| Homestead High School | |
|---|---|
| Location | |
| Cupertino, California, United States | |
| Information | |
| Type | Public 4-year comprehensive |
| Established | 1962 |
| Principal | Graham Clark[1] |
| Staff | 97 (in 2007)[2] |
| Grades | 9–12 |
| Number of students | 2,270 (in 2007)[2] |
| Campus | Suburban |
| Color(s) | green white |
| Mascot | Mustang |
| Newspaper | The Epitaph |
| Website | www.hhs.fuhsd.org |
Homestead High School is a four-year high school serving north western Cupertino, western Sunnyvale, and portions of southern Los Altos, in Santa Clara County, California. Established in 1962, the school serves 2,270 students in grades 9 to 12 as part of the Fremont Union High School District (FUHSD).[2][3] In 2003 and 2009, the California Department of Education recognized Homestead as a California Distinguished School, and in 2004, the Federal Department of Education recognized Homestead as a Blue Ribbon School.[1][4]
The table below represents the gradual increase in enrolling students between the years 2003 and 2007.
| 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,844 | 1,823 | 2,001 | 2,089 | 2,270 |
Source:[5]
As of the 2007 school year, the racial composition was as follows:
Approximately 5.5% of the student population were economically disadvantaged.
Source:[6]
Homestead High School had played a role in the development of Silicon Valley. During the late 1960s and 1970s, the school was a haven for students interested in electronics and the emerging computer age. The school’s electronics class is considered as seminal as Frederick Terman's program at Stanford University.[7] During this period, the electronics teacher, John McCollum, created a hands-on classroom in which students like Stephen Wozniak learned while designing, building, repairing, and understanding a range of equipment.[8] Today, would-be engineers, mathematicians, and entrepreneurs find support through the school's programs in robotics, mathematics, science, business courses, and its Future Business Leaders of America chapter.
Homestead High School is bordered by Homestead Road to the north and Interstate 280 to the south. Beginning in the summer of 2009, solar panels and shade structures were added over both parking lots and the fields were reorganized so that a stadium could be constructed. The other half of campus, facing Homestead Road, consists of several school buildings. The majority of the buildings have an inner corridor with outdoor corridors connecting the buildings. Green-colored hoofmarks decorate Homestead High School's sidewalks and walkways, which are from the school's official mascot and color. The front walls of the school are decorated with murals of similar theme, including a large mural of a mustang.[9]
Homestead High School's curriculum includes preparatory courses, vocational training, and general education. The school has a variety of special programs to meet the needs of exceptional students. Open-access Advanced Placement (AP) classes are offered in the subjects US History, English, Physics, Calculus, Art, Government/Economics, Chemistry, Biology, Computer Science, Environmental Science, Statistics, Spanish, French, Japanese, Music Theory, and Chinese. Several programs promote positive learning for all students, including AVID and inclusion classes to support the needs of English Language Learners and Special education students. The school also offers a Peer Tutorial program and a program called EXCEL to serve the needs of students unable to pass the California High School Exit Exam and finish graduation requirements. The school introduced a block schedule in the 2003 school year that includes a 25-minute tutorial period four days a week.[1]
Academically, Homestead ranks in the top 20 high schools in Santa Clara County. Based on the average standardized test scores of its diverse student body, Homestead is ranked fourth of five in the Fremont Union High School District, below top-ranked Monta Vista High School,second-ranked Lynbrook High School, and third ranked Cupertino High School and above Fremont High School. In science, math, and business, Homestead students have matched or outperformed students at Lynbrook and Monta Vista, and Homestead students have regularly placed among the top schools in the United States.
Homestead High School provides a broad co-curricular program. Students actively lead and participate in a wide variety of organizations, clubs and teams.[10]
The Winter Guard program is one of the most accomplished in the state. Five time undefeated California Color Guard Circuit (CCGC) champion in three different classification, the program is at it's peak of excellence. The unit has won numerous Winter Guard International (WGI) regional and, in 2009, was a Scholastic A Class finalist at the WGI World Championships. The program currently competes in the Scholastic Open classification in the CCGC and WGI circuits. Staff currently includes Caption Heads Luis Valcazar and Catherine Green and they are assisted by Laura Koester, Frank De La Rosa, Alan Gairoen, Jay Murphy, Lorevic Rivera, among others.
Homestead's Winter Percussion (also known as Indoor percussion ensemble) has enjoyed a meteoric rise since 2006 through four different divisions, competing in the California Color Guard Circuit (CCGC), Winter Guard International (WGI), and San Joaquin Valley Color Guard and Percussion Review (SJVCGPR) circuits. Homestead's percussion ensemble is the CCGC 2010 Scholastic World Division Champion.[11] The world class instructional staff are Dave Sankus, Lane Armey, David Medina, Alec Swink, Daemon Williams and Jason Freitas.
