Established in 1950, Junípero Serra High School is a four-year,

private Private or privates may refer to: Music * "In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorded ...

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

coeducational 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 ...

, college preparatory school in

Gardena, California Gardena is a city located in the South Bay region of Los Angeles County, California, United States. The population was 61,027 at the 2020 census, up from 58,829 at the 2010 census. Until 2014, the U.S. census cited the City of Gardena as the ...

, with an alumni body of more than 6,000 located throughout the United States and abroad. Honored as a California State School of the Year, Serra is operated by the

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles The Archdiocese of Los Angeles (, ) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church located in the southern coastal portion of the U.S. state of California. The archdiocese's cathedra is in Los Angeles, and the arc ...

School History

Junípero Serra High School was founded by James Francis Cardinal McIntyre and the

Society of Mary (Marianists) The Society of Mary (, abbreviated S.M.) is a clerical religious congregation of Pontifical Right for men ( brothers and priests) commonly known as the Marianists or Marianist Brothers and Priests. Members append the post-nominal letters "S.M ...

as an all boys school in the South Bay section of Los Angeles. In 1991, Serra expanded its student body and admitted female students for the first time. Serra High is named in honor of Saint Junípero Serra Ferrer O.F.M. (/huːˈniːpəroʊ ˈsɛrə/; Spanish: uˈnipeɾo ˈsera) (November 24, 1713 – August 28, 1784), a patron saint who opened several Spanish missions throughout California.

Admissions

Serra ranks among the top 20% of private schools in California. Serra admissions is determined by a placement examination, personal evaluation, and elementary and middle school grades. Serra is accredited by the

Western Association of Schools and Colleges The Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC ( )) provided accreditation of public and private universities, colleges, secondary and elementary schools in California and Hawaii, the territories of Guam, American Samoa and Northern ...

(ACS WASC Accreditation Code: 19 99938 999);

Western Catholic Educational Association The Western Catholic Educational Association (WCEA) is a private educational accreditation agency for elementary and secondary Catholic schools in Western United States. History It was founded in 1957 in San Francisco. For the 2022–23 academi ...

, the College Board, California Scholarship Federation, and the National Catholic Educational Association.Junipero Serra High School. School Profile. https://4.files.edl.io/efc3/09/26/23/042848-b28547a8-c802-4f53-a963-1e47a350ca48.pdf

Academics

As a college-preparatory school, nearly 100% of Serra graduates go directly to higher education. The most recent graduating class had 100% college acceptance: 89.6% to four-year and 10.3% to two-year. All students are required to complete eight semesters each of English and religion; six semesters each of mathematics and social studies, four semesters each of laboratory science and foreign language; two semesters each of visual performing arts, physical education with health and college-preparatory elective. Eighty hours of community service are also required in order to graduate. The Serra English Department creates writing manuals using students' works and has a long history of welcoming distinguished writers to campus.

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...

winning author

Alex Haley Alexander Murray Palmer Haley (August 11, 1921 – February 10, 1992) was an American writer and the author of the 1976 book '' Roots: The Saga of an American Family.'' ABC adapted the book as a television miniseries of the same name and ...

visited the Serra campus to keynote the launch of the school's capital campaign, and Serra alumnus and poet

Dana Gioia Michael Dana Gioia (; born December 24, 1950) is an American poet, literary critic, literary translator, and essayist. Since the early 1980s, Gioia has been considered part of the highly controversial and countercultural literary movements w ...

, the former chairman of the National Endowment of the Arts, delivered an motivational talk to students. The Serra Science Department includes the Space Team that designs 3D-printing experiments for the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

(ISS). In 2024, the team's most recent experiment launched aboard SpaceX CRS-30 and docked two days later on the ISS. Serra is one of only nine high schools in the U.S. selected to participate in the ISS program. The Serra Drama/Theatre Department received a foundation grant to support performing arts opportunities for students. Several Serra academic departments and the space team benefit from the support of The Ahmanson Foundation, which has donated more than one million dollars to Serra for the purchase of computers, iPads, and projectors, Wi-Fi and server campus updgrades, and to provide student scholarships.

