Northwest High School (Montgomery County, Maryland)

Northwest High School
Location
13501 Richter Farm Road
Germantown, Maryland 20874

 United States of America
Information
Type Public Secondary
Motto Do your best and the best will come back to you. All For One, One For All
Established 1998
School district Montgomery County Public Schools
Principal Lance Dempsey
Grades 9–12
Number of students 2046 (2009–2010)
Campus Suburban
Color(s) Black , Silver and White
Mascot Jaguar
Rival Seneca Valley High School
Newspaper The Jagwire
Website

Northwest High School is a public high school in unincorporated Germantown, Maryland.

Contents

History

Northwest is part of the Montgomery County Public Schools. As of 2006, its enrollment was over 2,000 students. It is one of two high schools in Germantown, the other being Seneca Valley High School, with which Northwest shares an athletic rivalry. The school also serves small sections of the city of Gaithersburg. The school underwent an expansion project that was completed during the summer of 2006. Its school mascot is the jaguar and its colors are black, silver and white.

Academics

Northwest High School offers a number of honors and Advanced Placement courses along with French, Spanish, Chinese, and Latin. The school is competitive academically, with average SAT scores above the national mean.[1][2]

Northwest hosts the Ulysses Signature Program which is a four-year research-based program in which students develop projects focused on one of the Ulysses Project themes: Arts and Humanities; Public Policy and Public Service; and/or Math, Science and Technology.[3] Students are recommended for the rigorous research program as freshman and remain in the program throughout their senior year.[4]

Principals

Areas served

Students attending Northwest come from parts of Germantown, parts of Boyds, portions of Gaithersburg, Darnestown and very small portions of Poolesville and Potomac.[5] Northwest is fed by three area middle schools and eight area elementary schools in the following feeder patterns:

Sports

Northwest has noted athletic rivalries with Seneca Valley High School and Quince Orchard High School.

All teams have varsity and junior varsity teams with the exception of tennis, golf, hockey, swim and dive, indoor track and field, poms, and boys/coed volleyball. JV lacrosse teams were recently added to Montgomery County athletics in 2008.

All teams have both boys and girls teams except for those where gender is unspecified.

Fall sports

Winter sports

Spring sports

Multi-season

Rivalries

The Battle for The King's Trophy

Year NWHS SVHS Winner Series
1998 13 42 Seneca Valley 1-0 Seneca Valley
2000 19 14 Northwest 1-1 Tied
2001 7 26 Seneca Valley 2-1 Seneca Valley
2002 22 0 Northwest 2-2 Tied
2003 37 34 Northwest 3-2 Northwest
2004 35 36 Seneca Valley 3-3 Tied
2005 7 14 Seneca Valley 4-3 Seneca Valley
2006 21 19 Northwest 4-4 Tied
2007 13 34 Seneca Valley 5-4 Seneca Valley
2008 0 6 Seneca Valley 6-4 Seneca Valley

The Battle for the King's Trophy or the Battle for Germantown is an annual football game with Northwest High School's main rival, Seneca Valley High School. Located only 2.6 miles apart, the rivalry started in 1998 when Northwest first opened. The rivalry has been recognized as one of the fiercest in Maryland by local media, including all four major news networks, The MD Examiner, The Gazette, The Washington Post and several other media stations in the area.[6] The Battle for Germantown is the cause of pep rallies, tailgate parties, and intense hype at the two schools and among fans in Montgomery County. Every year, the winner of the game receives the King's Trophy and is deemed the "Kings" of Germantown.[7]

The Black Hole

The Northwest High School football/soccer stadium, home to the Battalion of Black, a nickname given to the Northwest fans. Because of black being one of the school colors, a motif of black is used in Northwest's stadium, nicknamed the Black Hole. The football team enters the stadium to a rendition of the The Imperial March and select Fridays are designated Black-out Fridays, when all students, staff, and parents are encouraged to wear black.[8]

Light Up The Night

Similar to the Black Hole concept, in the 2008-2009 school year, students, parents and staff were encouraged to wear white to away games. T-shirts were sold featuring the Light Up The Night logo.

Boys tennis team

The boys tennis team has been making great strides toward excellence. The 2008-2009 season was Northwest's most successful. Led by new coach Jeff Barnes, Northwest finished in 4th place within Division 1. 1st singles player Stephen Katzel was the first player in Northwest's history to make the All Gazette Team for Northwest and the first player in Northwest's history to make the Montgomery County #1 singles tournament final. 2nd singles player Neil Soni won the Montgomery County #2 Singles tournament and was the first player in Northwest's history to win a county tournament for tennis. Soni also reached the semifinals of the Maryland State tournament during the 2007-2008 season and finished in 3rd place, becoming the first player in school history to do so.

Extracurricular activities and organizations

References

  1. ^ "2008-2009 SAT Overall Mean Scores" (PDF). Maryland State Department of Education. http://www.msp.msde.state.md.us/college_readiness/SAT/2009SAT_150246.pdf. Retrieved 4 November 2010. 
  2. ^ "Total Group Profile Report" (PDF). CollegeBoard. pp. 1. http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/cbs-2009-national-TOTAL-GROUP.pdf. Retrieved 4 November 2010. 
  3. ^ "Local School Signature Programs". Montgomery County Public Schools. http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/specialprograms/high/signatures/. Retrieved 4 November 2010. 
  4. ^ "Northwest Seniors Unveil Research Projects". Gazette. 20 January 2010. http://www.gazette.net/stories/01202010/montsch193433_32548.php. Retrieved 4 November 2010. 
  5. ^ "Northwest High School 2010-2011 Service Area" (PDF). Montgomery County Public Schools. 20 September 2010. http://gis.mcpsmd.org/gis/ServiceAreaMaps/NorthwestHS.pdf. Retrieved 29 October 2010. 
  6. ^ Papuchis, Matthew "Seneca Valley Overpowers Northwest in 12th Annual Battle for Germantown, 37-0", Germantown Patch, October 9, 2010.
  7. ^ Seneca Valley Football
  8. ^ "The Black Hole", NW Jags Football Site, 2007. Accessed November 27, 2007.

External links