California High School 

California High School is a comprehensive, National Blue Ribbon, fully WASC-accredited 9-12 public school with nearly 3000 students, serving the rapidly growing community of San Ramon.

California High School (commonly referred to as Cal High) is one of two public high schools located in San Ramon, California, USA (Dougherty Valley High School is the other). It’s one of four high schools in the San Ramon Valley Unified School District. Its  mascot is a grizzly bear.

As of the 2014–15 school year, the school enrolled 2,639 students and 107.5 classroom teachers (FTE-based), with a student-teacher ratio of 24.5:1. 78 students (3.0% of enrolment) were eligible for free lunch and 39 (1.5% of students) were eligible for reduced-cost lunch. Cal High’s athletic rivals are Monte Vista High School and San Ramon Valley High School, Danville, and De La Salle High School, Concord.

Awards and recognition

During the 2006–07 school year, California High School was awarded the Blue Ribbon School Award of Excellence by the U.S. Department of Education[6], the highest award that the U.S. School can receive.

Cal High’s monthly student, The Californian, is an award-winning newspaper. Paper writers, photographers, graphic designers and artists won numerous awards from 2000 to 2018, including a total of 17 during the 2007–2008 school year. The first school newspaper, The Bear Facts, was launched in 1973.

California High School was ranked No. 250 in the top 500 U.S. high schools by Newsweek in 2011 and ranked 1.5% of the top 18,000 high schools in the U.S. in 2005. Cal High was a California Distinguished School.

Campus

Cal has an all-weather track and a water centre, including a multi-use athletic stadium and fields (football, soccer, lacrosse, and track and field). Outside, there are six tennis courts, four baseball/softball fields, including one baseball field and one softball field, and an indoor gym and stadium. A two-storey, ten-room building was completed in 2004 and was designated a World Language Building. In 2006, the school added a new main building (67 classrooms on three floors) and a new library. In 2007, the school completed a new career and technology building, a student quad and a consultancy building. The new fine arts building was completed in 2008.

In March 2010, the second gymnasium was completed on the outdoor basketball court site, called the Event Center. A new theater, which has been under renovation for three years, opened in April 2010. It has nine classrooms and is fully equipped with a video production studio and soundroom, and an art gallery to display student work. Cal has a large student and faculty parking area, but demand exceeds the available space.[4] In light of this, many of the streets around the school are parking areas. Cal High also has a recently renovated weight room, equipped with lifting machines and 12 fully stocked Olympic weightlifting cages, mainly used by the football team and weightlifting classes.