Venice High School (Los Angeles)

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Venice High School is a public school located in Los Angeles, California within the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The school's English-language newspaper is The Oarsman and its Spanish-language newspaper is El Heraldo Latino. A bohemian literary journal characteristic of the area, Written Voice, features students' poetry, short stories, and other work. An unofficial newsmagazine, The Venice Independent was formerly run by Venice students.

The school's current principal is Janice Davis.

Even though it is called Venice High School the school is east of Walgrove Avenue, which forms the boundary with the adjacent neighborhood of Mar Vista. Many students from Palms Middle School also go there, though the schools are not connected. An explanation of the school's name might be that the school predates the clear establishment of Mar Vista as a distinct community, and the importance of Abbott Kinney's "Venice of America" to the local economy when the school was founded or because it is located on Venice Boulevard.

Several elementary schools, including Beethoven Elementary School, Westminster Avenue Elementary School and Coeur d'Alene Avenue Elementary School, feed into Venice. Marina Del Rey Middle School, Daniel Webster Middle School and Mark Twain Middle School also feed into Venice.

Westwood Driving School provides the school's driving instruction [1].

Contents 1 History 2 Notable alumni 3 Filming location 4 External links

[edit] History

The school was first established in 1911 when classes were held in an old lagoon bathhouse. On March 10, 1933, the school was seriously damaged by the Long Beach earthquake. As a result, classes were held in hastily constructed tents for two years until a replacement school was built. New, modern, and earthquake-resistant buildings were built in 1935 which are still used by the school today. Until recently, a statue modeled on student Myrna Loy stood in front of the school. The statue was the target of vandalism, and is to be restored and replaced in front of the school.

On June 5, 2006 around 3:05 PM, 17-year old Augustin Contreras, an 11th grader at Venice, was fatally shot in the school's faculty parking lot. Contreras had intervened in a fight between his two younger brothers (16-year old Alejo Contreras and 15-year old Andres Contreras) and a few other men, who did not attend the school. The victim lived in Culver City. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6].

[edit] Notable alumni

Notable Venice High alumni and students include:

• Larry Atkins, Professional Football Player
• Beau Bridges, motion picture actor, son of Lloyd Bridges
• Jeff Bridges motion picture actor
• Craig Breedlove, Land Speed Record Holder
• Walter Cunningham, NASA Astronaut
• Crispin Glover, motion picture actor
• JP Losman, Professional Football Player
• Myrna Loy, motion picture actress, voted "Queen of Hollywood" in 1936.
• Teena Marie, singer/songwriter/producer. One of few successful Caucasian R&B performers.
• Phranc, a San Francisco-based alternative rock performer
• Richie Slick, lead vocalist for The Diffs
• Gary Collins, motion picture actor
• Melina Perez, WWE female wrestler
• Laurie Prang, TV actor
• Sam Whipple, motion picture actor
• Doug Slaten, Arizona Diamondback pitcher
• Barry Hirsch, Hollywood super lawyer
• Marty Klein, state championship tennis coach
• Gerald Sutton, US diplomat
• Gogi Grant, popular singer

[edit] Filming location

Venice High School was used as the Rydell High School location for the movie Grease starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. It was also used in other movies such as American History X, and Matchstick Men (a person who poses as character's daughter says she goes to school there in the movie), as well as in several music videos, including Britney Spears's international hit ...Baby One More Time, Bowling For Soup's "High School Never Ends", and Young MC's "Principal's Office" [7]. Venice is also in The Faders "No Sleep Tonight".

[edit] External links

• Venice High School website (sometimes down during the summer)

• Venice High School history

• Venice High School Alumni Website
• The Oarsman's official website
• Venice High's demographics from LAUSD
• LAUSD demographics for the foreign language magnet run out of the same campus

	v • d • e Los Angeles Unified School District District 3
Alternative K-12 schools	Marlton School
Magnet 6-12 schools	Los Angeles CES
Alternative 7-12 schools	Widney
High schools	Crenshaw | Dorsey | Hamilton | Los Angeles | Palisades Charter | University | Venice | Westchester
Middle schools	Burroughs | Palms | Revere Charter | Wright
Elementary schools	Coeur d'Alene | Westminster Avenue