River Valley High School is a public

high school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...

Caledonia, Ohio Caledonia is a village in Marion County, Ohio, United States. The population was 560 at the 2020 census. History The village was named after Caledonia, an ancient name for Scotland, the ancestral home of a large share of the first settlers. Th ...

. It is the only high school in the River Valley Schools district. In the fall of 2003, a new campus was opened for students due to the possibility of cancer-causing chemicals on the old campus.

Statistics and schedules

The school had 600 students in grades 9 through 12 as of March 2025. River Valley is on "block scheduling" which means that the school day is divided into four blocks (''A'', ''B'', ''C'', and ''D''). Each full block class meets for 93 minutes per day for 18 weeks, or until the first semester ends. Once the semester is over, students are finished with that semester's classes and have new classes to begin after winter

exams An examination (exam or evaluation) or test is an educational assessment intended to measure a test-taker's knowledge, skill, aptitude, physical fitness, or classification in many other topics (e.g., beliefs). A test may be administered verba ...

. They remain in this second round of classes until the end of the school year. River Valley does not have midterms as a whole student body, like other schools around the state, but individual classes have their own midterms scheduled. They have two Elementary Schools, Liberty Elementary School and Heritage Elementary School, and a middle school.

Academics

In order to graduate, students must obtain 21 credits by the end of their senior year. They are required 4 credits of

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

, 4 credits of

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

, 3 credits of

science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

, 3 credits of

history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

(often referred to as

social studies In many countries' curricula, social studies is the combined study of humanities, the arts, and social sciences, mainly including history, economics, and civics. The term was coined by American educators around the turn of the twentieth century as ...

), a half-credit of

health Health has a variety of definitions, which have been used for different purposes over time. In general, it refers to physical and emotional well-being, especially that associated with normal functioning of the human body, absent of disease, p ...

, a half-credit of

physical education Physical education is an academic subject taught in schools worldwide, encompassing Primary education, primary, Secondary education, secondary, and sometimes tertiary education. It is often referred to as Phys. Ed. or PE, and in the United Stat ...

(which is two .25 credit hour classes), and a half-credit of Life Planning (all seniors are required to take this class except those who take at least 3 years of Agricultural Science). Students planning on going to college after graduation are highly encouraged to take 4 credits of English (with emphasis on

composition Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature *Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography * Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include ...

), 3 credits of

(

Algebra I Algebra is a branch of mathematics that deals with abstract systems, known as algebraic structures, and the manipulation of expressions within those systems. It is a generalization of arithmetic that introduces variables and algebraic operati ...

Geometry Geometry (; ) is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician w ...

Algebra II Algebra is a branch of mathematics that deals with abstract systems, known as algebraic structures, and the manipulation of expressions within those systems. It is a generalization of arithmetic that introduces variables and algebraic operati ...

), 3 credits of

(including Physical Science,

Biology Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...

and

Chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

), 3 credits of

, 2 credits of

foreign language A foreign language is a language that is not an official language of, nor typically spoken in, a specific country. Native speakers from that country usually need to acquire it through conscious learning, such as through language lessons at schoo ...

(some schools now recommend 3), and one credit of

art Art is a diverse range of cultural activity centered around ''works'' utilizing creative or imaginative talents, which are expected to evoke a worthwhile experience, generally through an expression of emotional power, conceptual ideas, tec ...

. River Valley does have a long list of academic classes offered regularly, including Advanced Placement courses that allow obtaining of college credit by taking a test at the end of the school year, and are a weighted grade for your high school GPA. They also offer extra core academic classes, such as Physics, Anatomy and Physiology, Pre-Calculus, and D.C. Calculus, for those who wish to have a more rigorous schedule or to explore an area of academics further. Until the 2005 school year, River Valley also offered 3 foreign languages (Spanish, French and German) but had to drop German due to financial difficulties. In 2010 they dropped French, also due to financial difficulties.

