| Evergreen Valley High School | |
|---|---|
| Location | |
| 3300 Quimby Road San Jose, California, United States |
|
| Information | |
| Type | Public |
| Established | 2002 |
| School district | East Side Union High School District |
| Principal | Ana Lomas |
| Enrollment | approximately 2,700 |
| Color(s) | Teal, Black, Silver and, White |
| Mascot | Cougar |
| Website | www.evhs.schoolloop.com |
Evergreen Valley High School is a comprehensive, 4-year high school located in the Evergreen area of San Jose, California, and is part of the East Side Union High School District. It is the newest high school in the district and was founded in 2002. The school held its first graduation of seniors on June 7, 2005.[1] The Class of 2006, the first class of students to have attended the school since its opening year in 2002, graduated on June 7, 2006.[2] The school's newspaper is named The Prowler. In 2007, U.S. News and World Report recognized the school with a silver award in its Best High Schools 2008 list.[3]
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East Side Union High School District trustees selected Evergreen Valley as the name of the proposed school on October 12, 2000, among other finalist considerations such as Ronald Reagan High School or Cesar Chávez High School.[4] Evergreen Valley High School opened in 2002 on the "Small School" concept, with an emphasis on technology and the idea that every student would have a laptop to take home for doing homework.[5][6] The school opened initially with only two grade levels: freshmen and sophomores. It existed as a single high school, with four mostly independent schools within it: Science & Technology, Global Economy, Human Performance, and Humanities. The first year EVHS was open, Science & Technology and Human Performance students received IBM Notebooks, while Global Economy and Humanities Students received Apple iBooks. In Fall 2002, the campus was still unfinished, so classes took place in portables on two nearby campuses: Silver Creek High School and Mount Pleasant High School. S&T and HU were situated at Silver Creek, while HP and GE were situated in Mt. Pleasant.[7] The EVHS campus officially was open for attendance in January 2003.[8] Administration tended to be unhelpful in teachers' and students' requests for aid, although they themselves were also swamped with the task of managing a brand new school.[9]
In January 2004, petitions circulated after enrollment at Evergreen Valley quickly approached its limit of 1,800: one calling for shrunken boundaries and another for expansion.[10] On March 11, 2004, district trustees voted to construct a new building on campus to ease overcrowding.[11] In 2006, construction began for the building.[12]
In July 2004, the San Jose Mercury News profiled the use of the Xanga blog site by EVHS students.[13]
Principals existed for all of the schools, and were supervised by a primary principal. However, due to change in district leadership and issues with funding and philosophy, in February 2004, the small school system was done away with, and the high school adopted a traditional format, which it has kept until the present.[8][14]
Several troubling instances occurred on one week in March 2009; overnight between March 14 and 15, a 20-foot swastika was etched on a lawn that had also been salted earlier, and several trees were cut down.[15] Then on March 17, an envelope was mailed to school containing a suspicious white powder and a letter expressing dissatisfaction over the school's dress code policy regarding hats. This led to the administrative building being evacuated, but an investigation revealed that the substance was merely baby powder.[16] Following rumors spread over the Internet that a shooting would occur that day, a majority of the student body did not show up to class on March 20. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and San Jose Police Department began a probe into these incidents immediately.[15]
Evergreen Valley High School achieved APIs of 803 in 2006[17] and 827 in 2007,[18] when also U.S. News and World Report recognized the school with a silver award in its Best High Schools 2008 list.[3]
Geared towards relieving the overcrowding at Evergreen Valley High School, the Biotech Academy existed from 2004–06 in portables at the campus of Evergreen Valley College in August 2004, offering a "small school" environment (similar to EVHS's original blueprint) as well as a focus on biotechnology and the opportunity to take more advanced classes, including college classes.[19][20] Laptops and smaller classes were also promised, and delivered after half a year. Students attending the Biotech Academy were still eligible to participate in extracurricular clubs, leadership programs, sports, and activities at Evergreen Valley High School.[21] However, the academy was closed in 2006 due to budget cuts and declining interest. As soon as the Biotech Academy was closed, construction began on a new building in EVHS to handle the overcrowding due to extremely large incoming classes.[8]
In the 2005–06 school year, out of 2,411 students, 57.5% of all students were of Asian descent (12% of which is Filipino), 23.2% Hispanic, 14.3% White, 4.6% African American, and 0.3 % American Indian.[8] As of 2004-2005, the graduation rate is 93.9%.[22] According to the San Francisco Chronicle, a son of actor Don Duong once attended EVHS.[23]
In the 2008-09 school year, out of 2,601 students, 60.2% of all students were of Asian descent (11% of which is Filipino), 24% Hispanic, 10.2% White, 4% African American, 1% Pacific Islander, and 0.3% American Indian. www.ed-data.k12.ca.us[24]
Evergreen Valley has many extracurricular programs. Its musical and performing arts programs include drama, choir, marching band, concert band, Winter Percussion, and color guard. The school also has a wind ensemble that performed in Carnegie Hall in New York City in mid-March 2008.[25] The school has a strong Speech and Debate team that actively participates in tournaments and invitationals in the Coast Forensics League.
Evergreen Valley has had a strong athletic tradition since the opening of the school. Sports that are offered are Cross Country, football, tennis, volleyball, water polo, basketball, soccer, wrestling, badminton, baseball, softball, swimming, cheerleading, track and field, and golf (as of the 2009–10 school year). The San Francisco Chronicle profiled an EVHS swimmer in April 2005.[26] For the 2006–07 school year, the Blossom Valley Athletic League ranked EVHS fifth out of 22 in the league's "Best of the Best" standings.[27] Several sports have also won championships. In the 2005-2006 year alone, the first place champion sports teams included the badminton team, which had previously won in 2005, as well as the teams for boys' tennis, track and field, and water polo, and girls' softball, volleyball, and soccer.[28]
The boys varsity soccer team made it to the CCS semifinals playoffs in their 2010-2011 season (losing to nationally ranked Bellarmine). This was the farthest they had gone in school history.