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:
“A country grows in history not only because of the heroism of its troops on the field of battle, it grows also when it turns to justice and to right for the conservation of its interests.”
—Aristide Briand (1862–1932)
“The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)