El Camino Real High School

El Camino Real Charter High School
El Camino Real Charter High School
Established	1969
Type	Public/Charter
Principal	Dave Fehte
Students	3569 students
Location	5440 Valley Circle Blvd.,; Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA
Campus	Suburban
Colors	Royal blue and camel
Website	Official website

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El Camino Real Charter High School (also known locally as "ECR" or "Elco") is a public secondary school located in the Woodland Hills district of the San Fernando Valley region of the city of Los Angeles, California. The school, founded in 1969, was designed to emulate a small college campus, with a large central "quad" and an open campus policy.

ECR serves portions of Woodland Hills and West Hills and also maintains a sizable "traveling" student population from other areas of the district.

ECR's Academic Performance Index is 805 out of 1000.

From March 31, 2009, El Camino Real High School became a California Distinguished School. In December 2010, the teachers and staff at the school voted for it to become a charter school. This change took effect in the fall of 2011.

[edit] Academic competitions

[edit] Academic Decathlon Team

El Camino Real High School has a popular and successful Academic Decathlon team. The team won its first competition under then coach Mark Johnson, taking home the Los Angeles City title in 1989–1990.^[1] They would later go on to finish 2nd that year at the State Competition. The team has remained successful in competition, winning National titles in 1998, 2001, 2004, 2005, 2007 and 2010 (a national record).^[2] With their fourth national title in 2005, the team recorded back-to-back national titles, the first for any school in 20 years. The 2005 team was the first in Academic Decathlon history to win state and national competitions as a wild card team, when they lost the city competition but were allowed to continue as a wild card. In 2006, the team was not able to win the city competition, but entered into the state competition as a wild card. El Camino Real was not able to win the 2006 State Competition, losing to cross-town rival Taft High School; however, they still garnered the second highest score in the nation.

2007 marked records for El Camino Real's Academic Decathlon team. They once again won state as a wild card team, outpacing the highest scoring team in the nation after regionals, a team from Granada Hills Charter High School. El Camino Real also won the 2007 nationals with two team members who are siblings of previous year's championship team (Sam Farahmand and Jiyoung Kim are the siblings of Ben Farahmand and Jihwan Kim, respectively, of the 2005 National Champions.)^{[citation needed]} This occurred once previously in school history: 2004 National Champion member Adrian Wittenberg is the younger sister of 2001 National Champion member Alan Wittenberg. Moreover, as of 2007, Frank Soberanis held the second highest Varsity score of all time: 8,920 points out of a possible 10,000.^[3]

El Camino Real advanced to the 2008 California state competition as a wild card behind region champion Palisades Charter High School. They placed third in the state behind Palisades Charter and state champion Moorpark High School, but still posted the fourth highest score in the nation.^[4] In 2009, El Camino Real won the Los Angeles Unified School District regional competition for the first time since 2004 ^[5] and went on to achieve the second highest score in the nation behind two-time state champion Moorpark.^[6]

In 2010, El Camino's Academic Decathlon team set the new record of six national championships with their 49,951.7 points victory, out of a possible 60,000 points, over 34 teams at the national finals in Omaha, Nebraska. Team members also took home 21 individual prizes. The win further bolsters California's dominance in the competition. It was the state's eighth consecutive national title and its 17th since the competition began in 1982.^[7]

[edit] Science Bowl

El Camino's Science Bowl competes in one of the most difficult regions in all of the United States. In recent years, they have made it to the semifinals and placed in the top 4 four times in recent history. In 2001, they placed fourth; 2006–2nd place; 2007–3rd place; and in 2009–4th place.

[edit] The Kings' Courier

The Kings' Courier is El Camino's school newspaper. The paper is student-run and published every two weeks.

[edit] Mock Trial

El Camino's Mock Trial competition team was created in 2008.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Model United Nations

The school's Model United Nations Club earned awards in 1976 and 1977 at the Model UN conferences at the University of California-Riverside and the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA).^{[citation needed]} The clubs were headed by Social Studies Department teachers Kenneth Craft and Murray Shapiro. Participants in the program during this time period included noted Bay Area attorney Michael A. Futterman and Austin, Texas semiconductor and software executive Alan R. Weiss.

As of 2010, the Model United Nations club has returned to El Camino. The group earned recognition as the best high school, for the best position paper award, received two honorable mentions, and a best delegation award at the UNA-USA Model U.N. Conference at UCLA on March 5, 2010.

The club also won the best small club award at the Davis Model U.N. conference May 14–16, along with research awards.

The club, as of 2010, is run by: Joshua Dahlerbruch and Jenny Chi: Presidents, Hallie Drapkin: Event Coordinator, Alana Chetlen: Treasurer, Jacob Burman: Director of Conference Procedure, Katrina Franklin: Director of Fundraising, and Chelsea Yuen: Secretary.

