Northwest Guilford High School

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Northwest Guilford High School is a public high school in Guilford County, North Carolina. The school has an enrollment of around 2400 students in grades 9 through 12, making it the public school with the largest enrollment in Guilford County. It operates on a traditional bell schedule that has 6 periods in a day for the entire year, as opposed to the block, college-styled schedules in place for many of the other local schools. The school is located on Northwest School Road next to Northwest Middle School in the Northwestern region of Guilford County. Among other distinctions, Northwest was listed by High Schools That Work as one of the top 36 high schools in the United States, the only high school in North Carolina to receive an honorable mention. The ranking was based upon Northwest's outstanding AP success rates among other academic excellences. The current Principal is Mr. Angelo Kidd.

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[edit] Colors and mascots

The school's colors are red and white, and their mascot a Viking. The mascot appears at football games and at certain basketball games.

[edit] Traditions and rivalries

The school has long had a sports-based rivalry with Western Guilford High School, which has led to some minor cases and one major case of vandalism between the two schools. For the last six years Northwest Varsity Football has lost to Western Guilford. A heated rivalry between the Vikings and the Grimsley Whirlies also exists.

Northwest has three dances throughout the year including the Homecoming celebration following the Homecoming Football Game; the Twirp (an acronym for "The Woman Is Required to Pay") Dance which plays off of the Sadie Hawkins tradition; and then the Junior and Senior Prom.

[edit] Facilities

Because of the recent increase in population in the area, several additions, including a two-story educational building completed in 2002, gym completed in 2003, and cultural arts wing at the school, have been constructed. Northwest now has two gyms: the "old" gym and the "new" gym.

The original main building at the school serves as the English and Environmental Science building, and the Educational Building serves primarily as the Mathematics, Foreign Language, Biology, and Physical Science building. The Vocational Building houses classes such as Yearbook, Drafting, Technology, and Graphic Design, and trailers (modular classroom buildings) serve as the Social Studies classrooms.

[edit] Athletics

Northwest is a 4A school with a large athletic program, with sports programs in soccer, basketball,football, tennis , swimming, lacrosse, baseball, wrestling, track, cross country, and volleyball, among others.

[edit] Academics

Northwest has the largest selection of Advanced Placement courses in Guilford County, and has the highest success rate with the students that take the courses. More AP credits have been awarded to Northwest than any other school in the recent years.

The school also has Honors and College Prep courses. Due to lack of interest, it no longer has an ROTC program.

The school is also actively involved in competitions such as We the People, Mock Trial, the National Forensic League and Science Olympiad.

[edit] Arts

The competitive Northwest Guilford "Viking" Marching Band was created in 1975 with 32 students attending Northwest Junior and Senior High Schools. Recently, at the national level, where under the direction of D. Brian Roberts, the Viking Band performed in the Bands of America National Competition in Indianapolis. As of the 2006-2007 school year, the "Viking Band" and color guard is under the direction of Brian McMath has 125 members. The "Viking Marching Band" only meets during the fall semester, playing at home football games, local and regional competitions and holiday parades. In the winter and spring semester, the program has two competitive Winter Guard Groups, and a competitive Winter Drumline; these groups compete in the CWEA circuit locally, and in WGI on a national level. Additional marching band staff of the NW Viking Band Program includes Bryan Baker (Guard instructor/design), Leah Keith (Guard instructor), Andrew Giorgi (Guard instructor) Jason Smith (battery percussion), Josh Cvijanovic (front ensemble percussion), Kathleen Hall (marching), and Eric Gee (marching).

The 2004-05 Marching Vikings competed in the Outback Bowl Parade and Field Show Competition at the Outback Bowl in Tampa, Florida. They won the Field Show division and were honored to perform a portion of their competition show at the pre-game festivities of the Outback Bowl Game. The "Viking Band" program also boasts a jazz ensemble, and three large concert ensembles that have won numerous Superior ratings at NCBA State District Festivals. The band's website can be found at http://nwvikingband.org/.

The Northwest High School Drama Department has been resurected. The Honors Drama class competed in the NCTC competition in October 2007, with the one-acts "Dragon of the Winds" and "Final Dress Rehearsal." Drama II participated in a remarkable production of "Charlotte's Web." The Honors Drama class also put on a student directed murder mystery called "Phantom of the Soap Opera." The Drama I classes will be performing one acts in May. The highlight of the year for the Cultural Arts department was the production of "Disney's High School Musical." Over 100 people auditioned; only 50 people were cast. In addition to the characters from the movie, a new character, Jack Scott, was introduced. Kelsi Neilson, Zeke, and Martha Cox all have larger roles. The plot is well-rounded and there are more songs. The chorus worked extremely hard on learning the tricky choreograpy. The production went exceptionally well all three nights of the April production.

[edit] The International Beijing Competition

Two NGHS of its students were chosen to represent the United States of America at the International Beijing Science Competition in March, 2006. China invited the United States for the first time to compete along with New Zealand, Japan, Italy, Denmark and South Korea.

[edit] We The People

The 2005-2006 North Carolina State History Teacher of the Year, Ray Parrish, heads up a group of Northwest's finest students as they vigorously prepare for national competition every year in April. The team first took the state title in 1997, and on March 7, 2008, won the State Competition for the twelfth year running. On April 29, 2007, the '06-'07 team became the first from North Carolina to place into the National Top Ten.

On the last weekend in April of 2006, the We the People team went to the national competition in Washington, D.C. The team did quite well, bringing home a Unit 2 Award, only the third award NW has won on the national level. Northwest Guilford brought home its first national award--a Unit 1 Award--in 2000, and the 2004 team won the Southeast Region Championship. These national awards demonstrate a desire to set a standard even higher than the numerous Unit awards the school has won at the state competition. More information about We the People can be obtained here [1].

[edit] Battle of the Bands

During the 2002-2003 school year, Northwest held its first annual Battle of the Bands. First place was given to the ska group, "King B and the Two Tones", second place to "Chicken Fist", and third to "Selfish Motive". The winner of the 2003-2004 year was "Gillross and the Coopers", a funk/jam band consisting of members of the High School Jazz Band. The winners of the 2005-2006 Battle of the bands were as follows: 1st- The Experiment(now Ailyne) 2nd place- Kudzu Hill and 3rd place- One Day Forward!

[edit] National Forensics League

On December 1, Northwest Guilford will host the first annual Guilford Challenge in association with the National Forensics League. More than 30 schools from across the Piedmont are expected to attend with participants numbering more than 200 students.