Homestead's award-winning student newspaper, The Epitaph, won eight Gold Crowns from the early 1980s to the mid-1990s from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA). During that same period, it received eight Pacemaker Awards from the National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA). As late as 1994, those were the most national awards ever given to a high school paper.
The paper also received one of its highest honors, The Press Freedom Award from the Student Press Law Center, in 1988 for its successful defense of a story about a junior boy who was HIV positive, one of the first such stories in any high school newspaper. The story had been initially censored by the principal but was allowed to run when the newspaper invoked California Education Code section [48907] California Education Code 48907, a California law that protected students' rights to free expression. The story was reported nationally in the wake of a Supreme Court's decision in Hazelwood School District et al. v. Kuhlmeier et al., 484 U.S. 260 (1988) This case gave school officials greater latitude in determining the content of a school's official student publications. The California law made the ruling moot in the state.
During that same period, the paper also won numerous local and state awards. The San Jose Mercury News named the paper the best in its annual contest for Silicon Valley student newspapers ten of the twelve years the paper ran the contest. It was also awarded the top prize from the San Francisco Press Club several times during that period, as well as the top prize from the now-defunct Palo Alto Times.
The paper's unusual name was selected by the school's first students in 1962. In keeping with the school's western theme and Mustang mascot, they named the paper after the first newspaper west of the Rockies, The Tombstone, Arizona Epitaph, which had been popularized in a television series of the time about Wyatt Earp, "Tombstone Territory."
Some of the newspaper's former staffers have gone on to work in journalism professionally. Among them, Alex Williams ('83) and Michael D. Shear ('86) write for The New York Times. Erica Werner ('89) is a White House correspondent for The Associated Press.
The paper's adviser from 1976 to 1994, Nick Ferentinos, was the 1994 Dow Jones News Fund's National High School Journalism Teacher of the Year.
The newspaper's official website can be found at www.thehhsepitaph.com
Forte! [sic] is a club on campus that provides opportunities for musicians to perform music as means of community service. Forte! allows students at Homestead High School to express themselves through the art of music. Forte! is composed of chamber ensembles that perform to serve the community. In the past, the club has performed at the Cupertino Square Shopping Center, JW House of Kaiser Permanente, the HC Manor in Sunnyvale, and the Santa Clara Valley Blind Center.
Homestead has a robotics team that competes in the FIRST Robotics Competition. The team was created by students in 2001. The team number is 670, including Emily and Tiffany. Alumnus Steve Wozniak has served as a key supporter of the team over the years. Homestead offers a robotics class that serves as a recruiting ground for students interested in joining the team.[12] The team has a website detailing its history, mission, news, and ongoing activities.[13]
Homestead High School is home to a chapter of Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), an organization dedicated to preparing students for success in business and careers. The chapter has enjoyed success, having won an unofficial sweepstakes tally for the past 13 years at California FBLA's Bay Section Level, and the official Sweepstakes Award at the California FBLA State Leadership Conference for the past 13 years. Homestead has also been the top chapter competitively in the entire nation for 12 of the past 13 years and for the last six years consecutively. The chapter has a paid membership of over 270 students for the 2010-2011 school year, making it the largest chapter in the Western Region. In 2011, Homestead’s Partnership with Business, Community Service, and American Enterprise projects all placed in the top five at the National Leadership Conference for the first time in its history. In addition to business competitions, members attend guest speaker presentations, participate in public speaking projects, organize community service events, work with business professionals, and network with students and adults from across the nation, allowing members to develop the skills necessary to enter the business world.
A club dedicated on developing leadership and character skills, is the world's largest community service club.consists of more than 100 members. Its mission is to provide its members with opportunities to perform service, build character, and develop leadership.
The KFC: Komedy & Film Club represents the school at the annual district-wide Student Film Festival. At the First Annual Homestead High School Student Film Festival in May 2006, members of the KFC took third place overall. At the Second Annual FUHSD Student Film Festival in May 2007, members of the KFC represented their school while placing 1st in the Comedy category.