School Campus

The Serra campus sits on a twenty-four acre plot that at the time of the school's founding was land that was being used as a truck garden with a field of cabbages. The Serra football and track and field teams host home games and meets at the Kretschmar Stadium. In November 2024, a fire destroyed parts of the stadium's press box and the upper row bleachers. The boys and girls basketball teams play at the Dwan D. Hurt Memorial Gymnasium, which is named in honor of Hurt, a former Serra basketball coach and alumnus, who died in his sleep in 2016. A group of Serra alumni and friends sponsored construction project build a foyer on the north side of the gymnasium to showcase Serra's team awards, banners, plaques, and trophies, in celebration of the school's athletic accomplishments.

Athletics

CIF, League, and State Championships

The Serra Cavaliers have won at least twelve California State team titles in basketball, football, and track and field, and have won numerous league, regional, and CIF championships in a variety of sports. *

Baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

** CIF Southern Section Champions: 2013 (Division III) ** League Champions: 1959, 1964, 1969, 1971, 2013, 2014, 2022 (Del Rey) *

Basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

(Boys) ** California State Champions: 1993 (Division IV), 2010 (Division III) ** CIF Southern Section Champions: 1993, 1999, 2000, 2006, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2016 ** League Champions: 1976, 1981, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014 *

(Girls) ** California State Champions: 2013 (Division IV), 2018 (Division II) ** CIF Southern Section Champions: 2010, 2011, 2012 ** League Champions: 2004, 2005, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 * Cross Country (Boys) ** League Champions: 2001 *

Football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

** California State Champions: 1989, 2009 (Division III), 2012 (Division II), 2021 (Division 1-A); ** CIF Champions: 1989, 2009 (Division III, Southern California), 2010 (Division II, Southern California), 2012 (Division II, Southern California), 2021 (Division I-A, Southern California) ** League Champions: 1972, 1980, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1997, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014 ** Summer Passing Championships: 2024 *

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

(Boys) ** League Champions: 1958 *

Soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

(Boys) ** League Champions: 2011, 2013 *

(Girls) ** League Champions: 2003, 2004 *

Softball Softball is a Variations of baseball, variation of baseball, the difference being that it is played with a larger ball, on a smaller field, and with only underhand pitches (where the ball is released while the hand is primarily below the ball) ...

** CIF Southern Section Champions: 2018; ** League Champions: 2003, 2017, 2018 *

Swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, such as saltwater or freshwater environments, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Swimmers achieve locomotion by coordinating limb and body movements to achieve hydrody ...

(Boys) ** CIF Southern Section (Division 4) Medalist, 2016 *

Track and Field Track and field (or athletics in British English) is a sport that includes Competition#Sports, athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name used in North America is derived from where the sport takes place, a ru ...

(Boys) ** California State Champions: 2000, 2013; ** CIF Southern Section Champions: 1980, 1981, 1982, 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013; 2022 (Division 4);Gardner, Mark (May 15, 2022)
RECAP CIF-Southern Section All-Division Finals.
Mile Split CA. Retrieved May 18, 2025. 2025 (Division 4) ** League Champions: 1961, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1984, 1985, 1988, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2014 *

(Girls) ** California State Champions: 2012, 2018 ** CIF Southern Section Champions: 2003 (first CIF Girls Title for Serra), 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2018; 2022 (Division 4) ** League Champions: 2002, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 *

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 Summ ...

(Boys) ** League Champions: 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 2004 (Camino Real) *

(Girls) ** League Champions: 2010, 2011

Cal-Hi Sports School of the Year

Serra became the first high school in

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

history to win both state football and basketball titles in the same academic year. Serra was named "2009–2010 State School of the Year" by Cal-Hi Sports, and based on school enrollment, Serra is the smallest school to ever receive this honor and the first State School of the Year recipient from the South Bay region of Los Angeles since the 1960s.

Notable alumni

Since the first graduating class in 1953, Serra alumni have made contributions to the arts, business, entertainment, law, military, politics, technology, and professional sports.

Arts and Entertainment

Arabian Prince Kim Renard Nazel (born June 17, 1965), better known by his stage names Arabian Prince or Professor X, is an American rapper and record producer. He was a founding member of N.W.A and contributed to a few tracks from '' N.W.A. and the Posse'' (19 ...

, rapper, former

N.W.A. N.W.A (an abbreviation for Niggaz Wit Attitudes) was an American hip-hop group formed in Compton, California in 1987. Among the earliest and most significant figures of the gangsta rap subgenre, the group is widely considered one of the great ...

member *

, former

chairman The chair, also chairman, chairwoman, or chairperson, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the gro ...

