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Beverly Hills High School (usually abbreviated as "Beverly") is the only public high school in Beverly Hills, California. Beverly is part of the Beverly Hills Unified School District and is located on the west side of Beverly Hills on the Century City border.

Beverly Hills High School was founded in 1927. Over 2,000 students currently attend the school. About 35% of Beverly's current student body were not born in the United States, and over half of Beverly's students speak a first language other than English. Many of these students are from Iran, or are of Iranian descent. There are also many students from South Korea, Israel, and Russia, as well as from many other countries and language backgrounds.

Academics

Beverly has an excellent academic reputation, by both national standards and by the standards of other public high schools in Southern California. Beverly Hills on numerous occasions has won the Blue Ribbon award for its excellence. Furthermore, BHHS has two award winning news services: KBEV, the first student TV news broadcast channel in the nation as well as the longest running one, and Highlights the school's newspaper, which has also won various awards for its reporting and writing.

Beverly Hills High School also has an award winning US FIRST Robotics Team, that made it to the Championship Competition as a rookie team. In the 2005-2006 school year the football and basketball teams made Los Angeles CIF and the freshman football team won the championship in the Ocean League. Beverly Hills High School also approved a mens Junior Varsity and Varsity lacrosse program for the 2005-2006 school year and a womens lacrosse team for the 2006-2007 school year.

Athletics

• Baseball
• Basketball
• Cheerleading
• Cross Country
• Football
• Lacrosse
• Soccer
• Softball
• Tennis
• Track and Field
• Water Polo

Beverly in the media

Beverly gained a lot of unwanted notoriety during the 1990s because of the popularity of the Beverly Hills 90210 television drama. The producer, Aaron Spelling initially wanted to call the show "Beverly Hills High School" and he wanted to film the show on location at Beverly. The Beverly Hills School Board refused to let Spelling film at Beverly or use "Beverly Hills High School" as a title for the show. The show then created a fictional high school, "West Beverly Hills High School" (or "West Beverly,") and it was filmed at North Torrance High School. "West Beverly" is an obvious reference to Beverly Hills High School, because Beverly's campus is further west than any other part of Beverly Hills. It is not uncommon for tourists to visit Beverly, mistaking it for the fictional West Beverly.

Beverly Hills High School has been featured in the movies Clueless, Real Women Have Curves, and It's a Wonderful Life. It's a Wonderful Life featured a scene in Beverly's unique swim gym, perhaps the only swim gym that has a basketball court that can split open to reveal an Olympic sized swimming pool underneath. Built in the 1930s as a New Deal project, Beverly's swim gym can be used to play volleyball, basketball, water polo, for swimming, and general physical education.

Oil well

Beverly is perhaps the only public high school in the country with an oil well on its' campus. Owned by Venoco Oil Co., the well can be easily seen by any car driving by Beverly on Olymic Blvd. on the way to Century City. The oil well has drilled most the oil out of Beverly's campus, and has been slant drilling under many homes and apartment buildings in Beverly Hills for decades. In the mid 1990s an "art studio" volunteered to cover the well with individual tiles that were all painted by "kids with cancer." The "art studio" created the design and drew the lines on the tiles, but children with cancer did paint the tiles in between the lines. The art studio made the design very "modern art;" the design consists of random shapes on different colored backgrounds. Not everybody likes the design, but nearly everyone would agree that the oil well looks better than it did when it was painted solidly with an ugly shade of grey.

Beverly gained more unwanted notority when Erin Brockovich and Ed Masry filed three lawsuits in 2003 and 2004 on behalf of 25, 400, and 300 (respectively) former students who attended Beverly during the 70s, 80s and 90s. The lawsuits claim that toxic fumes from the oil well caused the former students to develop Hodgkin's disease or cancer. The oil well is very close to all of Beverly's sports facilities, including the soccer field, the football field, and the racetrack. Nearly all Beverly stundents, not just the athletes but any student taking a required physical education class thoughout the 70s, 80s and 90s were required to run near the oil well. Ed Masry claims that Beverly Hills High School's cancer rate is 20 to 30 times the national average. Beverly Hills, the school district and the oil companies named as plaintiffs dispute this, claiming that they have done air quality tests with results showing that air quality is normal at the high school.

File:28-bevhills-inside.jpg

Notable alumni

BHHS has a number of famous alumni, many of whom are well-known entertainers or the children of entertainers or of other celebrities. In addition, many famous people have taught at the school; soap opera actor John Ingle taught the drama and acting program at the school for twenty years.

External links

• Beverly Hills Unified School District homepage
• Beverly Hills High School Alumni Website
• Beverly Underground homepage
• Official Beverly Hills High School academic achievement profile
• Aerial Photograph from Google Maps

• Beverly Hills, California
• Educational institutions established in 1927
• High schools in California
• Los Angeles County, California