San Juan Hills High School

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Location
San Juan Hills High School
29211 Vista Montana San Juan Capistrano, CA 92675]]
Information
School district	Capistrano Unified School District
Principal	Currently no principal
Enrollment	650 (as of 2008)
Faculty	20
Type	Public High School
Grades	9 (adding the next progressive grade each year)
Mascot	The Stallions
Color(s)	Blue and Gold
Established	2007
Information	(949) 234-5900
Homepage	[1]

San Juan Hills High School is a high school located in San Juan Capistrano, California, and it is the sixth high school of the Capistrano Unified School District. The school officially opened in the 2007-2008 school year as a new comprehensive high school and it serves the residents of San Juan Capistrano, Capistrano Beach, and southern Ladera Ranch in Orange County, California.

[edit] Controversy

Capo Unified felt a heat of criticism when opening this school. First and foremost was the changing of the district boundaries. Students in areas like Capistrano Beach and Ladera Ranch felt a stronger sense of community with neighboring cities. Capistrano Beach residents, whose students attended San Clemente High School, feel they are a basically a part of San Clemente and that was who their children related to. They thought their children would be the lone "beach kids" at San Juan Hills High School. Ladera Ranch did not oppose as much as the area is brand new and the residents have not really had time to build a legacy at another school. The Ladera students will go from Capistrano Valley High School in Mission Viejo and some from Tesoro High School in Rancho Santa Margarita to San Juan Hills, a few minutes closer. The boundary also caused the change of the whole district wide boundaries, including moving all of the students in Mission Viejo from a split between Tesoro High School is Las Flores and Capistrano Valley, to just Capo Valley (due to the San Juan residents, who previously also attended CVHS being removed). Dana Hills High School in Dana Point saw the loss of all its San Juan students and shrunk in boundaries. San Clemente also shrunk, but needed the relief as it was overcrowded from the 3,000+ students and the growing Talega neighborhood.

There was also complaints over the district using race to divide the school district. The neighborhoods outside San Juan Capistrano, Capo Beach and Ladera, feared going to a school in San Juan, where there is a larger Hispanic population, who the residents thought would cause the school to be low performing. The fact that San Juan Hills would have a thirty percent Hispanic population drove many residents to move to other boundary areas or apply for school of choice. Meanwhile, Capo Valley and Dana Hills students, who had split the San Juan Capistrano Hispanic population are seeing a predicted drop to 8 and 6 percent respectively, from 24 and 20 percent respectively. Several lawsuits have been filed against the district for their division by race at meetings.

Also, residents of San Juan feared the increase in traffic on Ortega Highway which leads to the school. This heavily traveled road—one of two links between Orange and Riverside County—is one of the most dangerous roads in the area.^{[citation needed]} (It should be noted, however, that the part of this road considered to be dangerous need not be traveled to reach the school. This stretch of Ortega Highway—from Interstate 5, east to the Antonio Parkway/La Pata intersection—is a relatively flat and straight road.) The increase in traffic that a 2,500 plus-student school would bring to the intersection of La Pata and Ortega is predicted to be disastrous, as it is clogged today and can take anywhere from 2-5 minutes just to get through.^{[citation needed]} It should be further noted that the main cause of the traffic congestion at this intersection is due to ongoing construction—a widening of Ortega Highway (from the Antonio Parkway/La Pata intersection to Lake Elsinore) in an attempt to make that part of Ortega Highway a safer route to travel.

Some parents were concerned about health problems with the school being located within a mile of Southern Orange County's regional dump. Located on the other side of the ridge, millions of pounds of trash are dumped each day. A green waste facility is also located directly across the street. The school has been nicknamed by some "The Dump School"^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Mascot

A leadership team of students, representing each of the feeder middle schools to San Juan Hills, was formed in 2006 and has begun drafting plans for the school. In choosing the mascot, future San Juan Hills students voted at their current schools and chose "The Stallions", with navy blue, gold, and white as the school colors. Students will miss out on varsity football and basketball games for the school's first two years, until the students are old enough (in their junior and senior years). Other elements such as Comedy Sports which happen at the five other district high schools will not be ready until the population increases once the school has been around for a few years.