Whitney High School (Cerritos, California)
| Gretchen Whitney High School | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Established | 1976 |
| Type | Public Secondary |
| Principal | Rhonda Buss[1] |
| Students | 1,020 |
| Grades | 7-12 |
| Location | 16800 Shoemaker Avenue, Cerritos, California, USA 90703 |
| Campus | Suburban |
| Colors | Brown, white, and gold |
| Mascot | Wildcat |
| Yearbook | Kaleidoscope |
| Website | Whitney High Website |
Gretchen A. Whitney High School, called Whitney High School or WHS, is a public school in Cerritos, California serving grades 7-12. It is in the ABC Unified School District.
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[edit] History
Whitney High School was founded on September 25, 1976 (under the name Gretchen A. Whitney Learning Center) as a community academic learning center. It was created by ABC superintendent Charles Hutchison, who envisioned Whitney to be a vocational school. The school refocused[when?] as an academic prep school.[citation needed] As a tribute to Hutchison, the current cafeteria is named the Hutch.
In 1997, half of Whitney’s parking lot was purchased by a housing contractor to build a gated community adjacent to Whitney. In exchange, Whitney received funds to construct the long-awaited gymnasium.[2]
On December 1, 2003, the school was locked down following the discovery of stolen bank notes in the school parking lot, from a just-robbed nearby bank. Around 4:15pm, several bank robbers entered the campus after hiding out in a nearby home. In an attempt to evade the police, they began to move toward the students, hoping to hide amongst the crowd. Several staff members blocked the entrance to Whitney, and students and faculty tackled two of the suspects.[citation needed]
[edit] Academics
Whitney High School admits its students based on their performance on the state exams and a special writing test administered in the sixth grade. This high school is open to any applicants entering seventh to twelfth grade in the ABC Unified School District. This allows Whitney High School to admit HI[clarification needed] students.
In 1991, Whitney was recognized with the Department of Education's National Recognition Award as a Blue Ribbon School. Senator John F. Seymour spoke on the US Senate floor to recognize the school.[3] Whitney is one of the three Blue Ribbon Lighthouse Schools Charter Members.[4] The school was again honored as a Blue Ribbon school in 2008 and 2011.[citation needed]
Whitney has been honored with the California Distinguished School title six times: 1986,[5] 1990,[6] 1992,[7] 1996,[8] 2003,[9] and 2007.[10]
President George W. Bush's brother Neil, co-founder of an educational software company, has visited the campus several times, as he put it, "because of the respect the staff has for students. I’ve never seen anything like it. Every school should be this way."[11]
In 2005, the Associated Press rated Whitney High the best high school in California,[12] based on its Academic Performance Index (API) score.
Whitney High has been featured in a special report done by Fox News in 2005. The report on mentoring featured Whitney's "Big Buddy/Little Buddy" system.[citation needed] Furthermore, CBS News's "Weekend Journal" also reported on Whitney, focusing on the public high school's incredible academic achievements.[citation needed]
In 2006, the school was on Newsweek’s "America’s Best High School" list. Whitney was not included in the top 100 high schools because "so many of [Whitney's] students score well above average on the SAT and ACT". However, Newsweek did include Whitney in "The Public Elites" section, and labeled Whitney as "a comprehensive school for high performers".[13] Newsweek again recognized Whitney in the May 23, 2007 "America’s Best High School" edition. Similar to the 2006 edition, Whitney was included as 1 of the 19 "The Public Elite" high schools and was labeled as an "award-winning school with special emphasis on college admissions".
The passing rate for the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) for Whitney students is 100%.[citation needed] Whitney received a six-year accreditation from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) in 2004.[14]
Business Week declared Whitney as having the "Best Overall Academic Performance" in 2009 for California.[15]
U.S. News & World Report ranked Whitney High School as the #12 high school in the nation in the November 30, 2007 edition.[16] Whitney was ranked #10 in the December 15, 2008 edition.[17] Whitney was ranked the 3rd best high school in America for 2010 in the December 10, 2009 edition.[18]
[edit] Athletics
Whitney High is part of the CIF Division IV, and the mascot is the Wildcat. In its earliest years WHS didn't have any school athletics at all, and they gradually added small sports teams in later years. For at least the first 10 years, basketball, not football, was the biggest sport on campus, and it was played at a neighboring stadium because WHS didn't have a stadium of its own.
[edit] Activities
Whitney's Model United Nations program has won several awards for its performances at conferences such as the West Coast Invitational,[when?][citation needed] Mission Viejo,[when?][citation needed] and UCLA MUN.[when?][citation needed] The school also hosts a MUN conference every May.[citation needed]
"It's Finally Friday" (a.k.a. "IFF") is a televised show broadcasted over the school's television network every Friday, from September 2003 and until June 2005, and brought back from 2006-2008.