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...

; and former California Poet Laureate * Montell Jordan, hip hop, R&B recording artist * Terrence Quaites, R&B recording artist with

Cash Money Records Cash Money Records is an American record label founded in 1991 by brothers Ronald "Slim" Williams and Birdman (rapper), Bryan "Baby" Williams. The label gained prominence in the late 1990s for having signed and released albums for New Orleans– ...

, and entrepreneur * Skeme, rapper, performer

Athletics

* Current and/or former

Canadian Football League The Canadian Football League (CFL; , LCF) is a Professional gridiron football, professional Canadian football league in Canada. It comprises nine teams divided into two divisions, with four teams in the East Division (CFL), East Division and f ...

(CFL) players: Sean Weston, David Williams *Current and/or former High School Coaches of the Year: Mike Cook '60 (volleyball), Dwan Hurt '81 (basketball) * Current and/or former

Israeli Basketball Premier League Ligat HaAl (, lit., ''Supreme League or Premier League''), or the Israeli Basketball Premier League, is a professional basketball league in Israel and the highest level of basketball in the country. The league's name is abbreviated as either BSL ...

players: Dakarai Tucker * Current and/or former

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

(MLB) players: Dave Nelson, Dominic Smith, Marcus Wilson * Current and/or former

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada). The NBA is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Ca ...

(NBA) players: Kerry Boagni, Pooh Jeter,

Milt Palacio Milton Sigmund Palacio (born February 7, 1978) is a Belizean American professional basketball coach and former player. Early life Palacio, a Belizean citizen, was born and raised in Los Angeles, California by Belizean parents. College career P ...

*Current and/or former

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...

(NCAA) Athletic Directors: Brian Quinn '59 * Current and/or former National Football League (NFL) coaches and coordinators: Clayton Lopez, Kris Richard * Current and/or former National Football League (NFL) players: Bené Benwikere, Kevin Biggers, Joseph D. Cormier, George Farmer, Deon Figures, DaJohn Harris, Carl Ihenacho, Duke Ihenacho, Adoree Jackson, John Jackson (wide receiver, born 1999), Rocen Keeton, Jordan Lasley, Marqise Lee, Jemeel Powell, Eugene Profit, Kris Richard, Paul Richardson, Nehemiah Shelton, Phil Smith, Jashon Sykes, Theo Viltz, David Williams, Ollie Williams, Robert Woods * Former

United States Football League The United States Football League (USFL) was a professional American football league that played for three seasons, 1983 through 1985. The league played a spring/summer schedule in each of its active seasons. The 1986 season was scheduled to be ...

(USFL) players: Keith Biggers * Former

World Football League The World Football League (WFL) was an American football league that played one full season in 1974 in sports, 1974 and most of its second in 1975 in sports, 1975. Although the league's proclaimed ambition was to bring American football onto a w ...

(WFL) players: Tim Boyer * Ryder Dodd, water polo player (

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

), Olympian, 2025 Peter J. Cutino Award winner

Business

* R. Chad Dreier '65, former president, chairman, and CEO of the Ryland Group, a developer and builder of homes in the U.S. * Gary E. Liebl '59, Chair (ret.), QLogic; Chairman Emeritus, Chaminade University of Honolulu; Life Governor,

Chapman University Chapman University is a private research university in Orange, California, United States. Encompassing eleven colleges, the university is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity". The school maintains its foundi ...

* William Melville, founder, president and CEO (retired), Mayfair Plastics * Eugene Profit '81, CEO, Profit Investment Management; former NFL cornerback

Law

* Patrick Lynch '59, Partner, O'Melveny & Myers (ret.), represented

Oakland Raiders The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team based in Oakland, California, from its founding in 1960 to 1981, and again from 1995 to 2019 before Oakland Raiders relocation to Las Vegas, relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan ...

against the NFL in a landmark case

Military

* Brigadier General Michael J. Aguilar, (USMC) (ret.), Federal Security Director,

San Diego International Airport San Diego International Airport is the primary international airport serving San Diego and its surrounding metropolitan area, in the U.S. state of California. The airport is located northwest of downtown San Diego. It is the busiest single- ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Junipero Serra High School (Gardena, California) Private high schools in Los Angeles County, California Roman Catholic secondary schools in Los Angeles County, California Catholic secondary schools in California Gardena, California Educational institutions established in 1950 1950 establishments in California