Aliso Niguel High School
Aliso Niguel High School is a four-year public school in Aliso Viejo, California. It is a part of the Capistrano Unified School District, founded in the fall of 1993. Its relatively large enrollment of 3,500 is drawn from the nearby communities of Aliso Viejo and Laguna Niguel. This school has also been credited to being a Blue Ribbon School, California Distinguished School, and New American High School.
| Location: | Aliso Viejo, California, United States |
|---|---|
| Principal: | Charles Salter |
| Mascot: | Wolverine |
| Mascot Depiction: | |
| Motto: | "Home of the Wolverines..." |
| School colors | Black, Teal and White |
| League | South Coast League |
| Newspaper | The Growling Wolverine |
| Address: | 28000 Wolverine Way Aliso Viejo, CA 92656-3385 |
| Website: | AlisoNiguel.com |
Academics
Advanced Placement and Honors courses
The school offers Advanced Placement and Honor Courses at all grade levels. Advanced Placement Program (AP) classes are offered in AP Biology, AP Calculus AB, AP Calculus BC, AP Chemistry, AP English Language and Composition, AP French Language, AP European History, AP German Language, AP Microeconomics, AP Physics B, AP Physics C: Mechanics, AP Psychology, AP Spanish Language, AP United States Government and Politics and AP United States History.
These classes are designed for a student who is doing well on his/her subject, and wants a little more challenge on that particular subject. These courses require certain specifications and requirements in order to get into a desired AP class. All AP classes require more work than regular classes, along with more frequent tests, more units to cover, and more assignments to be completed. They are all college-prep classes along with many other classes, and some of them can even help students earn college credits if they qualified for them.
Honor courses, such as Precalculus, are very similar to Advanced Placement classes as it has the same type of qualifications. The only difference is that there is no AP testing, unlike all other AP courses.
Athletics
Aliso Niguel's sports teams are known as the Wolverines. Most of them compete in the South Coast League, at the highest level of the California Interscholastic Federation's Southern Section. In 1996, just their third year of existence, the Wolverine football team went 14-0, winning the Southern Section Division VIII championship, defeating Pacifica High School in the title game.
Now, the Wolverines have moved up a league, due to ongoing success in multiple sports. This includes the Soccer team (both girls and guys team) and the Track and Field team. The Track and Field team has won the sea view league the past 3 years. The Girls' Soccer team and the Boys' Soccer team, in the 2006-2007 year, had both obtained first place in the league. However, they failed to reach the CIF Championships.
Aliso Niguel High School now also boasts an artificial turf football and soccer field added in 2007. The track surrounding it, also upgraded in 2007 is an all-weather track complete with 9 lanes.
The school field house will be home to the Orange County Gladiators of the American Basketball Association when they begin play in fall 2007.
Pep squad
The Varsity Cheer Squad at Aliso Niguel recently won first place in a national competition in their division. Coach Eric Anderson has helped both cheer squads (Varsity and Junior Varsity) become winners of many competitions.
The JV Cheer Squad at the school has been asked to appear in the next "Bring It On" (the movie) because of their advanced stunting. This is a very honorable request in cheerleading, the team is in expectation and the coaches and pep squad adviser are contemplating the decision. Unfortunatly, the "Bring it On" Castings were passed and no answer was heard from Aliso Niguel's JV Cheer Team, so they will not be performing in the upcoming movie.
Controversy
School dance ban
In September of 2006, Charles Salter, the school's principal, canceled the remainder of all school dances in response to students "freak dancing" and arriving drunk to the first dance of the year. Salter stated that he would bring back dances if, and only if, students and parents could cooperate and develop a solution to "the problem." This story made headlines in regional news and appeared on many dancing-related websites.
The story gained widespread, national attention later that month when Salter stood his ground and decided to ban the school's annual Homecoming Dance, which caused him to become the source of much criticism with students and parents, alike. [1]
The dance ban was covered by both the BBC, NPR and the national news program Geraldo at Large.
After not receiving their Homecoming 2006 dance, the principal reinstated the dances until extremely explicit rules that must be held to a higher degree. During the Winter Assembly in January 2007, the rules and regulations will be announced to the student body to explain the "do's" and "do not's" at future dances and the consequences of violating them. The first dance that the students are allowed to attend was the Winter Formal of February 2007. Although students are upset over losing their Homecoming dance, many are relieved that the ban has been lifted and hope that this will not happen again.
