Keystone Oaks High School

Infobox school
name = Keystone Oaks High School
motto=
district= Keystone Oaks School District
established=1969
type= Public high school
location = 1000 Kelton Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 15216 coord|40.387120|N|80.030297|W|type:edu|display=title
faculty =
grades= 9–12
enrollment = 865
mascot = The Golden Eagle
information = 412-571-6039
principal = Scott Hagy
website = [http://www.kosd.org/login.aspx?id=276 K.O. High School]

Keystone Oaks High School, built in 1969, is a public high school in the South Hills suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is the only high school in the Keystone Oaks School District. It is usually referred to as "KO."

History

The main building of the high school was built in 1969, four years after the three suburbs of Green Tree, Dormont and Castle Shannon combined their students to form a common school district. The high school was built on a 43-acre tract of land in neighboring Mount Lebanon, just outside the southwest border of Dormont. The site adjoined the Kelton Avenue Elementary School, which no longer exists.

The name 'Keystone Oaks' refers to the merger of the three school districts: 'key' for the 'door' in Dormont; 'stone' from the 'castle' in Castle Shannon; and 'oak' as a tree in Green Tree.

Due to the deteriorating state of the district's Jay Neff Middle School (the original Dormont High School), a new middle school was attached to the old high school in 1996. This precipitated a massive redesign of the grounds, including the demolition of a little-used outdoor amphitheatre and the construction of a band practice field and new tennis courts. These tennis courts were later repaved in 2006.

Through the summer of 2001 and the 2001-2002 school year, the high school was extensively renovated.

In January 2007, the school officially decided to turn its Journalism and TV/Video Classes into clubs, so as to ease the strain of increased class sizes on English teachers.

The Building

Keystone Oaks High School is a two-and-a-half story red brick building. Its shape is basically rectangular, with a one-story library bisecting its longest sides. Two arms extend out from its western and southern corners; the western arm houses the gymnasium, weight room, and pool, and the southern arm links to the middle school, auditorium, and art classrooms. The bottom floor of the main building houses lockers, administrative offices, and (since the 2001-2002 renovations) middle school classrooms. The top two floors are almost entirely classrooms.

The pool has a 12 foot deep end, and roughly a 4 foot shallow end, and has a diving board, an electronic scoreboard, and bench-style stadium seating. The swim team has its own separate locker rooms, apart from the larger locker rooms designated for the basketball, wrestling, and football teams.

The High School contains a planetarium that had languished in disrepair from the mid 1980s into the late 1990s. It has since been refurbished and is one of the school's most interesting bits.

The Arts

Keystone Oaks has a very talented group of students interested in music and the arts.

In February 2007, the high school hosted the PMEA District 1 West Band Festival,in which nine Keystone Oaks students participated. The school also regularly sends students to PMEA District 1 Honors Band, as well as to PMEA Region Band and occasionally to State Band.

Each year, Keystone Oaks High School students perform a spring musical. In recent years, performances have included Children of Eden, Footloose, The Secret Garden, Once On This Island, and Singin' in the Rain. In March 2007, they performed Anything Goes. Most recently, the school performed Brigadoon.

Since the introduction of Mr. Richard Fosbrink into the musical department as choral and musical director in 2005, Keystone Oaks' musical cast has participated in the Gene Kelly Awards, a Pittsburgh-area event awarding outstanding achievement in high school musical theater.

Clubs and Activities

The school has many after school clubs and activities, including langauage clubs, SADD, Pep Club, and yearbook, to name a few.

Marching Band

The Keystone Oaks High School Marching Band allows students of the KO High School, and select students of the 8th grade class, to participate in supporting their school through various functions, such as football games, band festivals, and parades. However, the KO marching Band is a non-competitive band.

The band currently consists of roughly 90 members, conducted by drum majors Ian Cummins and Danielle Lorenz. Current band directors are Mrs. Laura Hanlon and Ms. Natalie Earls. In charge of the drum line of the band is Mr. Dan Hanlon. The Keystone Oaks Color Guard is under the direction of Ms. Earls.

Athletics (Keystone Oaks Golden Eagles)

Keystone Oaks is a member of the [http://www.wpial.org/ Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League] . While not known as any athletic powerhouse, the wrestling, swimming, and tennis teams have at times seen success. Its football team is looking towards a bright future with many sophomores starting on the offensive line and other prestigious running backs and skill positions. Look for this team to be good in the 2008 and 2009 seasons. Note: Keystone Oaks will be moving down to AA instead of its usual AAA ranking due to amount of students attending.

As Keystone Oaks High School is located outside the southern end of Dormont, their football stadium is located at the northern end (Hillsdale Ave.) near the Banksville/Pittsburgh border.

The school only has a few rivalries of note. Chartiers Valley High School can be considered a rival, but KO is especially at odds with Thomas Jefferson High School. Both can be considered rivals of KO due to the similarities in demographics and because the three schools often are in the same section of WPIAL. In some sense, Mount Lebanon High School is also a rival by geography, since KO is located within Mount Lebanon, but has no student from there. Seton-La Salle Catholic High School, located across the street from KO, was in former times a rival, but declining enrollment has led the two schools to be moved into different classes in WPIAL, and the rivalry has died down.

Starting with the 2008 football season,the Keystone Oaks/ Seton-La Salle Rival has been renewed. Keystone Oaks has moved to Class AA and plays in the Century Conference, in addition to Seton-Lasalle.

Alumni

The comedian Dennis Miller graduated from Keystone Oaks. Supposedly one of his popular early routines was about an algebra teacher from the school.

Terry Haas, co-host of the HGTV series Designed to Sell, is also a Keystone Oaks alumna. ["'Designed to Sell' has South Hills connection", The Almanac, Sept. 13, 2006]

Michael J. Tobin, PhD, Adjunct Professor at Duquesne University Center for Environmental Research and Education, Senior Consultant of ChemADVISOR, Inc. and Officer of the Board of Directors of Healthy Home Resources, graduated in 1975

Congressman and 2008 Presidential Candidate Ron Paul of Texas also attended the school. (He graduated from Dormont High School, which merged into Keystone Oaks in 1965.)

[http://www.ohsu.edu/ohsuedu/academic/som/dmice/people/faculty/sittig.cfm Dean F. Sittig, Ph.D.] , editor of [http://www.informatics-review.com The Informatics Review] , an online serial devoted to helping clinicians and information technology professional keep up with the rapidly changing field of clinical informatics graduated in 1979. Dr. Sittig played basketball and tennis while at Keystone Oaks.

[http://www.law.du.edu/russell/ Thomas D. Russell, J.D., Ph.D.] Professor of Law at the University of University in Denver, CO attended KOHS from 1975-1979.

tandard & Poor's Rating of Allegheny County School Districts

Keystone Oaks: Moderately above-average student results. Comparatively high spending.

References