Piedmont High School (California)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Piedmont High School

Motto	"Achieve the Honorable"
Established	1921
Type	Public secondary
Principal	Randall Booker
Students	862
Grades	9-12
Location	800 Magnolia Avenue, Piedmont, California, USA
District	Piedmont Unified School District
Campus	Suburban with close proximity to urban areas
Colors	Purple and white
Mascot	The Highlanders
Yearbook	'Clan-O-Log'
Newspaper	'The Piedmont Highlander'
Website	Piedmont High School Official Website
View of the front of the school from opposite side of Magnolia Avenue

Piedmont High School should not be confused with Piedmont Hills High School in San Jose, California.

Piedmont High School is a public high school located in Piedmont, California, United States. It is noted for its strong academics and nationally-known Bird Calling Contest.

Piedmont High School is part of the Piedmont Unified School District.

[edit] Background

Piedmont High School offers ninth through 12th grade. The school motto is "Achieve the honorable." The school maintains rigorous academic standards, and is well known in the area as an excellent school. Many families move to Piedmont for the schools once their children reach school-age.^[1]

Piedmont's colors are purple and white (representing the Scottish thistle), and its mascot, the Highlander, reflects the school's Scottish heritage.

A bond for the creation of Piedmont High School was passed in 1920, and the school was built in 1921.

[edit] History

Further information: History of Piedmont, California

In September 1922, the Piedmont Unified School District opened the city's first high school. It was funded by a bond passed by voters in 1920.^[2][3]

Piedmont High School was the last public school in California to require uniforms, which disappeared in the 1970s.^[4]

The social scene was once dominated by social clubs, which resembled college sororities and fraternities, but they have since died out.^[5] The school was covered in the New York Times when in the mid-1990s it began breathalyzing all students before dances.^[6]

[edit] Campus

Students congregate on the grass in the quad during brunch, a 10-minute break between first and second blocks.

Piedmont High School has an open campus, and students can leave during brunch, lunch, and unscheduled periods. The campus is between Piedmont Park on the right of the school and Piedmont Middle School and Witter Field on the left.

The center of campus is a grassy area referred to as "the quad." The quad is center of campus, connecting the Allan Harvey Theatre, the library, the cafeteria and student center, and the amphitheatre. Classes are scattered around campus, with the music and science buildings the furthest apart.

The campus was originally built on a portion of Piedmont Park, and dog-walking trails behind the school connect to the park.

[edit] Architecture

The school was built in 1921 in a neoclassical design, part of the same plan that built the Piedmont city's Exedra. Since its design by architect W.H. Weeks,^[2] the school has undergone several reconstructions, for reasons such as expansion, earthquake retrofitting, and combatting dry rot.

The school exhibits various styles of architecture, with remains of the original neoclassical design in the library and the distinct "back-to-nature" look in the breezeway and theater.

In 1974, the school was declared unsafe, under state earthquake laws. It was demolished, and three new classroom buildings and a gymnasium were built. The original library, quad, and administration buildings were rehabilitated.^[7]

Reconstruction in the 1970s reflected the "back-to-nature" look popular at the time, using wood instead of shingles. The school's "breezeway," an open, wide corridor running between the school's main buildings, exemplifies this.

The last construction was an expansion of the gymnasium, during the 2003-2004 school year, to include an entrance room that also displays trophies. The school will undergo more construction in accord with Measure E, which issued $56 million in bonds to reconstruction of school facilities to meet earthquake safety guidelines.^[8]

[edit] Academics

Statistics is one of the elective math classes offered.

The amphitheatre is used for outside performances, such as those during lunch. The mural, painted by past AP Art students, was vandalized in 2005 and had to be repainted by the AP Art students of that year.

