Quartz Hill High School is a public,

co-educational Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to t ...

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

Quartz Hill, California Quartz Hill is a census-designated place (CDP) in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The population was 10,912 at the 2010 census, up from 9,890 at the 2000 census. The name is also shared with the neighboring district areas of its b ...

. Founded in 1964, it is the third oldest comprehensive high school in the

Antelope Valley Union High School District The Antelope Valley Union High School District (A.V.U.H.S.D.) is located in the Antelope Valley area of California, in northern Los Angeles County. The union high school district includes eight public high schools, one trade school, and two co ...

Campus

The basic layout of Quartz Hill High School's campus is a

courtyard A courtyard or court is a circumscribed area, often surrounded by a building or complex, that is open to the sky. Courtyards are common elements in both Western and Eastern building patterns and have been used by both ancient and contemporary ...

surrounded by three quads and athletic buildings, a design that is typical of high schools in

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban a ...

. The school's campus was originally designed for 1,800 students, but over two times that number are currently enrolled. In the school year 2008-2009, there is a reported number of over 3000 students now attending the school, some being foreign exchange students. From the summer of 2003 to the fall of 2004, Quartz Hill High School's campus underwent a $15 million modernization that updated a majority of the school's classrooms.

Student body

Quartz Hill High School consists of approximately 3,200 students and growing. Most of the school's students live in Quartz Hill,

Palmdale Palmdale is a city in northern Los Angeles County in the U.S. state of California. The city lies in the Antelope Valley region of Southern California. The San Gabriel Mountains separate Palmdale from the Los Angeles Basin to the south. On Aug ...

and Lancaster, cities in the

Antelope Valley The Antelope Valley is located in northern Los Angeles County, California, and the southeast portion of Kern County, California, and constitutes the western tip of the Mojave Desert. It is situated between the Tehachapi, Sierra Pelona, and t ...

of northern Los Angeles County. *American Indian: 0.1% *White: 27.6% *Filipino: 1.8% *Asian: 5.1% *African American: 14.9% *Hispanic: 42.2% *2 or More Races: 8.3%

Academics

Quartz Hill High School is one of 65 high schools in

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

to offer the

International Baccalaureate (IB) 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 ...

Diploma Programme, which began at the school in 1998. Advanced Placement (AP) classes are also available in nearly all academic departments.

Sports

The sports program at Quartz Hill High School includes football,

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

softball Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

, soccer, cross country,

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping eve ...

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

wrestling Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat ...

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Sum ...

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

and dance. The men's cross country team is known as the most successful and most accomplished sports programs in the past ten years at Quartz Hill. Under the helm of Head Coach Matthew Bierowicz, the Quartz Hill cross country team has risen to one of the most prominent and dominant cross country programs in all of California. In 2015, boys' volleyball went undefeated in league play. The team competed in the

CIF Southern Section The California Interscholastic Federation-Southern Section (CIF-SS) is the governing body for high school athletics in most of Southern California and is the largest of the ten sections that comprise the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF ...

playoffs where they went to the finals. Teams began interscholastic competition in the mid-1960s. The

mascot A mascot is any human, animal, or object thought to bring luck, or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name. Mascots are also used as fi ...

of Quartz Hill High School was formerly the Rebel, a

Confederate Confederacy or confederate may refer to: States or communities * Confederate state or confederation, a union of sovereign groups or communities * Confederate States of America, a confederation of secessionist American states that existed between 1 ...

soldier, beginning in the late 1950s. On June 18, 2020, school district administrators announced that the Rebel mascot and name would no longer be used by the school. The change came during a wave of protests in the wake of the

murder of George Floyd On , George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was murdered in the U.S. city of Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer. Floyd had been arrested on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill. Chauvin knelt on Floyd's ...

. A new mascot will be selected by the school's students and staff.

Planned school attack

On December 15, 2005, two former Quartz Hill students were arrested for planning a Columbine style

massacre A massacre is the killing of a large number of people or animals, especially those who are not involved in any fighting or have no way of defending themselves. A massacre is generally considered to be morally unacceptable, especially when per ...

at the school. The two youths allegedly intended to attack the school on February 14, 2006. News reports described them as

goths The Goths ( got, 𐌲𐌿𐍄𐌸𐌹𐌿𐌳𐌰, translit=''Gutþiuda''; la, Gothi, grc-gre, Γότθοι, Gótthoi) were a Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Europe ...

and indicated that they had accumulated knives, ammunition, a gas mask and bomb-making instructions. They were charged on December 19, 2005 with

conspiracy A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agre ...

to commit murder. Tensions flared again on January 13, 2006, when a rumor that the former students who had been arrested would again attempt to attack the school using pipe-bombs. According to Principal Mark Bryant, the planned attacks were merely "rumor, upon rumor, upon rumor." This "Friday the 13th" rumor was passed between students via internet messages and cell-phone text messages. In response to the threat, nearly 50% of the student body was absent from the campus by the time the school day had finished. In the end, the only disruption to the day was a firecracker explosion within a trash can during the school's lunch break.

Notable alumni

* Joseph Castanon - child actor * Kiel McClung - Professional Soccer Player

USL First Division The USL First Division (usually referred to as USL-1) was a professional men's soccer league in the United States and Canada from 2005 to 2010. During its existence, it formed the second tier of soccer in the United States soccer league system ...

* Rick Garcia - News anchor in Los Angeles *

George Murdoch George Murdoch (April 29, 1850 – February 2, 1910) was a Canadian politician, Alberta pioneer, saddle-maker, and the first mayor of Calgary, Alberta. Early life George Murdoch was born in Paisley, Scotland, on April 29, 1850, and at the age o ...

- actor, cable television political commentator, former professional wrestler * Bradley Steven Perry - teen actor * Michelle Perry - Silver medalist in heptathlon, at ''

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

Outdoor Championships'' in 2001, competitor in the 2004 Summer Olympics.

References

External links

Quartz Hill High School Academic Performance Index
{{authority control Educational institutions established in 1964 International Baccalaureate schools in California Education in Lancaster, California High schools in Los Angeles County, California Public high schools in California 1964 establishments in California