Los Gatos High School

Los Gatos High School is located on Main Street in Los Gatos.

Los Gatos High School (LGHS) is a high school in Los Gatos, California, a small town near San Jose in the Silicon Valley. Los Gatos High School was founded in 1908 and is part of the Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint Union High School District. During the late 1880s up until the establishment of Los Gatos High School, high school aged students were taught at Los Gatos Central School, a grammar school which was established in 1886.

The school enrolls approximately 1700 students and employs about 100 teachers. In 2004, 94% of graduating seniors went on to attend college, including 64% to four-year colleges. Los Gatos High School is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) and has regularly received six-year accreditations, the highest possible. The school has been recognized twice as a National School for Excellence. LGHS is also notable for its sports programs and exceptional athletes, making it unique among academically distinguished public schools in the area.

The current school landscape is notable for its spacious extensive front lawn and neoclassical main building, which was designed by W. H. Weeks, a famous architect of schools of California. His Greek Revival style was famous in the 1920s and 1930s. The main building was dedicated on January 17, 1925, built using a $250,000 bond measure which passed in 1923. Other buildings and various additions to the main building were built in the period between the dedication of the main building in 1925 and 1970. The school underwent no major construction from 1970 until 1998, when the school successfully passed a $79 million bond measure in the town of Los Gatos to renovate the aging buildings. Since then, several new buildings have been constructed, and all of the old buildings have been renovated.

Due to the unusual joint cooperative nature of the Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint Union High School District, Saratoga High School shares Los Gatos High School's Prentiss Brown Auditorium for performing arts and Helm Field for football games. Both are located on the grounds of Los Gatos High School but are available for equal use by both schools. Consequently, when the Los Gatos High School football team plays Saratoga, both are actually the home teams since they share the field. The title of home team is switched each year when the two schools play each other.The Los Gatos High School mascot is the wildcat. Although the wildcat is a very common school mascot, it is perhaps uniquely suited to Los Gatos High School, as los gatos is Spanish for the cats.

Notable alumni

Notable alumni at Los Gatos High School include:
* Kari Byron is best known for her appearance on the Discovery Channel show MythBusters
* Michael Eugene Couchee, Major League Baseball player
* Actress Olivia de Havilland, who played Melanie Hamilton in Gone with the Wind
* Joan Fontaine (sister of Olivia de Havilland)
* Scott Frank, screenwriter, who wrote the screenplays to Get Shorty and Minority Report
* Ryan Nyquist, a professional BMX rider
* Terry Scott Taylor, lead singer and songwriter for Daniel Amos, The Swirling Eddies and founding member of Lost Dogs
* 9/11 victims Mark Bingham and Todd Beamer
* Members of the bands dredg and Trapt
* Jared Allen, NFL defensive end for the Kansas City ChiefsOlivia de Havilland spoke at the school's centennial commencement in 1988.

In the media

The front exterior of the school was used on The Amanda Show starring Amanda Bynes. It was used in the show's soap opera spoof segment called "Moody's Point". The school was also used as a filming location for several scenes in the 1996 made-for-TV movie Lying Eyes. The school, its stadium and track, and nearby Santa Cruz Ave were also used for filming an episode of the 1986 TV Show "Starman"; drama students played the role of some extras.

Los Gatos High School: Encyclopedia BETA

Contents

Los Gatos High School

Notable alumni

In the media

Principals

References

External links