History
The high school was opened in September 1910 after 10 acres (40,000 m2) of desert brush land was donated. CVHS is the oldest public school in the Coachella Valley. It was incorporated into the Coachella Valley Unified School District in 1966 to include a high school instead of only elementary schools in nearby Coachella. A second high school, Desert Mirage High School opened in 2003 to ease overcrowding (at 2,500 maximum in the early 2000s).
The school's location was decided on because it was the central point of the Coachella Valley. In 2002, social studies teacher Chauncey Veatch was honored as National Teacher of the Year.
Rumor has it the school mascot was named to honor the once large imported Arab colony involved in the date palm growing industry, but the mascot namesake is the local desert foundation. In 2002, CVHS officials had a meeting whether to rename the mascot out of concern it might produce negative stereotypes against Arabs and Middle Eastern people, after the September 11 terrorist attacks. The mascot name remains unchanged and concerns over the sensitivity of "Arabs" continues.
Read more about this topic: Coachella Valley High School
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man’s right to his body, or woman’s right to her soul.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“Boys forget what their country means by just reading “the land of the free” in history books. Then they get to be men, they forget even more. Liberty’s too precious a thing to be buried in books.”
—Sidney Buchman (1902–1975)