Blue Valley Northwest High School (BVNW) is a

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

Overland Park, Kansas Overland Park ( ) is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of Kansas. Located in Johnson County, Kansas, it is one of four principal cities in the Kansas City metropolitan area and the most populous suburb of Kansas City, Missouri. As o ...

, United States. Blue Valley Northwest is one of five high schools operated by

Blue Valley USD 229 Blue Valley USD 229 is a public unified school district headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas, United States. Located in east central and southeast Johnson County, Kansas, covering of Overland Park including parts of Leawood and Stilwell, a ...

school district. Blue Valley Northwest is a member of the

Kansas State High School Activities Association The Kansas State High School Activities Association (KSHSAA) is the organization which oversees interscholastic competition in the U.S. state of Kansas at the high school, high-school level. It oversees both athletic and non-athletic competition, ...

and offers a variety of sports programs. Athletic teams compete in the 6A division and are known as the "Huskies". Extracurricular activities are also offered in the form of performing arts, school publications, and clubs.

Academics

Thirteen courses, mainly for motivated freshmen and sophomores, are designated as "Honors" classes. In addition, 17 Advanced Placement courses for college credit are offered. Students taking Honors or

Advanced Placement Advanced Placement (AP) is a program in the United States and Canada created by the College Board which offers college-level curricula and examinations to high school students. American colleges and universities may grant placement and course ...

courses receive weighted

GPA Grading in education is the process of applying standardized measurements for varying levels of achievements in a course. Grades can be assigned as letters (usually A through F), as a range (for example, 1 to 6), as a percentage, or as a numbe ...

s. In 2010, Blue Valley Northwest was selected as one of the six finalists for the first annual Race to the Top High School Commencement Challenge, sponsored by the Department of Education under the Obama administration. In 2015, Blue Valley Northwest students who attempted the tests achieved an average ACT score of 25.3 out of 36 and an average

SAT The SAT ( ) is a standardized test widely used for college admissions in the United States. Since its debut in 1926, its name and scoring have changed several times; originally called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, it was later called the Schol ...

score of 1879 out of 2400. The class of 2015 also had seven

National Merit Finalists The National Merit Scholarship Program is a United States academic scholarship competition for recognition and university scholarships administered by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC), a privately funded, not-for-profit organizati ...

and 20 National Advanced Placement Scholars.

Extracurricular activities

The Huskies compete in the Eastern Kansas League and are classified as a 6A-5A school according to the

KSHSAA The Kansas State High School Activities Association (KSHSAA) is the organization which oversees interscholastic competition in the U.S. state of Kansas at the high-school level. It oversees both athletic and non-athletic competition, and sponsors ...

. Throughout its history, Blue Valley Northwest has won several state championships in various sports. Many graduates have gone on to participate in Division I, Division II, and

Division III In sport, the Third Division, also called Division 3, Division Three, or Division III, is often the third-highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below. Association football *Belgian Thir ...

athletics.

State championships

Orchestra

BVNW's orchestra has received a 1 (the best) ranking every year the school has been open. Students in the orchestra also have auditioned and represented the BVNW in local, state, and national orchestras.

Yearbook and Newspaper

The school's yearbook is called ''Horizon'', the newspaper is called "The Express", the school broadcast news program is called ''Husky Headlines'' and the school's literary magazine is called ''The Muse''. The ''Horizon'' and ''Husky Headlines'' have been nominated for several

Pacemaker An artificial cardiac pacemaker (or artificial pacemaker, so as not to be confused with the natural cardiac pacemaker) or pacemaker is a medical device that generates electrical impulses delivered by electrodes to the chambers of the heart eith ...

awards, and in 2004, the "Horizon" won the Pacemaker Award. The school newspaper, ''The Express'' is a member of the

High School National Ad Network The American Society of News Editors (ASNE) was a membership organization for editors, producers or directors in charge of journalistic organizations or departments, deans or faculty at university journalism schools, and leaders and faculty of ...

. At the April 2007 JEA conference in Denver, "The Express" was voted the number one newsmagazine. At the November 2007 JEA conference in Philadelphia, the newsmagazine was rated sixth. In 2015, The Express was nominated for a Pacemaker, but did not win. It did receive sixth place among the competition that year. On November 12, 2016 in Indianapolis, The Express won a Newspaper Pacemaker Award, the first for the publication.