[edit] Envirothon

El Camino Real has also won the Envirothon regional competition 7 consecutive years in a row placing two teams last year at the State division at 2nd place and 5th place. El Camino's 2006 Envirothon team placed first in the entire state, and went on to place fourth in the nationals competition in Canada.

[edit] JETS (Junior Engineering Technical Society)

JETS promotes interest in engineering, science, math, and technology in high school students and provides them with real-world engineering teamwork and problem-solving experiences. The Team participates in the TEAMS (Test of Engineering Aptitude, Mathematics, and Science) Competition that occurs annually in March and is hosted and sponsored by the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC).

In 2006, the ECR JETS Team won 2nd place at the Southern California Regional Varsity Competition, missing First Place to Beverly Hills High School by one point.

In 2007, the ECR JETS Team again won 2nd place at the Southern California Regional Varsity Competition, increasing their score significantly by 7 points but once again missing First Place to Beverly Hills High School by only one point.

In 2008, the ECR JETS Team won 1st place at the Southern California Regional Varsity Competition, defeating rival Beverly Hills High School. El Camino Real also placed second in the state of California, and advanced to the nationals.

In 2009, the ECR JETS Team had tied a second place with another high school at their division. However, the team had only received the trophy of the third place because of a random tie breaker.

In 2010, the ECR JETS Team placed 1st in Regionals and progressed to Nationals.^[8]

[edit] Robotics

In 2009, the ECR Robotics Team fielded two teams: 404 and 404b. Both teams qualified for the 2009 Vex Championship of the Americas in Omaha, Nebraska. Both robots earned the first place in the 2009 Vex Championship of Americas. Team 404 also won the 2009 Vex World Championship at Dallas, Texas, a competition that hosted almost 300 robots from around the world.

In 2010, ECR Robotics Team 404 once again won the Championship of Americas and advanced to World Championship. At Dallas, the defending champions finished as the quarterfinalists.

In 2011, ECR Robotics Team 404 finished as semifinalists at US National Championship. At Orlando, Florida, Team 404 finished in second place in the Science Division of the World Championship.

[edit] JROTC

ECR has an active Naval Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps unit. The cadets compete in the fields of academics, drill, and athletics, in addition to completing thousands of hours of community service per school year. The ECR NJROTC is competitive in its local area, and has qualified for the Area 11 Regional Invitational Field Meet in every recent school year, which is akin to a state competition in varsity athletics. The title of "Distinguished Unit" has been awarded to the Conquistadors for eight consecutive years.

[edit] Fine arts

ECR also has two notable choral groups, under the direction of Terry Fischer for the last 15 years. These groups consist of the El Camino Real Girls Choir, an SSAA choir composed of girls from freshman to senior year, and the Camerata, an SATB choir composed of mostly juniors and seniors. Both groups have achieved considerable success.

In the summer of 2004, Camerata performed the Mozart Requiem as well as other pieces under the direction of Dr. Eph Ehly at Oberammergau, Germany during the 2004 Oberammergau International Choral Festival.

In 2007, the girls choir performed Stephen Paulus' Songs of Meditation with several other women's choirs, a production by MidAmerica Productions. It was only the second performance of the piece with an orchestra, originally commissioned by the Tucson Boys Choir. In the summer of 2007, Camerata also traveled to Lucerne, Switzerland to perform.

In 2009–2010, plans to perform the Phantom of the Opera Medley for the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza on Mother's Day with Dick Van Dyke. They have also performed at various performances during the year, and recently performed at The Big Event which featured all the performing arts, and was a huge success. In the Spring they will also have an upcoming concert, so don't miss this very talented group.

ECR is also renowned for its drama program, cited as one of LAUSD's finest theatre programs. The Play Production class was invited to perform at the esteemed Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2005. The group performed The Laramie Project to critical acclaim under the direction of Sue Freitag.

ECR's Instrumental Music Department consists of Marching Band, Concert Band, String Orchestra, Jazz Band A, Jazz Band B, and the winter Drum Line, numerous awards and honors have been achieved. The Marching Band had a record of numerous City Championships in the 1980s. Jazz Band A was featured as a performer as part of the Playboy Jazz Festival. The Drum Line was the American Drum Line Association Scholastic C Gold Medalist and will be featured in a national advertising campaign by Carnation in the summer of 2010. The Instrumental Music Department also provides an AP Music Theory class which most recently had a 91% pass rate.

[edit] Demographics

7% African American, 1% American Indian, 14% Asian, 25% Latino, 53 % White (not Latino), 5% English Learners, 7% Special Education, 43% Gifted and Talented, 22% Economically Disadvantaged, 15% Students moving in and out of this school during the year