Clark Magnet High School

Anderson W. Clark Magnet High School
Established	September 1998
Type	Public Magnet Secondary
Principal	Douglas Dall
Students	1,074
Grades	9–12
Location	Glendale, California, USA
Campus	Suburban
Colors	Green and white
Mascot	Panthers

Anderson W. Clark Magnet High School is located at 4747 New York Avenue in La Crescenta, California. The school is managed as a part of the Glendale Unified School District.

History

The school was originally conceived as the result of the recommendations of the "Vision of the Future" Task Force, created by the Glendale Unified School District to investigate overcrowding at the school district's three comprehensive high schools, Glendale High School, Herbert Hoover and Crescenta Valley. The task force recommended a new magnet school be commissioned with a mandate to focus on advanced technologies and the physical and earth sciences. To alleviate overcrowding, Clark Magnet High School accepts students from the attendance of all three comprehensive high schools through a lottery system.

The school utilizes the former campus of Anderson W. Clark Junior High School. It underwent a US$15,000,000 renovation and opened in September, 1998. The school is the most technologically-advanced in the district, and is bolstered by corporate sponsorships.^[1]

About 300 students are enrolled each year. The Class of 2013 accepted 325 students out of 607 applicants, or about 54%.

Academics

Academically, the school is very high-performing. In 2005, it was designated as a California Distinguished School, an honor bestowed by the California Department of Education to the best schools in the public system, and received the California Exemplary Career Technical Education Program Award.^[2] In 2005, it had the top Academic Performance Index (API) ranking of any high school in the Glendale Unified School District. In 2006 it became a National Blue Ribbon School.

In addition, students of the school won the 2010-2011 Lexus Eco Challenge Grand Prize for their analysis of toxins present in lobsters.^[3]

Sports

Clark Magnet offers an intramural sports program for its students.

An ongoing controversy concerns the school's ability to offer interscholastic sports. The California Interscholastic Federation currently allows Clark students to attend the local High School in their area of residence to participate in Athletics. However, it has repeatedly said that this right would be revoked if Clark were to begin fielding its own interscholastic teams. Clark Magnet, due to restrictions imposed by the geography of the campus, would be unable to field the full spectrum of athletic activities offered by other High Schools in the Glendale area. As such, the decision has been made by the school's administration, thus far, not to pursue the creation of interscholastic teams.

Demographics

Statistics for 2008-2009 School Year [1]

Students By Grade

• Grade 9 - 313
• Grade 10 - 296
• Grade 11 - 261
• Grade 12 - 243

Gender and Ethnicity

Gender

• Male - 579
• Female - 519

Ethnicity

• American Indian/Alaskan Native - 1 (0.1%)
• Asian - 102 (9.5%)
• Hispanic/Latino - 58 (5.4%)
• Caucasian/White (Non-Hispanic) - 842 (78.4%)
• Multiple or No Response - 4 (0.4%)

Clark Magnet, like most GUSD schools, has a sizable population of foreign-born students of Armenian descent (75%).

Robotics

FIRST Robotics Team 696 (The Circuit Breakers) is based at Clark. Since the team's foundation in 2000 and rookie year in 2001, members have created eleven fully functional robots in the six week time period allotted. With the help of several mentors, including employees of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California and various other mentors, the team, composed of high school students (grades nine through twelve), has competed at FIRST Robotics regionals in Los Angeles, California, San Diego, California, and Phoenix, Arizona. In the 2007 season, after taking finalist in the Los Angeles Regional and winning the San Diego Regional, the team attended the international championships in Atlanta, Georgia for the first time in the team's history. In 2011, the team took quarterfinalist at the Los Angeles Regional, held in Long Beach, California, with their robot Reptar.

The 2007 winning drive team was composed of drivers Joshua Robins and Karo Shaginyan, human player Nick Lee, and coach David Black. The 2007 robot, The Burd, featured a pair of individually pneumatic controlled "wings" that could lift two allied robots twelve inches off of the ground.

Mentors

The team is supported by many mentors from a variety of different backgrounds, who guide and assist the students in the creation of each year's robot. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, located in Pasadena, California, has long been a source of mentors for the team. Other mentors come from local community organizations and businesses and provide the team with machining resources and sponsorship. Many parents also mentor the team, and provide guidance through their knowledge of construction, machining, design, and strategy. During the 2010 season, Hannah Goldberg was awarded the Woodie Flowers Award at the San Diego Regional. The Woodie Flowers Award is presented to one outstanding mentor at each FRC competition.

References

1. ^ http://www.thejournal.com/articles/14191
2. ^ http://www.gusd.net/cgi-bin/schools/schools.idc?site_code=9
3. ^ http://www.imakenews.com/parkplacelexus/e_article002079585.cfm?x=b11,0,w

• Magnet School Excitement is Coming to Glendale by Chuck Sambar, The Sambar Press, 1997, retrieved 15 February 2006
• A High School for the Next Millennium: Clark Magnet High School by Douglas Dall, The Journal, August, 1999, retrieved 15 February 2006
• District Schools|Clark Magnet High School retrieved 15 February 2006
• Enrollment Data - 2006-07 2006-07 California Department of Education, retrieved 25 May 2007

External links

• Clark Magnet
• Glendale Unified School District
• California Department of Education
• Clark Chronicle - Student Newspaper
• Clark Humanities - Humanities Course Website
• Clark Robotics - Robotics Team
• http://www.glendalenewspress.com/news/tn-gnp-0503-classroom,0,4680635.story