Notable alumni

Jason Adam Jason Kendall Adam (born August 4, 1991) is an American professional baseball pitcher for the Tampa Bay Rays of Major League Baseball (MLB) and the United States national team. He has previously played in MLB for the Kansas City Royals, Toronto ...

, professional baseball player for the

Tampa Bay Rays The Tampa Bay Rays are an American professional baseball team based in St. Petersburg, Florida. The Rays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League East, East division. Since its inception ...

* Christie Ambrosi, member of the 2000 USA Olympic softball team, who won the gold medal *

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, professional basketball player for the

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Christian Braun Christian Nicholas Braun (pronounced ; born April 17, 2001) is an American professional basketball player for the Denver Nuggets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball at the University of Kansas and was a s ...

, current basketball player for the

Denver Nuggets The Denver Nuggets are an American professional basketball team based in Denver. The Nuggets compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference Northwest Division. The team was founded as the D ...

, former Mr. Kansas Basketball and Kansas

Gatorade Player of the Year The Gatorade Player of the Year awards are given annually to up and coming high school student-athletes in the United States. They are given for boys' baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine playe ...

. *

Arash Ferdowsi Arash Ferdowsi ( fa, آرش فردوسی, born October 7, 1985) is an Iranian-American billionaire entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of Dropbox. Early life and education Ferdowsi was born in Overland Park, Kansas, United States on 7 October 198 ...

, co-founder of

Dropbox Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by the American company Dropbox, Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, California, U.S. that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and Client (computing), client software. Dropb ...

file hosting service * Lisa Forbes,

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2004 and Miss USA Pageant contestant *

Nathaniel Hackett Nathaniel Hackett (born December 19, 1979) is an American football coach. A former long-time assistant to Doug Marrone, Hackett previously served as the offensive coordinator for the NFL's Green Bay Packers, Jacksonville Jaguars, Buffalo Bills, ...

, former head coach of the

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Zach Hadel Zach Hadel (born March 4, 1993), known by his pseudonym psychicpebbles, is an American animator, voice actor, Internet personality, writer, director, and storyboard artist. He and Michael Cusack (animator), Michael Cusack are co-creators of the ...

(Class of 2011), web animator and co-creator of ''

Smiling Friends ''Smiling Friends'' is an adult animated television series created by Zach Hadel and Michael Cusack for Cartoon Network's night-time programming block Adult Swim, which revolves around a small company dedicated to making people smile. The pilo ...

'' for

Adult Swim Adult Swim (AS; stylized as

dult swim Dult is a village in Batala in Gurdaspur district of Punjab State, India. It is located from sub district headquarter, from district headquarter and from Sri Hargobindpur. The village is administrated by Sarpanch an elected representati ...

and often abbreviated as s is an American adult-oriented night-time cable television Television channel, channel that shares channel space with the basic cable network Cartoon Network and is programme ...

. *

Michael McMillian Michael McMillian (born October 21, 1978) is an American actor and writer, known for his roles as Henry Gibson on '' What I Like About You'', Steve Newlin on the HBO series ''True Blood'', Owen on ''Hot in Cleveland'' and Tim in ''Crazy Ex-Girlf ...

(Class of 1997), actor known for his roles as Henry Gibson on '' What I Like About You'' and Steve Newlin on ''

True Blood ''True Blood'' is an American fantasy horror drama television series produced and created by Alan Ball. It is based on ''The Southern Vampire Mysteries'', a series of novels by Charlaine Harris. A reboot is currently in development. The serie ...

'' * Dániel Sallói, professional soccer player for

Sporting Kansas City Sporting Kansas City, often shortened to Sporting KC, is an American men's professional Association football, soccer club based in the Kansas City metropolitan area. The administrative offices are located in Downtown Kansas City, Missouri, and t ...

References

External links

School Website

Blue Valley USD 229 school district
{{Authority control Public high schools in Kansas Educational institutions established in 1993 Education in Overland Park, Kansas Schools in Johnson County, Kansas 1993 establishments in Kansas