Mission Viejo High School is a four-year comprehensive

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

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 ...

located in

Mission Viejo, California Mission Viejo ( ; corruption of ''Misión Vieja'', Spanish for "Old Mission") is a commuter city in the Saddleback Valley in Orange County, California, United States. Mission Viejo is considered one of the largest master-planned communities eve ...

, United States, as part of the

Saddleback Valley Unified School District Saddleback Valley Unified School District (SVUSD) is a public school district in South Orange County, California. It includes 23 elementary schools, four intermediate schools, four comprehensive high schools, and four alternative schools. It se ...

. The school has served the area since 1966. Students within its attendance boundaries live in western

Mission Viejo Mission Viejo ( ; corruption of ''Misión Vieja'', Spanish for "Old Mission") is a commuter city in the Saddleback Valley in Orange County, California, United States. Mission Viejo is considered one of the largest master-planned communities eve ...

, southwest Lake Forest,

Trabuco Canyon Trabuco Canyon (''Trabuco'', Spanish for " Blunderbuss") is a small unincorporated community located in the foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains in eastern Orange County, California, and lies partly within the Cleveland National Forest. Trabuco ...

Rancho Santa Margarita :''This article refers to the San Luis Obispo County, California, land grant. For the city of Rancho Santa Margarita, see Rancho Santa Margarita, California'' Rancho Santa Margarita was a Mexican land grant in the Santa Lucia Mountains, in ...

, and

Laguna Hills Laguna Hills (; ''Laguna'', Spanish for "Lagoon") is a city in south Orange County, California, United States. Its name refers to its proximity to Laguna Canyon and the much older Laguna Beach. Other newer cities nearby—Laguna Niguel and Lagun ...

. Its mascot is Pablo the Diablo and its colors are scarlet and gold. 230 credits are required to graduate. It is the home to one of the only agricultural farms on a high school campus in the Saddleback Valley Unified School District. In the 2014–2015 school year, the school had an enrollment of 2,438 students and 92.7 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a

student–teacher ratio Student–teacher ratio or student–faculty ratio is the number of students who attend a school or university divided by the number of teachers in the institution. For example, a student–teacher ratio of 10:1 indicates that there are 10 students ...

of 26.3:1. There were 333 students (13.7% of enrollment) eligible for

free lunch A free lunch is the providing of a meal at no cost, usually as a sales enticement to attract customers and increase revenues from other business. It was once a common tradition in saloons and taverns in many places in the United States, with the ...

and 100 (4.1% of students) eligible for reduced-cost lunch.

Academics

International Baccalaureate

Mission Viejo has been an

International Baccalaureate The International Baccalaureate (IB), formerly known as the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO), is a nonprofit foundation headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and founded in 1968. It offers four educational programmes: the IB Dip ...

(IB) school since July 1985. This program, taught to 80 students, is for academically talented and highly motivated students sponsored and administered by the IB Organization. The students who meet the IB requirements are eligible for the International Baccalaureate Diploma. This school received approximately 80 diplomas in the 2015–2016 school year.

Awards and recognition

Mission Viejo High School has been awarded the

Blue Ribbon School The National Blue Ribbon Schools Program is a United States Department of Education award program that recognizes exemplary public and non-public schools on a yearly basis. Using standards of excellence evidenced by student achievement measures, ...

and Award of Excellence by the

United States Department of Education The United States Department of Education is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government. It began operating on May 4, 1980, having been created after the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was split into the Department ...

on three separate occasions, in 1988–89, 1994–96 and 2001–02, the highest award an American school can receive. Mission Viejo High School has been recognized four times as a

California Distinguished School California Distinguished School is an award given by the California State Board of Education to public schools within the state that best represent exemplary and quality educational programs. Approximately 5-10% of California schools are awarded t ...

, in 1988, 1994, 2001, and 2009.

Performing arts

Marching band

The school's

marching band A marching band is a group of instrumental musicians who perform while marching, often for entertainment or competition. Instrumentation typically includes brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. Most marching bands wear a uniform, ofte ...

is part of the

Western Band Association The Western Band Association (WBA) is a nonprofit organization that promotes high school music education in California, Arizona and Nevada. Specifically, the WBA organizes many marching band competitions for high school students. Its championships ...

. They have competed in the 5A division every year until 2016, in which they began competing in 4A and won their division at the WBA Class Championships. *The

drumline Marching percussion instruments are instruments specially designed to be played while moving. This is achieved by attaching the drum(s) to a special harness (also called a carrier or rack) worn by the drummer, although not all marching bands us ...

won High Percussion at WBA State Championships each year from 1997 to 2003, excluding 2000.

Choir

The school offers four different choir classes: Concert Choir, Diablo Chorus, Treble Choir and the Chamber Singers.

Sex abuse allegations

On March 23, 2022, two former Mission Viejo High School students filed a civil suit in Orange County Superior Court alleging that James Harris, husband of longtime drama teacher and performing arts coordinator Kathy Cannarozzi Harris and a substitute teacher at the school, groomed them and sexually abused them in the late 1990s. One of the plaintiffs was 15 at the time. The women allege that Kathy Harris personally observed the abuse, which allegedly occurred on the Mission Viejo High School campus and at her home. According to the filing, they reported the abuse several times over the course of two decades, including to the police and to the

, but no decisive action was taken. Jim Harris denied the allegations to the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

''. The district said it was investigating. Kathy Harris still teaches at the school.

Notable alumni

Andreas Gustafsson Bo Andreas Gustafsson (Born 10 August 1981 in Gothenburg) is a Swedish race walker. He has represented his country at the World Championship in Athletics on four occasions. He qualified for 2 Olympics by making the IAAF standard B in 2008 and I ...

(born 1981), Swedish race walker

References

External links

* {{authority control Educational institutions established in 1966 High schools in Orange County, California International Baccalaureate schools in California Public high schools in California Mission Viejo, California 1966 establishments in California