The mathematics team has regularly qualified for the American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME). Over the past five years, the team has placed among the top 10 schools in the Mu Alpha Theta National Log 1 Contest Mathematics Contest, taking fifth place nationally in 2009-10, third place in 2008-09, ninth place in 2007-08, and fourth place in 2006 and 2007. From 2003 through 2006, Homestead's math team placed among the top 10 teams nationally in the Ciphering Time Trials, a contest sponsored by National Assessment & Testing. During this period, Homestead's team also placed among the top 20 teams in several other contests sponsored by National Assessment & Testing, including the Team Scramble, the Four-by-Four, and the Collaborative Problem Solving Contests.[14] In 2002, the Mathematical Association of America's American Mathematics Competition (AMC) awarded the Edyth May Sliffe Award for Excellence in Teaching to Homestead teacher and team faculty advisor Steve Headley.[15]
Homestead has an accomplished music program comprising at least a dozen performing groups ranging from jazz ensemble, marching band, choral groups, and string and symphonic ensembles, to extracurricular activities such as Winter guard and Winter Indoor percussion ensemble. In April 2010, Homestead's Marching Band was one of only 10 high schools nationwide selected to participate in the 2011 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City[16]
The marching band has enjoyed a continuous run of championships and sweepstakes starting in 1993 with their field show rendition of The Phantom of the Opera. Since then, the Mighty Mustang Marching Band has performed such shows as The Who's Tommy, and Miss Saigon. In their first foray into statewide competition in 2005, the band tied for 6th place in the 5A division at the Western Band Association (WBA) State Championships.
The following competition results illustrate the marching band's growing success: Grand Sweepstakes Award and Sweepstakes Awards in Music, Marching, Showmanship and Field Show at the Cupertino Tournament of Bands in both 2006 and 2007;[17] The band's colorguard placed 2nd at the 2006 WBA State Championships; Competing against bands from across the Western United States, the band placed 5th in finals at the 2007 Bands of America regional.; Breaking the 90 mark in WBA competition for the first time in 2008, the marching band placed 5th in the WBA finals with a score of 91.22; The band's percussion section placed 1st in the 5A division at 2009 WBA State Championships.[18]
The jazz, vocal, string and wind ensembles consistently rank superior in competitions.[19] Many of the musical groups have traveled internationally, performing at world-class venues. The Wind Ensemble and Orchestra performed in Carnegie Hall at the 2007 New York Band and Orchestra Festival, winning Silver Awards for each group.[20] Participating in the 2009 Australian International Music Festival held in the Sydney Opera House[21] on a trip to New Zealand and Australia, the Wind Symphony received a Gold Award and the Jazz Ensemble took home a Silver Award.
In accordance with Homestead's long-standing reputation as a leader in internet technology at the high school level, the HHS Marching Band maintained the first website in the Fremont Union High School District, hand-coded by alumna Shanna Roberts in 1995. The site continued, albeit from a different domain, after her graduation by alumnus Trenton Hill, and is now maintained by the Homestead High School Music Boosters.
Homestead's yearbook, Pegasus, has been its most award-winning publication of recent years, capturing two Pacemakers from the National Scholastic Press Association in 2002 and 2005. The Pacemaker is awarded to the 20 best yearbooks in the country, often out of more than a thousand contenders. The yearbook was also an NSPA Pacemaker Finalist in 2000 and 2001. In 2006, the CSPA awarded the Pegasus a Silver Crown. The yearbook has also won myriad other awards, ranging from CSPA Gold Circles (awarded for individual stories, concepts, designs, and photography) to various Best in Show awards.
Homestead has a team competing in the Science Bowl, a competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. Over the years, Homestead students have won awards at the National Chemistry Olympiad and the National Science Bowl. Teacher Gareth Wong initially organized and advised the team, and in 2002 the American Chemical Society recognized his work with a High School Teacher Award for the Western Region.[22] The team is currently advised by chemistry teacher Chris Nafrada and physics teacher Mary Anne Plano. On February 10, 2007, Homestead's team won the regional competition at the Stanford Linear Accelerator, eventually repeating their regional victory on February 2, 2008.[23] At the 2007 National Science Bowl Competition in Washington D.C., Homestead's team placed twelfth out of more than sixty high-school teams, winning a $1,000 prize for the school's science department.[24] In 2009, Homestead made it to the National competition for the third time in a row. At the National Science Bowl Competition, they placed in the top eight out of sixty-seven other high schools.
Homestead has a theater department that presents multiple plays per year - a two to three act fall play, a collection of one-acts directed by students, and a musical produced with Fremont and Monta Vista high schools. Homestead also sends a contingent to the annual California Thespian Festival. In the spring of 2006, Homestead students Ittai Geiger and Jeff Glass took first and second place, as well as "Best At Fest" at the International Thespian Society Festival, where more than 2,000 students competed.[25]
Trichinosis is a math, science, and philosophy club. The club provides peer support for students interested in participating in the county science fair or other science and technology competitions. Over the years, club members have won awards at the Synopsis Silicon Valley Science and Technology Championship, the California State Science Fair and the Siemens Competition.
Homestead has teams in the following sports:
Notable alumni at Homestead High School include:
| Fremont Union High School District | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Cupertino | Fremont | Homestead | Lynbrook | Monta Vista |
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