor/model/singer (The Good Girls)
Joyce Tolbert, singer (The Good Girls)
Demonica Santiago, singer (The Good Girls)
Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, would-be presidential assassin
Phil Hartman, comedian and actor [11]
Anissa Jones, actress
Howard Kaylan, musician (The Turtles)
Mark Volman, musician (The Turtles)
Eric Reed, jazz musician [12] (the internal wiki link is to a different E. Reed)
Brandon Bowman, basketball player
Ashanti Cook, basketball player
Trevor Ariza, NBA Player for the Orlando Magic
Hassan Adams, NBA Player for the New Jersey Nets
Kaaron Conwright, track and field
Amir Johnson, NBA Player for the Detroit Pistons
Ken Norton Jr., NFL Player for the Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers
Martin Kersels, artist
Melinda Ring, choreographer