Cancer scare

Several families raised concerns about the number of leukemia cases among River Valley High School (RVS) graduates: as of April 11, 1999, there were 94 cases in a population of about 35,000. These families formed a parent group called the Concerned River Valley Families. In August 1997, the

Ohio Environmental Protection Agency The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (Ohio EPA) is the administrative department of the Ohio state government Ohio Rev. Code § 121.01 ''et seq.'' responsible for protecting the environment and public health by ensuring compliance with envir ...

(EPA) and

Ohio Department of Health The Ohio Department of Health (ODH) is the administrative department of the Ohio state government responsible for coordinating activities for child and family health services, children with medical handicaps, early intervention services, nutritio ...

(ODH) conducted an initial environmental site assessment of the RVS campus. Based on these assessments, a determination was made that the campus was located on a formerly used defense site (FUDS) known as Marion Engineering Depot (MED). The site was used for storing, maintaining and renovating heavy construction machinery for the U.S. Army from 1942 until 1962. Congress established the Defense Environmental Restoration Program/Formerly Used Defense Site (DERP/FUDS) program to clean up properties that were under the jurisdiction of the Secretary and owned, leased, or possessed by the United States and transferred from

Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and supervising the six U.S. armed services: the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, ...

(DoD) control prior to October 17, 1986. The

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is the military engineering branch of the United States Army. A direct reporting unit (DRU), it has three primary mission areas: Engineer Regiment, military construction, and civil wor ...

(USACE) manages the FUDS program. In December 2000, a Memorandum of Understanding and a Cooperative Agreement was signed by the Department of Army, River Valley Schools and State of Ohio to share in the costs of relocating the River Valley Middle and High School campus. As a result of this Cooperative Agreement, the schools were relocated in the fall 2003. An ODH study released in 2001 concluded that continued study of leukemia among Marion County residents and RVS graduates would be unlikely to identify additional factors explaining the disease's incidence in these populations.

Athletics

* Wrestling * Football * Basketball * Baseball * Softball * Tennis * Soccer * Track & Field * Cross Country * Volleyball * Golf * Bowling * Swimming * Cheerleading

Ohio High School Athletic Association State Championships

* Boys' Cross Country – 1966

Ohio High School Athletic Association District Championships

*Boys'

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 ...

- 2006-07

Extracurriculars

*Industrial Tech Club *

FFA FFA may refer to: Aviation and military * First Flight Airport, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, United States * Free-fire area in U.S. military parlance * Flug- und Fahrzeugwerke Altenrhein, a Swiss aircraft and railway vehicle manufacturer * Fe ...

*Marching Band *Concert Band *Jazz Band *Orchestra #Rock Orchestra #Fab Four String Quartet #River Valley Baroque Chamber Orchestra *Show Choir #Music Company (Mixed SATB) *Academic Challenge Team *Musical *

National Honor Society The National Honor Society (NHS) is one of the oldest, largest, and most widely recognized cocurricular student organizations in American high schools, with 1.4 million members. The purpose of the NHS is to create enthusiasm for scholarship, to ...

Other schools in the district

*Heritage Elementary School *Liberty Elementary School *River Valley High School *River Valley Middle School

Notable alumni

* Michael J. McCord - Comptroller of the Department of Defense in the

Biden administration Joe Biden's tenure as the List of presidents of the United States, 46th president of the United States began with Inauguration of Joe Biden, his inauguration on January 20, 2021, and ended on January 20, 2025. Biden, a member of the Democr ...

and

Obama administration Barack Obama's tenure as the 44th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2009, and ended on January 20, 2017. Obama, a Democrat from Illinois, took office following his victory over Republican nomine ...

* Julie A. Kientz - computer scientist and full professor at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

Shawn Grate Shawn Michael Grate (born August 8, 1976) is an American serial killer and Rape, rapist who was Capital punishment in Ohio, sentenced to death for the murders of five young women in and around northern Ohio from 2006 to 2016. Grate was convicted ...

- convicted serial killer

References

External links

District Website
{{authority control High schools in Marion County, Ohio Public high schools in Ohio