*** Welcome to piglix ***

West Valley High School (Alaska)

West Valley High School
Address
3800 Geist Road
Fairbanks, Alaska 99709
USA
Coordinates 64°51′05″N 147°49′29″W / 64.85139°N 147.82472°W / 64.85139; -147.82472Coordinates: 64°51′05″N 147°49′29″W / 64.85139°N 147.82472°W / 64.85139; -147.82472
Information
Type Public secondary
Established 1975
School district Fairbanks North Star
Principal Shaun Kraska
Grades 9–12
Enrollment 1,027 (2015–2016 school year)
Color(s) Red      and
gold     
Athletics Most sports
Athletics conference ASAA Mid-Alaska (baseball, basketball, ice hockey, soccer, swimming/diving, volleyball, wrestling), ASAA Railbelt (football, softball)
Mascot Wolfpack
Rival Lathrop High School
Newspaper The Howler
Yearbook Aurora
Website
West Valley High School Fairbanks Alaska.jpg
View looking northwest at the school's front, photographed May 2011. Buildings of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, including the University of Alaska Museum of the North, can be seen in the background.

West Valley High School (WVHS) is a public high school in Fairbanks, Alaska, United States, one of four standalone high schools and one of ten schools offering instruction in grades nine through twelve in the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District. Physcially located adjacent to the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) campus in the census-designated place boundaries of College, WVHS and crosstown rival Lathrop High School cover a combined attendance area encompassing the majority of the urban core and outskirts of Fairbanks, with WVHS's attendance area serving the westernmost portions of that area. The Alaska Department of Education & Early Development reported the school's enrollment at 1,027 on October 1, 2015. The school mascot is the Wolfpack and its colors are red and gold. WVHS is highly regarded as a school that possesses one of the most rigorous educational experiences that can be found anywhere in the state of Alaska. Teachers, students, and administrators have received a myriad of awards that have confirmed West Valley's position as a prideful and genuine educationally advanced institution.

Originally scheduled to open at the beginning of the 1976 school year, construction delays caused the school to open after the school year had already started. To make up for the lost time, mandatory Saturday school days were put in place for three months. The facility was built to accommodate 750 students, but the 1976-77 school year saw over 1000 students. In 1994, the Hutchison Career Center, now called Hutchison High School and located next door to the east, started to house additional high school classes during the school day. A major renovation of the school was completed in 2000, roughly doubling the amount of classroom space to serve up to 1300 students.

The current principal of West Valley is Shaun Kraska, who replaced West Valley's longest-serving principal, Marianne Carlson — who had been a gym teacher for several years prior — in 2007. At the school's inception it come to be known as "Mr. Rodgers' Neighborhood" after long time school administrator Bill Rodgers. Mrs. Kraska came to West Valley as an English teacher in 1994, and was also a vice principal before taking over as principal. There is a glass cage with three stuffed wolves, completed c. 1977, in West Valley's main commons. It is known as the "wolf cage" and is one way the school greets its students and visitors.


...
Wikipedia

...