Mountain View High School (MVHS) is located at 3535 Truman Avenue,

Mountain View, California Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States. Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, it has a population of 82,376. Mountain View was integral to the early history and growth of Silicon Valley, and is t ...

, 94040. It is one of two

Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually higher th ...

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 sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...

high schools - the other being Los Altos High School. The two main feeder schools are Graham Middle School and Blach Intermediate School.

Statistics

Awards and ranking

The school earned the distinction of California Distinguished High School in 1988, 1994, and 2003. In 2000, 2007, 2013, and 2019, MVHS received a full 6-year accreditation from the

Western Association of Schools and Colleges The Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) was an organization providing accreditation of public and private universities, colleges, secondary and elementary schools in California and Hawaii, the territories of Guam, American Sam ...

(WASC). The school sent 95% of its graduating class of 2019 to post-secondary schools. In addition, the California Department of Education recognized Mountain View High School as a California Gold Ribbon School, citing its "Equal Opportunities Schools" program that identifies and supports first generation students taking rigorous academic courses. ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...

'' ranked Mountain View High School as the 293rd best public open enrollment high school in the nation in 2005 and the 280th best school in 2015.America's Top Public High Schools , Newsweek Best High Schools , Newsweek.com

Demographics

Mountain View High School serves a diverse student body of over 2000 students from the cities of Mountain View, Los Altos and

Los Altos Hills Los Altos Hills (; ''Los Altos'', Spanish for "The Heights") is an incorporated town in Santa Clara County, California, United States. The population was 8,489 at the 2020 census. The town is known for its affluence and expensive residential rea ...

. As of 2018–2019 school year, the enrollment at Mountain View High School was 2,062. During the 2019 school year, the students were 40% White, 23% Hispanic, 22% Asian, 3% Filipino, 2% Black, 1% Hawaiian Native/Pacific Islander, <1% American Indian/Alaskan Native, and 10% two or more races.

Standardized testing

History

Public education in

dates as far as 1858, but lacked a high school. Before Mountain View High School was created in 1902, students living within the town's limits commuted by train from

Downtown Mountain View Station Downtown Mountain View station is an intermodal transit station located in Mountain View, California. The station is served by the Caltrain commuter rail service, on which it is simply called ''Mountain View station''. The light rail part of t ...

on Castro Street to attend either

Palo Alto Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was es ...

or Santa Clara High Schools. In August 1902, the town of Mountain View opened its first school at the corner of El Camino Real and Calderon Streets, named Mountain View Union High School. By the dawn of the 1920s, the high school saw a spike in enrollment and the campus was unable to accommodate any more students. In 1922, the school district built a new campus at a new location on Castro Street. The new campus first opened its doors in late August 1924. Several years later, in 1933, the opening of

Moffett Field Moffett Federal Airfield , also known as Moffett Field, is a joint civil-military airport located in an unincorporated part of Santa Clara County, California, United States, between northern Mountain View and northern Sunnyvale. On November 10 ...

pushed the expansion of the campus with additional facilities to accommodate military children. By the 1950s, Mountain View Union High School was once again facing challenges with a growing student body and, in 1956, the district added Los Altos High; in the once small rural town of Los Altos. By 1961, the district added an additional high school near Grant Road at the corners of Truman and Bryant. This was named Chester F. Awalt High School, the first superintendent of the district. Mountain View Union High School was closed in 1981 due to declining enrollment. Mountain View School District (known today as MVLA) decided to sell the original school buildings back to the city and relocate to the Awalt High School location, changing Awalt's name to Mountain View. Los Altos High School adopted the MV school colors and mascot. Thus, Mountain View became the black and gold Spartans and Los Altos dropped the Knights and became the blue and gray Eagles.

Classes

The high school holds an open enrollment policy: any student may register for any class being offered at the school, regardless of a student's grade. Mountain View High, like most

Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...

schools, offers all 8 of the AP advanced STEM classes. Environmental Science AP and Psychology AP were added as class options for the academic year of 2013–2014.

Athletics

MVHS Athletics is part of Central Coast Section (CCS), which governs High School Athletics from San Francisco to King City, and the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF). The school sponsors the following interscholastic teams for young men and women: basketball, cross country, golf, soccer, swimming & diving, tennis, track & field, football, volleyball, badminton, lacrosse and water polo.

Notable alumni

Erik Davis Erik Davis (born June 12, 1967) is an American writer, scholar, journalist and public speaker whose writings have ranged from rock criticism to cultural analysis to creative explorations of esoteric mysticism. He is perhaps best known for his b ...

, Major League Baseball pitcher, formerly with the

Washington Nationals The Washington Nationals are an American professional baseball team based in Washington, D.C.. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) East division. From 2005 to 2007, the team played in RFK Stadiu ...

Adam Krikorian Adam Krikorian (born July 22, 1974) is an American water polo coach and the head coach of the United States women's national water polo team. He coached the team to gold medals at the 2012 Olympic Games, 2016 Olympic Games, and 2020 Olympic Games. ...

, head coach of the

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

water polo Water polo is a competitive team sport played in water between two teams of seven players each. The game consists of four quarters in which the teams attempt to score goals by throwing the ball into the opposing team's goal. The team with th ...

team and the US women's Olympic water polo team * Blake Krikorian, technology entrepreneur *

Brendan Nyhan Brendan Nyhan (; born 1978) is an American political scientist and professor at Dartmouth College. He is also a liberal to moderate political blogger, author, and political columnist. He was born in Mountain View, California and now lives in Ha ...

, political scientist * Kendal Smith, NFL player *

Jose Antonio Vargas Jose Antonio Vargas (born February 3, 1981) is a journalist, filmmaker, and immigration rights activist. Born in the Philippines and raised in the United States from the age of twelve, he was part of ''The Washington Post'' team that won the P ...

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large na ...

reporter and

2008 Pulitzer Prize The 2008 Pulitzer Prizes were announced on April 7, 2008, the 92nd annual awards. ''The Washington Post'' won six awards, second only to the seven won by ''The New York Times'' in 2002. Three organizations were awarded prizes for the first time: R ...

winner

References

External links

*
The Oracle
MVHS school newspaper Map: {{authority control Mountain View–Los Altos Union High School District Buildings and structures in Mountain View, California High schools in Santa Clara County, California Public high schools in California 1902 establishments in California