Temescal Canyon High School (Lake Elsinore, California)

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Location
Temescal Canyon High School
Lake Elsinore, CA USA
Information
School district	Lake Elsinore Unified School District
Principal	Errol Garnett
Students	2,777[1]
Type	public high school
Grades	9-12
Motto	Setting the Standard for Excellence
Mascot	Titan
Color(s)	Silver and Blue
Established	1991
Homepage	wwwtch.leusd.k12.ca.us/

Temescal Canyon High School is a public high school located in Lake Elsinore, California and is part of the Lake Elsinore Unified School District. The school also serves the areas of Canyon Lake and Horsethief Canyon.

1 History
2 School layout
3 Lunch melee
4 Academics
5 Sports
6 External links
7 References

[edit] History

Built in 1991 and opened for the 1991-1992 school year, Temescal had only freshmen and sophomores. The first graduating class was in 1994.

[edit] School layout

Temescal Canyon is divided in "hundred" series buildings that consists of portable classrooms and permanent structures. The school was partially completed when it opened, but was subsequently completed in 1999.

400 buildings- Portable building located on the North end of campus on former basketball courts. These classrooms house numerous types of classes such as math and music appreciation.
450 building- Located to the west side of the school, these rooms house computer labs used for freshman foundations and other computer classes and ELD classes.
500 building- A small set of four classes located in between the 550 and 700 buildings, these classrooms are for science classes.
550 building- One of the two story buildings, odd rooms are on the lower level which contain social science and English classrooms, evens are on top which are strictly science rooms.
600 building- One of the original school buildings, it is in the center of the school and contains the library media center, history and English classrooms.
700 building- also known as the Kathy Paap^[1] math building, it is located near the locker rooms, and as its name suggests, primarily house math classrooms.
800 building- The second two story building on campus follows the layout of the 550 building. Classes on the lower floor are elective classes including a ceramics room and photography class with darkroom. Classes in the top level are primarily foreign languages.
900 building- Nestled in the back of the campus, these classrooms are mainly elective rooms including materials labs, TV studio, and auto shop complete with lifts.

The school contains two gyms, the old "small gym" and the newer "big gym" completed in 1999. The small gym is mainly used for indoor PE activities and some dances. It is connected to the cafeteria and kitchen. Adjacent to it are the lockers used only for PE classes. Next to both buildings is the big gym, also known as the Thunderdome, which is primarily used for basketball and volleyball games as well as school assemblies like pep rallies. It includes 2 sliding bleachers, opposed from one another with the letters TCHS spelled out on each side. With the bleachers back, three basketball courts are formed.

The school has a set of three fields:

The softball/baseball fields are located at the northwest corner of the campus
The soccer field is located below the big gym and filling in the space between the baseball and football field.
The football stadium is located at the southwest corner of the school and was newly renovated with new stands and synthetic turf.

The administration building includes the bookkeeping office, athletic director, counseling office, career center, and administrative offices usually restricted to students.

There are three parking lots, two of which are primarily for students only. Near the 800 building is one of them, but the biggest one is located near the stadium which includes spaces for office personnel. Senior parking spaces are located in the same lot but nearer to the big gym. These spots are randomly given to a certain number of seniors in a lottery-style choosing. The students who obtain these spaces must pay an extra fee but are given a special decal and are able to paint their spaces on senior paint party day. The rest of the staff park in the back lot behind the 900 building and are prohibited for use by students.

Students have numerous places to gather during break and lunch. Due to the layout of the school, quads are formed in between the buildings. The "Senior Quad" is elevated above the walkways in the northwest corner of the 600 building and includes a tarp. The "Freshman Quad" is located right outside of the lunchroom and includes a tarp. Less busy quads are quads formed at the 550 and 800 buildings.

[edit] Lunch melee

In May of 2004, several dozen students began throwing soda bottles and pizza boxes at each other during lunch. Many of the students believed that the melee was racially motivated after a Caucasian student argued with a Hispanic student. Subsequently the school went into lockdown and several extra sheriff's deputies were called to the school. Several students were apprehended but not formally charged; the school administration dealt with the students per educational code^[2].

In an attempt to ease tension at the school, unity forums were held in which the diversity of cultures were touted. In the days following the incident, drinks were served in paper cups and food wrapped in paper. A new schedule was adopted for the rest of the school year which incorporated a "double lunch" to make it easier for campus security to monitor and ensure that no other incidents occurred. The double lunch became permanent in the following years^[3].

[edit] Academics

The school offers the standard classes in addition to Advanced Placement(AP) courses:

World History
US History
Art History (not always offered)
English Literature
English Language
Physics (not always offered)
Chemistry
Calculus
Spanish
Government and Politics
Economics
Yearbook

In addition to AP classes, advanced English 9 and 10 are offered as well as honors classes.

Temescal Canyon is also a California Distinguished School for the years 2001 and 2007. [2]

[edit] Sports

[edit] School tradition

Temescal Canyon has a strong tradition in sports excellence, especially in football and basketball. In 1995, in only the third year of Varsity Football, TCHS won the CIF Southern Section Championship for Division 8. In the 2004-2005 season, TCHS football went undefeated in regular season with a record of 10-0. All of Temescal's football teams from 2004 to 2006 have won the Southwestern League Title as well as the Lake Elsinore City Championship.

The winning tradition also extends to the girls' leagues, such as in basketball in which they won in the 2005-2006 season as league champions. Another sport that has excelled was the women's softball team Coached by Kevin Simpson. In 2004 and 2005 they had amazing results with 2 southwestern league titles and in 2006 went to the CIF finals.

As in many other high schools, pep rallies are held before big games and to celebrate certain things, such as senior walk-in (the first pep rally of the year in which the senior class walks in front of the entire school wearing decorated crowns) and academics (the last pep rally of the year in which the teacher of the year and valedictorians are announced).

While the official mascot is the Titan, in subsequent years a kangaroo rat was the mascot at sporting events. This was to commemorate the species that inhabited the land the school was built on. Many students were not pleased about the mascot and was eventually replaced with the Titan.

[edit] Blue Hole

A large part of Temescal Canyon student culture is the "Blue Hole", formed in 2002 by members of the football team that wanted to do something during the off season, but has since expanded to include all students. They first made it an official school club, so that they could have a budget and recruit new members. They purchased TC-Blue t-shirts with a "6" on the back symbolizing the 6th man and "blue hole" in large, bold lettering on the front. So at almost every basketball game, home or away, the large group of students (usually led by the football team), all wearing the blue shirts, gather in one section of the gym right behind the opposing team's bench. From beginning to end, they stand and chant phrases hoping to mentally defeat the opponents as well as motivate their fellow student-athletes. Their antics include repeatedly heckling individual players with chants of "air ball", the turn-over countdown, as well as other attacks on play or attitude. The antics even fell upon the officials as poor calls would be followed by boos, but the hole took it a step further. Various members would dress like a blind referee and parade the sidelines after questionable decisions. The hole was such an advantage the southwestern league prompted new regulations, like not allowing them to sit behind the bench of other teams and no personal name or directed comments at any one player. Since the huge success of the blue hole some other schools have tried to create something similar like Elsinore's "red zone" or Temecula's "brown hole" but they have yet to match the effectiveness of the Blue Hole. Their contained rowdiness has been credited to some of the success of the boys' basketball team.