Center High School (California)


Center High School is a high school located at 3111 Center Court Lane, in Antelope, California, United States. The school opened up in its current location in 1984. It is one of two high schools in the Center Unified School District and offers a variety of courses, both regular and Honors/AP. The school's colors are blue and gold, and the school mascot is the cougar. The head of the school is Jerald Ferguson and there are two vice-principals. The school is well known for its diversity of many ethnic groups and is an accepting environment.

History

Center High School was under construction for years until it opened in 1982, but moved next door during the summer of 1984. The school's main objective is to make every student a well-developed member of a multi-ethnic society, and "to become actively involved in developing full potential as a human being."

Campus

Center High School consists of various buildings in which classes are held. There are three buildings in the front of the school with the gym and locker rooms in one, the multipurpose room in another, and the administration. The 100-wing is the Humanities building with most of the school's English, Social Studies, and Spanish classes are held and is a two-story building with the 100's on the bottom and the 110's on the top. The 200-wing is the science wing with a special chemistry lab and a staff room, and also consists of a storage center in the center of the building with the classes forming a ring around this center. The 300-wing is a set of portables with the Media Communications Academy and engineering classes taking their residences here. The 400-wing is a set of interconnected math classes and the technical support team is also in this wing. The 500-wing is the home to the school's CTE and business classes. The 600-wing consists of the art, leadership, and Russian classes. In the back of the school, there are three more unnumbered buildings, with one being the Woodshop building, another being the music classroom, and the third being the theater, where drama classes are held, and any school productions also take place here.
The school also hosts a variety of sports facilities as well. The peak of this is the football, soccer and track & field stadium completed in 2009. Basketball and volleyball are played in the main gym, while wrestling takes place in the auxiliary Ken Thomas Gym. There are 6 tennis courts for the tennis team and two each of baseball and softball fields. The swim team uses the pool at nearby Rio Linda High School, while the golf teams use neighboring Cherry Island Golf Course.

Academics

Courses are:
Business,
Career Technical Education,
English,
English Learner,
Foreign Language: Spanish, Russian,
Geometry and Construction,
Media Communications Academy,
Physical Education,
Project Lead the Way,
Science,
Social Studies,
Special Services, and
Visual & Performing Arts.

Media Communications Academy

The school's Media Communications Academy, which is defined as "a school within a school", is dedicated to new media, video and audio production, and digital graphics. The current MCA Department chairman is Matt Chamberlain. The program is available to sophomores and up and here, students are enrolled in classes together as a group for English, Social Studies, Spanish, and Media classes.

Media

Blue & Gold was a school newspaper that covers topics dealing with events and going-ons within the High School as well as in popular entertainment. Its sections include "News", "Scene", "Center Spread", "Athletics", "Forum", and "Photo Essay". Blue & Gold was awarded with multiple Scholastic Crowns from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association in the years 1999, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006 all being Gold awards. After changing 3 Advisers in one year, the 07–08 Newspaper was awarded a Silver Crown.
Center High School's "Epic" yearbook had received seven National Pacemaker Awards. It has also won multiple awards from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006. In 2007-2008, The Epic Yearbook converted from the traditional black-and-white print to an all-color print. The upcoming 2010 design also received two awards at the 2009 Yearbooks CA summer workshop including New Voice and Opening Copy.
Throughout the 2008–2009 school year, C-TV's young staff "work to create relevant and interesting programs for Center High School. It feature seven shows which are created by the students of the Media Communications Academy Advanced Broadcast class and run on a loop for the school on Channel 25 during the school day." Shows in that period included: C-TV News, Monday Mayhem, Current Events, ASB Update, Thiessen's Thoughts, Autofabula, and Battle of the Classes.
During the 2010-2011 school year, C-TV began to broadcast a wave of new shows which included Cougar Nation, Tight Shorts, the CHS Problem Solvers, Warped Wednesday, Murphy's Law, and the Daily Data.
In the summer between the 2016–17 and 2017–18 school years, C-TV had its new studio constructed and now uses it in conjunction with its classic Green Screen setup.
In 2017, the school also debuted its Cougar Sports Network, which utilizes Twitter, Instagram, and Fantag to notify students of games and records every home game. Sports Broadcasting teacher Brina Jope has stated that "We use Fantag at every home game…the kids really enjoy doing it and it creates a lot of opportunity to get video we wouldn’t have had otherwise."

School spirit

Center High School has a high level of school spirit and camaraderie, strongly by strong attendance at football, basketball, and soccer games. Moreover, there are spirit rallies every few months where there is always 95% of the school attending. There is also a high level of rivalry between different classes with each one trying to win the Spirit Stick by being the most spirited class.

Athletics

Sports competed in are:
Football,
Soccer,
Wrestling,
Cheer,
Track & Field,
Softball,
Tennis,
Volleyball,
Golf,
Dance Team,
Cross Country,
Basketball,
Baseball, and
Swimming.

Student groups