Corona del Mar High School

History

The school was founded in 1962. In the mid 1970s, the school went through an extensive design process to develop its media center. The Marian Bergeson Aquatic Center, named for state senator Marian Bergeson who was from Newport Beach, opened in May 1990 at a cost of $1.75 million. In March 2015, a 29,000-square-foot (2,700 m²) performing arts center was finished. The center cost $16 million and seats more than 360 people.

The school has been placed on multiple national and state-level lists of "top schools". In 2011 U.S. News and World Report ranked it 127 of 21,786 high schools in math and science and Newsweek included it as number 172 of the 500 best high schools in the United States. It earned a gold medal from U.S. News and World Report in 2014, with a national ranking of 222 (37 in California).

Between 2009 and 2014 Corona del Mar was the subject of a series of controversies concerning sexism and homophobia. In February 2009, when a production of the musical Rent was cancelled, the theater teacher alleged it was due to the principal objecting to the play's depiction of homosexuality. Student demand eventually brought back the play. The following month, after a video surfaced of male students threatening to rape and kill a female peer, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the school for inadequately responding to, allowing, and even condoning an atmosphere of sexist and homophobic violence. A settlement was reached in September, when the District agreed to create and enforce anti-harassment policies and train both students and staff. In May 2014, the school again attracted negative attention for an NFL-style "prom draft" in which female students were ceremonially "drafted" as dates by their male peers. Writers for the Los Angeles Times cited a former Corona del Mar High School disciplinarian in their argument that the "draft" was the result of a problematic sense of entitlement among Newport Beach residents.

The school also experienced a series of publicized academic integrity incidents. In 2012, school officials discovered that ten students had bought the answers to their tests from Amazon.com. In early 2014, eleven Corona del Mar High School students were expelled for hacking into school computers with the help of a tutor to alter their grades. The following October, the tutor was arrested on charges of burglary and computer access and fraud. In response to the hacking and "prom draft" scandals, the school hired an "ethics consultant" in June 2014, with hopes of restoring the school's reputation. The consultant's duties include training the students to accept diversity and be more honest and inclusive.

Sports

Corona del Mar competes in the Pacific Coast League of the CIF Southern Section. The Sea Kings have won 81 CIF Southern Section Championships and 12 California Interscholastic Federation State Championships.

The school opened a $1.75 million aquatic center in 1992. An evening fundraiser in 2007 raised $221,000 for a refurbishment project. They have won the Boys' Water polo southern section divisional title 13 times, including nine Division 1 titles.

The school has won six State Championships in Girls' Cross Country. In 2010 the boys' soccer team won the SoCal State Championship and finished ranked second in the nation. In 2011 the boys' volleyball team won the Powerade Fab 50 ESPN Rise National championship trophy. The high school also competes in sailing, crew and surfing. Corona del Mar Football won the Division III State Football Championship in 2013.

Parent and booster groups annually raise large sums of money for the school and related extracurricular programs, with just three of the projects raising a total of over $235,000 annually.