The Whitney Independent News Network was founded during the 2009 – 2010 school year by teacher Eric Gutierrez.[19]
[edit] School of Dreams
Whitney High is the subject of School of Dreams, a book written by the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Edward Humes[20] and published in September 2003. Humes spent the 2001-2002 school year at Whitney teaching a writing workshop, and used his case study of Whitney High to bring national attention to the pressures endured by the students of America's magnet schools.
[edit] References
- ^ "ABC Unified School District: Whitney HS". ABCUSD. http://www.abcusd.k12.ca.us/schools/?dir=03%20High%20Schools&s=Whitney%20HS&rn=9276257. Retrieved 2007-06-26.
- ^ http://www.ci.cerritos.ca.us/cityserv/recreation/whitney_gym.html
- ^ "IN RECOGNITION OF WHITNEY HIGH SCHOOL". The Library of Congress. 18 September 1991. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r102:S18SE1-499:. Retrieved 20 June 2011.
- ^ "Blue Ribbon Lighthouse School Award Winners". Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence. Archived from the original on 2007-09-28. http://web.archive.org/web/20070928035922/http://www.blueribbonschools.com/Awards/BlueRibbonLighthouseSchoolAwardWinners/tabid/196/Default.aspx. Retrieved 2007-06-26.
- ^ "Distinguished Middle and High Schools: 1986 Award Winners". California Department of Education. http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/sr/cs/ap/distingyear.asp?year=1986. Retrieved 2007-06-26.[dead link]
- ^ "Distinguished Middle and High Schools: 1990 Award Winners". California Department of Education. http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/sr/cs/ap/distingyear.asp?year=1990. Retrieved 2007-06-26.[dead link]
- ^ "Distinguished Middle and High Schools: 1992 Award Winners". California Department of Education. http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/sr/cs/ap/distingyear.asp?year=1992. Retrieved 2007-06-26.[dead link]
- ^ "Distinguished Middle and High Schools: 1996 Award Winners". California Department of Education. http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/sr/cs/ap/distingyear.asp?year=1996. Retrieved 2007-06-26.[dead link]
- ^ "Distinguished Middle and High Schools: 2003 Award Winners". California Department of Education. http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/sr/cs/ap/distingyear.asp?year=2003. Retrieved 2007-06-26.[dead link]
- ^ "Distinguished Middle and High Schools: 2007 Award Winners". California Department of Education. Archived from the original on 2007-12-11. http://web.archive.org/web/20071211025458/http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/sr/cs/ap/distingyear.asp?year=2007. Retrieved 2007-06-26.
- ^ "Lighthouse School Profile: Gretchen Whitney High School". Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence, Inc.. Archived from the original on February 3, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070203014616/http://www.blueribbonschools.com/Default.aspx?tabid=121. Retrieved March 5, 2007.
- ^ "Academic Performance Index, California High Schools". Associated Press. http://www.ap.org/california/schools/hstenth.html. Retrieved October 14, 2006.
- ^ "Best High Schools: The Public Elites". MSNBC, Newsweek. 2006-05-08. Archived from the original on 2007-05-19. http://web.archive.org/web/20070519031615/http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12551652/site/newsweek/. Retrieved 2007-06-25.
- ^ "Student & Community Profile". Whitney High School. http://www.whitneyhs.org/students/community.jsp. Retrieved 2007-06-26.
- ^ http://finance.yahoo.com/college-education/article/106441/America%27s-Best-High-Schools-2009
- ^ "Best High Schools: Gretchen Whitney High (Top 100, #12)". U.S. News & World Report. http://www.usnews.com/listings/high-schools/california/gretchen_whitney_high. Retrieved 2007-12-14.
- ^ "Best High Schools: Gold Medal List". U.S. News & World Report. http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/high-schools/2008/12/04/best-high-schools-gold-medal-list.html. Retrieved 2008-12-13.
- ^ "Best High Schools: Gold Medal List". U.S. News & World Report. http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/high-schools/2009/12/09/americas-best-high-schools-gold-medal-list.html. Retrieved 2010-01-03.
- ^ http://my.hsj.org/Schools/Newspaper/tabid/100/newspaperid/4252/view/frontpage/Default.aspx
- ^ Dirda, Michael (September 7, 2003). "School of Dreams: Making the Grade at a Top American High School". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28398-2003Sep4?language=printer. Retrieved October 14, 2006.
[edit] External links
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Coordinates: 33°52′41″N 118°03′15″W / 33.87813°N 118.05413°W
