Type Charter High School Established Fall 2000 Phone +1 559-278-8263 Mascot Phoenix | Motto Ad Astra Per Aspera Grades 9 - 12 Principal Dr. James Bushman | |
Enrollment appx 435 (as of 2011-12) Color(s) Red, Gold, Black, White Address 2611 E. Matoian Way, MS/UH134, Fresno, CA 93740, USA District Fresno Unified School District Similar California State University, Clovis West High School, San Joaquin Memorial, Bullard High School, Fresno High School | ||
University High School (UHS) is a charter high school on the campus of California State University, Fresno, in Fresno, California. The school emphasizes academics and music. UHS opened in 2000 with Dr. Brad Hufft as the founding Head of School, and its first seniors graduated in 2004. At the end of the 2004-2005 school year, approximately 370 students were enrolled. James Bushman, Ed.D., has been Head of School since 2006. University High School is chartered by Fresno Unified School District and has special autonomy over its administration.
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Application process
Prospective students must apply to UHS with at least intermediate-level proficiency in instrumental or vocal music. The school accepts approximately 125 new freshmen per year. It is possible to transfer to the school as a junior, but this requires taking the first-year Latin and musicianship courses in summer school or acquiring some exemptions from the administration. Students attend for the school's music program and its academic rigor.
Curriculum
UHS students study, in addition to normal high school courses, two years of Latin and four years of musicianship, entailing musicology, music theory, audiation, and musical analysis. Because of its location on the CSUF campus, students also have the opportunity to take a limited amount of classes through the university for college credit, some of which UHS itself requires. After protracted use of University buildings and portables, the new building was completed in time for the 2011-2012 school year.
Extracurricular activities
The school is also the nine time champions in the Small School Aademic Decathlon Online National Competition University High School also won the Fresno County Academic Decathlon in 2010, 2012, 2013 and 2016, making UHS one of only 3 schools to have ever won consecutive Fresno County Championships.
UHS also took first place in Fresno County Science Olympiad for the first time ever in 2012.
New Building
In October 2009, construction began on a brand new facility for University High School, designed to replace the complex of portables that had held students for the previous nine years. The new building contains 11 new classrooms, four science labs, three music rooms, and a Mac-based computer lab. The building is split into three wings: the leftmost administration wing, the center classroom wing, and the rightmost music wing. Every classroom is fitted with state of the art tools to enhance the learning process such as interactive whiteboards and Steelcase desk chairs that offer reclination. All of the music rooms are acoustically engineered for the types of ensembles performing in them. The building also contains a fitness center, which the school won as a result of their achievement in the Governor's fitness challenge. On November 16, 2010, classes were cancelled at the school, and students and faculty all helped to move from the old portables, to the new facility. The building is dedicated to the late Dean Luis Costa, a former Fresno State Dean of Arts and Humanities who played a major role in founding the school in 2000, and President John Welty, the president of Fresno State at the time of the high school's opening and during the entire building process.
Awards
University High School is recognized as a Gold Medal School and was ranked as the 42nd best public high school in the United States by US World and News Report.