Many neighboring schools seemed to suffer worse restrictions due to the media outbreak on the "Dance" issues. Some schools go as far as to play 80's music in order to quell the "inappropriate dancing".
The Spring "Peace, Love, and Happiness" dance scheduled for March 2007 was canceled due to low ticket sales. Only fifteen tickets were successfully sold. Many speculated that this was an attempt to demonstrate to the school's administration that they (the students) were not happy with the way the dances were now handled.
Book based on the school
On October 4, 2006, author Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez released a book entitled Haters, which revolves around a teenage girl who moves to Aliso Viejo, California, and attends Aliso Niguel High School. The book depicts the students of the school as all being popular, cliquey, rich and arrogant; and one of the school's teachers was depicted as being a pedophile. The book was very controversial against students and staff because of the negative light in which the school was depicted, and some students even raised allegations of slander. [2]
Notable alumni
- Sasha Cohen, Olympic figure skater
- Skip Schumaker, MLB Outfielder, Stl. Cardinals
- Ivan Koumaev, contestant on the show So You Think You Can Dance
- Josh Partington, guitarist of Something Corporate
- Derek Lee Rock, drummer for ska band Suburban Legends
- William Freund, double-murder suicide gunman.
Clubs
- Associated Student Body (or ASB) is one of the largest and longest-running clubs on campus at Aliso Niguel High School. This club is made of 40 something people who have been appointed and elected to their positions.
- National Honor Society (or NHS) is also a long-running club that looks highly upon those who have a minimum of 3.8 GPA.
- California Scholarship Federation (or CSF) is another club that looks highly upon those who have a minimum of 3.6 GPA, while completing a given amount of community service to the surrounding area.
Test scores
2005 Results: ANHS scored within the top 90% of all schools in the state that serve 9-12th grades. 90% of all students that took the English Language Arts California High School Exit Exam passed. 91% passed in the Math section.
Performing Arts
Bands
The bands in Aliso Niguel are all under the direction of Duane Otani.
Wind ensemble
The wind ensemble is the most advanced class in all of Mission Viejo High School's band and orchestra classes. These students learn sophisticated understanding of music such as rhythms, key signatures, accents, and terminology. These students represented their high school and nicely reflected their entire band program by having such prestigious performances to various audiences. The students in wind ensemble may also enroll in marching band for P.E. (physical education) credits that are needed to graduate.
Concert band
The concert band, also known as the symphonic band, is another type of band class for the students who have intermediate experience with their instrument. They learn the basic skills of music during the beginning of the school years. These skills include, but are not limited to, flexibility, endurance, and tone qualities. As the school year progresses, music difficulty becomes increasingly more difficult, thus motivating students to acquire more skills of music. They perform various pieces of music from many types of backgrounds. Along with wind ensemble, the concert band may also enroll in marching band for P.E. credits needed to graduate. Those highly competent enough can audition, and if they qualify they can go into wind ensemble.
Marching band
The Aliso Niguel Marching Band has won various sweepstakes awards in local field show competitions at Newport Harbor H.S, Valley View H.S, Mission Viejo H.S, and Trabuco Hills H.S. As part of the Western Band Association, the marching band won 2nd place in the class AAA division finals in the 2005 season, and 4th place in the class AAA division finals in the 2006 season. Adding to the success of the 2005 season, the band has won 1st place in percussion in the class AAA division finals. Also, in the 2006 season, the Color Guard won 1st place during prelims. They beat the World Class guard, Beyer.
Choir
There are four choirs at Aliso Niguel, all directed under Jason Harney. Two of the choirs, Men's Ensemble and Women's Ensemble, are open for all students to join. The second most advanced choir is the Bella Cantore, which is a auditioned choir for women. The most advanced choir is Madrigals, the school's chamber choir. The advanced Madrigals and Bella Cantore choirs were invited to perform in Carnegie Hall in the spring of 2007. They toured New York and also sang in St. Paul's Chapel. Both choirs regularly perform at festivals in nearby universities, including the University of Redlands, Chapman University, the Soka University of America, Cal State Long Beach, and UCSB. They perform in four concerts of their own each year and in the choral department's Coffeehouse Cabaret.
Miscellaneous
Aliso Niguel High School also has orchestra, band, and drama courses available.
Student ethnicity
|