Piedmont High School (California)

Piedmont High School offers ninth through twelfth grade.

Many families move into Piedmont for the schools once their children reach school-age.[2]

Piedmont's colors are purple and white (representing the Scottish thistle), and its mascot, the Highlander, reflects the school's Scottish heritage.

A bond for the creation of Piedmont High School was passed in 1920, and the school was built in 1921.

In September 1922, the Piedmont Unified School District opened the city's first high school. It was funded by a bond passed by voters in 1920.[3][4]

Piedmont High School was the last public school in California to require uniforms, which disappeared in the 1970s.[5]

The social scene was once dominated by social clubs, which resembled college sororities and fraternities, reminiscent of Lindsay Lohan's Mean Girls. While the social clubs raised money the organizations with which they were affiliated, their charitable exterior was just a front for what they really were, mainly drinking clubs.[6] The male clubs died out in the mid-1990s when they grew irrelevant, but the female social clubs didn't end until 2004 when the incoming senior class exhibited overwhelming indifference and distaste for retaining the tradition.[7] ”The school was covered in the New York Times when in the mid-1990s it began breathalyzing all students before dances.[8]

The school was the site for anti-semitic graffiti and hate speech[9] in 2017 as well as the FSL, or the Fantasy Slut League, in 2012.[10]

Students congregate on the grass in the quad during brunch, a 15-minute break between first and second blocks.

Piedmont High School has an open campus, and students can leave during brunch, lunch, and unscheduled periods. The campus is between Piedmont Park on the right of the school and Piedmont Middle School and Witter Field on the left.

The center of campus is a grassy area referred to as "the quad." The quad is center of campus, connecting the Alan Harvey Theatre, the library, the cafeteria and student center, and the amphitheatre. Classes are scattered around campus, with the music and science buildings the furthest apart.

The campus was originally built on a portion of Piedmont Park, and dog-walking trails behind the school connect to the park.

Architecture

The school was built in 1921 in a neoclassical design, part of the same plan that built the Piedmont city's Exedra. Since its design by architect W.H. Weeks,[3] the school has undergone several reconstructions, for reasons such as expansion, earthquake retrofitting, and combatting dry rot.

The school exhibits various styles of architecture, with remains of the original neoclassical design in the library and the distinct "back-to-nature" look in the breezeway and theater.

In 1974, the school was declared unsafe, under state earthquake laws. It was demolished, and three new classroom buildings and a gymnasium were built. The original library, quad, and administration buildings were rehabilitated.[11]

Reconstruction in the 1970s reflected the "back-to-nature" look popular at the time, using wood instead of shingles. The school's "breezeway," an open, wide corridor running between the school's main buildings, exemplifies this.

The last construction was an expansion of the gymnasium, during the 2003-2004 school year, to include an entrance room that also displays trophies. The school has undergone further construction in accord with Measure E, which issued $56 million in bonds to the reconstruction of school facilities to meet earthquake safety guidelines.[12]

Statistics is one of the elective math classes offered.

The amphitheatre is used for outside performances, such as those during lunch. The mural, painted by past AP Art students, was vandalized in 2005 and had to be repainted by the AP Art students of that year.

Piedmont High School is an academically strong school, scoring a 10 out of 10 for test scores at the website GreatSchools.net. In 2008, it was ranked in the top 100 schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report.[13] The school newspaper reported that the average of GPA of 2006's graduating class was 3.47.[14]

The majority of the student body is White, 68 percent, and Asian, 22 percent.[20] In 2004, the San Francisco Chronicle highlighted the lack of racial and socioeconomic diversity in Piedmont in a Sunday front-page story. Comparing schools in Oakland and Piedmont, the article wrote that "wealth has created separate and unequal schools in [the] Bay Area and elsewhere."[21]

The majority of high school students have lived in Piedmont since elementary school. As in the surrounding cities, only residents of the city can attend school at the district, unless a parent is a district employee.

The high school library serves as a reference source and place to study.

At the beginning of the 2006-2007 school year, the library set up the Teen Advisory Board, a group for students to contribute to the library through writing book reviews, recommending purchases, buying books,[22] decorating the library, organizing library events, and publishing a literary magazine. The literary magazine, The Highland Piper, was launched in the spring of 2007 to publish student original writing. It took its name from the school literary magazine published in the 1930s. It was last printed in June 2009, but a new edition is planned for spring 2014.[23][24]

Piedmont High is home to the nationally known Leonard J. Waxdeck Bird Calling Contest.[25] Winners of the contest have been featured on the Late Show with David Letterman, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. The contest was started in 1963 by biology teacher Leonard J. Waxdeck.[25][26]

View overlooking Witter Field, which is used by the sports teams of Piedmont High School and Piedmont Middle School.

PHS offers a variety of varsity and junior varsity sports. In addition, many Piedmont students participate in the national championship-winning rowing team Oakland Strokes; at least one Piedmont graduate, Scott Gault, has competed in the Olympics and World Rowing Championships.

Piedmont High football ex-coaches Kurt Bryan and Steve Humphries created the A-11 offense,[27] a controversial football offense in which any of the 11 players on the field is eligible. The offense relies on confusion, and its unconventional look can wreak havoc on even bigger, stronger and faster teams.

In 2004 and 2005, the nationally ranked women's basketball team won two consecutive division IV state championships.

In 2005, the men's varsity Cross Country team became the only men's team to win a state title in the history of the school.

In 2010, Piedmont lacrosse posted a 15-7 record and won a regular season BSAL championship.

In 2011, the boys tennis team finished the season as BSAL League champs, not having lost a league match in 11 straight years.

PHS uses the Highlander, a kilt-clad Scotsman caricature playing the bagpipes, as its mascot.

Brad Gilbert

Alex Hirsch

• Ruth Leach Amonette, first female vice president of IBM[28]
• Dyke Brown, graduated in the class of 1932, best known for founding The Athenian School, a college preparatory boarding school located in Danville, California.
• Dean Butler, graduated in the class of 1974. Professional actor best known for work on Little House on the Prairie.
• Vern Corbin, All-American basketball at Cal in 1928–29[29][30]
• Clint Eastwood spent part of his academic career in Piedmont before switching to Oakland Technical High School in neighboring Oakland, California[31]
• Chloe Fineman, class of 2006. Comedian and Saturday Night Live featured player.
• Brad Gilbert, professional tennis player (World # 4) and coach[32]
• Dana Gilbert, tennis player
• Alex Hirsch, creator of Gravity Falls.
• Robert McNamara, former Secretary of Defense, graduated in 1933 after maintaining a straight "A" average[33]
• Asieh Namdar, class of 1984. CNN journalist.
• Drew Olson, former UCLA quarterback[34]
• J. Christopher Stevens, class of 1978. Ambassador to Libya, killed 11 September 2012 in Benghazi.
• Colin Trevorrow, class of 1995, film director of Jurassic World and sequels

• Official website
• The Highland Piper
• Piedmont Unified School District Mandarin Program website
• The Hairy Lawn News - HairyNet: Irreverent look back at the late 1960s and early 70s - includes classmates bulletin board