Piedmont High School is an academically strong school, scoring a 10 out of 10 for test scores at the website GreatSchools.net.^[9] The school newspaper reported that the average of GPA of 2006's graduating class was 3.47.^[10]

[edit] Courses

[edit] Advanced Placement

As of 2006-2007, the school offers the following AP courses.^[11]

• AP Biology
• AP Calculus AB
• AP Computer Science
• AP English Literature
• AP Environmental Science
• AP European History
• AP French Language
• AP Music Theory (offered bi-yearly)
• AP Spanish Language
• AP Studio Art 2D
• AP Studio Art 3D
• AP United States History
• AP Chinese Language and Culture

In addition, honors courses in physics and chemistry are offered.^[11]

[edit] Creative and performing arts

Art classes come in various fields: music (a cappella, band, orchestra, AP Music), visual art (2-D art, ceramics, 2-D AP, 3-D AP), and drama (Acting I through IV).

[edit] Electives

Other electives offered include Clan-O-Log (yearbook) and the Piedmont Highlander (school newspaper); law and society; public speaking; multiple computer classes; and creative writing.

[edit] Foreign language

Spanish, French, and Mandarin are the three foreign languages that are offered, and American Sign Language is offered over the summer. In 2007-2008 an AP Mandarin course will be added. Prior to the 2007-2008 school year, Mandarin classes ranged from Mandarin I to Mandarin V (honors). The Mandarin program was added in 1995-1996, when it replaced German.^[12]

[edit] Recent changes

[edit] 2006-2007

An AP European History course was added. The junior-level course honors chemistry was opened to qualifying sophomores.

[edit] 2007-2008

The current Mandarin V (honors) was replaced by AP Mandarin.^[12]

The science curriculum changed from the system of "Integrated Science" to specific subjects, such as biology. In the old system, student took Integrated Science I as freshmen, Integrated Science II as sophomores, and either chemistry or honors chemistry as juniors. The new system allows incoming freshmen to choose between physical science (for "most students") and biology (for "students showing mastery of PMS science").^[13] The options are shown in detail below:^[13]

In addition, ROP-funded journalism, sports medicine, and biotechnology were added.^[13]

[edit] Graduation requirements

Four years of English are required to graduate, as well as three years of math, and completion of Integrated Science I and II. In addition, all students must take one year of an art class, two years of foreign language, one semester of any computer class, and one semester of social psychology (required sophomore year). Freshmen are required to take physical education unless they are nationally ranked in any sport. Only one semester each sophomore and junior year is required, which can be replaced by one season of a school sport.

[edit] Honors society

The Piedmont Highlander is the student-written newspaper, taken as a class. Featured is a stack of newspapers from the 2005-2006 school year.

The school decided to form its own honors society after the 2005-2006 CSF Officers, headed by President Martine Phelan-Roberts, researched the California Scholastic Federation, the honors society to which the school had previously subscribed. The new group, the Piedmont Honors Society, has a GPA cut-off of 3.60. In addition, there is a community service requirement of 15 pre-approved hours for sophomores, 25 for juniors, and 35 for seniors. The class of 2007 is the last class to maintain eligibility and membership with CSF.

[edit] School publications

The school newspaper is the Piedmont Highlander and the yearbook is the Clan-O-Log. Both have existed since the early decades of Piedmont High history, and participants of each publication are involved by taking the offered course. In 2006, the Highlander placed sixth in the National Scholastic Press Association's Best of Show contest.^[14] A recently added school publication is the literary magazine The Highland Piper, which is published by the library's Teen Advisory Board.^[15]

[edit] Matriculations

A high number of students continue their education at highly selective California universities, such as the University of California at Berkeley, Stanford University, and UCLA, as well as selective schools on the East Coast, such as Harvard University, Yale University, Princeton University, Georgetown University, and Columbia University. Of the 230-person class of 2007, Berkeley was the most popular college, with 21 students attending. It was followed by UC Santa Cruz in second place with 19 students, and a tie between UC Davis and UCLA for third, each with 15 students. Thirty-eight percent of students attend a UC school. The school newspaper reported that overall 98 percent of students planned to attend a specific college or university within the next two years, accounting for those accepted to a school but deferring for a year.^[16] In 2008, University of Oregon was the most popular college, with 23 students attending.

[edit] Schedule

Piedmont High School runs on a block schedule, with seven periods offered but four blocks a day. The schedule of classes changes every day.

