Deer Valley High School (California)

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Deer Valley High School
125px
Address
4700 Lone Tree Way
Antioch, California 94531
United States
Information
School type Public
Established 1996
School district Antioch Unified School District
Principal Kenneth Gardner
Enrollment 2,721
Color(s) Teal, Black, Silver               
Nickname Wolverines
Yearbook The Wolverine
Website Deer Valley High School

Deer Valley High School in Antioch, California, is a public secondary school serving southeast Antioch in Contra Costa County, California. It opened in 1996.

In 2007, the Antioch Unified School District named Scott Bergerhouse and Clarence Isadore co-principals. The co-principal model has previously been implemented in some larger schools in southern California.

In February 2010, Deer Valley and the rest of the AUSD schools were informed that that they will be issuing a uniform policy in the 2010-2011 school year. This policy proved to be a failure for the school and was discontinued by the start of the 2011-2012 school year.

School Site Council

The Deer Valley School Site Council is a group of parents, teachers, students and other school employees elected by their peers to meet with the school co-principals in order to:

  • Develop a comprehensive school site plan
  • Plan, monitor, and review its effectiveness
  • Develop a budget aligned to categorical program funds
  • Review and revise the plan and budget annually
  • Recommend Single Plan for Student Achievement to the School Board
  • Recommend the plan for targeting use of other categorical or supplemental funds to the School Board
  • Ensure that the school is continually engaged in identifying and implementing curriculum and instructional practices

Academics

The school is divided into four "houses", each of which has its own vice-principal and secretary. At the freshman and sophomore levels Deer Valley uses a teaming concept, where groups of students share the same English, math, science, and history teacher. In addition to core classes, a wide variety of elective classes are offered to students. In addition to instrumental and choral music, foreign language, drama, automotive, culinary, and art classes, students may also enroll in video production, digital art, web design, animation, law, manufacturing, photography, or careers with children among many others.

Deer Valley also houses academies: Antioch Unified School District has four Linked Learning academies in place throughout the District. There are two Linked Learning academies on the campus of Deer Valley High School, which include a Law Academy and a Performing Arts Academy.[1]

The process for attending an academy begins in the second half of the eighth grade, when students and their parents have opportunities to attend presentations by each of the Learning Link academies. Students can apply for one or more by completing an application. The selection is by lottery; it's open to all district students without pre-testing however a 3.0 GPA requirement.[2]

Each of the linked learning academies, incorporate career preparation into the four-year curriculum. These academies goals are to allow students to receive a well-rounded education while preparing for their chosen careers. The academies create a school-within-a-school themed education in hopes to help bridge the achievement gap and increasing high graduation and college-going rates.

Housed at Deer Valley High School, the Deer Valley Academy of Performing Arts ( formerly Delta Performing Arts Academy) takes students through a high school curriculum focused on the arts, but draws from several foundations to ensure a complete education.One of the major tenets of DVAPA’s after-school program is performance opportunities for the students as an extension of the classroom. Students regularly perform plays, musicals, dance/band/choir concerts at Deer Valley’s theater.[3]

Located in House 2 of DVHS, the Law Academy curriculum includes three elements: law-related content embedded in required courses in English, Social Studies, Math and Science, law-specific elective courses such as Constitutional Law and Criminal Justice, and work-based learning throughout the four years of study. The Law Academy provides a positive understanding of the legal system and its role in society, enhancing civic education for citizenship and enhancing community service. The academy provides students with lawyer role models and mentors who can teach, inspire, and support students to college and career pathways. The law academy also provides students with the chances to compete in various competitions such as Mock Trial and Model United Nations. The Mock Trial team of 2014-2015 placed fifth in the county competition and the model united nations team has had great success at conferences at DVC, and Santa Teresa High School. Also, students are able to obtain internships with businesses in but not limited to the field of law. The students will also take multiple field trips a year to places such as the FBI buildings in Oakland, Alcatraz, and the local police station. Students enrolled in the Deer Valley Law Academy must take a fundamental criminal justice class in 9th grade, with the curriculum continuing on to the next year, and psychology in 11th grade. Deer Valley is also one of the few high schools in California with the option to take Philosophy, however with the Law students placed as top priority in the enrollment process.[4]

The Business Technology Academy and the ESPACE academy (Earth, Space, Astronomy Center for Education) are also academies on Deer Valley's campus. Students in the Business Technology Academy will be provided a curriculum focused on a business theme with related standards-based academic classes and career-technical classes implementing supplemental technology. Increased communication between teachers, students, and parents; increased student engagement; increased frequency of writing and revisions; and increased individualized instruction are all goals of The Business-Tech Academy. The ESPACE academy has one of the few planetariums on a high school campus in the state of California. Students from DVHS have used space probes to investigate a number of questions for school projects, most notably the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Mars Global Surveyor. In addition, Deer Valley had held, for nine consecutive years, the highest API scores in the area (some the highest in the East Bay)[citation needed].

DVHS Planetarium

Deer Valley High School is one of the few high schools in the Bay Area to have a planetarium. The planetarium has been in operation since 2004 and hosts biweekly[clarification needed] shows for the community.

They are open to the public. The current show schedule starts shows at 8 PM and has star observing at 9 PM on alternating Thursdays when school is in session.

Departments

Deer Valley High has many different types of classes students may take, which are separated into different departments;

Incidents

Deer Valley High has had its share of incidents over the years. Here's a list of them:

2009 Shooting

On September 16, 2009, at about 8:29 am, a 16-year-old student of Deer Valley High School was shot in the arm and chest nearby the school.[5] The shots were fired from a vehicle, which then drove off. The victim was lifted by air to John Muir Medical Center and underwent surgery.[5] The school, along with all other schools in the district, then went into lockdown later that morning.[5] 19-year-old Yousuf Mohammad Aziz and another person was arrested in connection with the shooting.[6][7] In 2011, Aziz was convicted of charges of premeditated attempted murder, assault with a firearm, shooting at an inhabited dwelling and two counts of street terrorism, and was sentenced to 7 years to life in prison.[8]

2013 Bomb Threats

In April of 2013, A 16 year old student has made bomb threats at this school for the past four days. The students were evacuated & police & the AUSD were investigating the school, no bombs were found. The 16 year old eventually got charged with threats to the school. It also turned out he sent 3 bomb threats to this school & 1 bomb threat to Black Diamond Middle School. He's been expelled from the school & district ever since.

2015 Football Incident

On Friday October 16th the Deer Valley High School football players went onto the field to warm up before the game was to begin against Pittsburg High School. Then out of nowhere the Pittsburg marching band stormed the field playing the National Anthem and as the players were on the field, they didn't realize that the Pittsburg marching band was playing the National Anthem. A cell phone video was taken of this incident and immediately went viral. KRON 4 reviewed this video on their news show and social media was booming with hatred towards Deer Valley calling them names such as "Unpatriotic Thugs". The next week a peaceful protest was held outside the school labeled "The other 2700" showing that only a tiny bit of the school was bad and that the school shouldn't be judged by the bad things but by all the good things it produced.

Notable alumni

References

  1. ↑ Dr. Donald Gill: Broad-based coalitions are needed for California to reclaim leadership in education
  2. ↑ New Antioch academy places students on career path to engineering
  3. ↑ http://thepress.net/view/full_story/17632004/article-Grant-to-enrich-after-school-arts
  4. ↑ Deer Valley High School Law Academy Committee
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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