Students can buy lunch and snacks at Food Service.

On days A through E, school starts at 8:00 a.m. and ends at 3:05 p.m. Regular teacher meetings are scheduled for F days, which end at 2:25 p.m., and G days offer a "tutorial" period for students to receive help from their teachers or make up tests; school ends at 2:05 p.m.

There are ten-minute breaks between each block for students to get to their next class. In addition, a 15-minute "brunch" — much like an elementary-school recess — is offered between block I and II, and a 35-minute lunch is offered between blocks III and IV.

During breaks, students can buy snacks and lunch from Food Service, a school-run distributor of food. Food service is located within the Student Center building.

The school has an open campus, and students can leave during lunch with no penalty, as long as they return in time for their next class.

[edit] Demographics

The majority of the student body is white, 68 percent, and Asian, 22 percent.^[17] In 2004, the San Francisco Chronicle highlighted the lack of racial and socioeconomic diversity in Piedmont in a Sunday front-page story. Comparing schools in Oakland and Piedmont, the article wrote that "wealth has created separate and unequal schools in [the] Bay Area and elsewhere."^[18]

The majority of high school students have lived in Piedmont since elementary school. As in the surrounding cities, only residents of the city can attend school at the district, unless a parent is a district employee.

Piedmont is racially more alike high schools at a similar academic level, such as Miramonte High School, than it is to geographically closer schools like Oakland Tech.

[edit] Library

The high school library serves as a reference source and place to study.

The library is part of the building referred to as "the English building," since the majority of the English classrooms are located there, or "the 30s building," because of the classroom numbers. Teachers and students use the library for its large number of books and computers.

In 2005, Pixar donated new computers, which upgraded the school to the Windows XP operating system. The library has enough computers for the average-sized class to use at once. It is a location where students who have "free periods" (unscheduled period in their schedule) often choose to remain, especially if the free period is in between classes.

At the beginning of the 2006-2007 school year, librarian Susan Stutzman set up the Teen Advisory Board, a group for students to contribute to the library through writing book reviews, recommending purchases, buying books,^[19] decorating the library, organizing library events, and publishing a literary magazine. The literary magazine, The Highland Piper, publishes student original writing, and took its name from the school literary magazine published in the 1930s.^[20][21]

[edit] Bird Calling Contest

Piedmont High is home to the nationally known^[22] Piedmont Bird Calling Contest. Winners of the contest have been featured on the Late Show with David Letterman, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. The contest was started in 1963 by biology teacher Leonard J. Waxdeck.^[22][23]

[edit] Sports

View overlooking Witter Field, which is used by the sports teams of Piedmont High School and Piedmont Middle School.

PHS offers a variety of varsity and junior varsity sports.

The women's basketball team was recently nationally ranked and received much attention.

In 2006, the softball team hired Jen Deering as head coach. Deering was a member of the University of California's 2002 national championship team, and she led the Highlanders to the most successful season in their history, with a record of 21-5, before falling to Albany in the NCS Championships. Deering was then hired as the pitching coach and recruiting coordinator for Boston University. In 2007, veteran East Bay coach Kristen Morley was hired to take over the program. Morley was also a member of Cal's national championship team.

In 2008, the Highlander Varsity Baseball team won their first ever NCS 2-A Eastbay title by beating the #1 seed, Northgate 6-5 at the Oakland Coliseum.

PHS uses the Highlander, a kilt-clad Scotsman playing the bagpipes, as its mascot.

[edit] Notable alumni

Piedmont High School has produced both nationally and internationally recognizable alumni.

Pro-football player-turned-actor Fred Williamson was a student.

Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara graduated in 1933 after maintaining a straight "A" average.^[24] Clint Eastwood spent part of his academic career in Piedmont before switching to Oakland Technical High School in neighboring Oakland, California.^[25]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Piedmont High School official website
• The Highland Piper
• Piedmont Unified School District Mandarin Program website
• The Hairy Lawn News - HairyNet: Irreverent look back at the late 1960s and early 70s - includes classmates bulletin board