Garden Spot High School is located in New Holland, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1954, this is the only senior high school in the Eastern Lancaster County School District. It is attached to Garden Spot Middle School, making it easy for those students to go to the high school. It was joined together from six small schools, starting in 1947. The vestibule of the school building's main entrance contains a functioning reconstructed pendulum mechanism taken from the former New Holland High School's clock tower prior to its demolition.
Administration
The assistant principal, Elias Cox, and the principal, Matthew Sanger, have been in place since 2012.
Garden Spot High School's theater program, "Garden Spot Performing Arts", was begun in 1967 by Stanley Deen. The high school's auditorium was named in his honor following the school's 2010-2011 major renovation.
KGSH
Garden Spot High School's television station is KGSH. This airs a morning news program that informs students and teachers of upcoming school events, weather reports, sports news, and e-news. Originally a radio station, KGSH converted to an in-house TV station in 1991. KGSH is also a class in which students learn how to use video editing software to create original or parodied graphics/openings. The station is run by the students. There is only one teacher present during a session, which occurs during second block.
Orchestra and concert band
The Garden Spot High School Orchestra is a symphonic orchestra. String musicians are students selected by audition with the director; wind players are selected based on their audition performance in the Garden Spot High School Concert Band. The orchestra performs a holiday concert in December and an end-of-the-year concert in May, while the Concert Band performs a concert in February. GSHS musicians routinely appear in county and district orchestra festivals.
Sports
Girls' volleyball
The girls' volleyball team have been Lancaster-Lebanon Section 2 Champions in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2019. They appeared as Lancaster/Lebanon League finalists in 2007, 2009, and 2012; they won the LL League Championship in 2008. They were 2007 and 2008 PIAA District III AAA semifinalists, 2007 PIAA AAA runners-up, 2008 PIAA AAA semifinalists, and 2019 PIAA AAA semifinalists.
Boys' basketball
The basketball team won Section 2 Championships from 1999–2001. They won a record 34 straight league games, and were ranked no lower than No. 2 each year in districts. The teams qualified each of those years for the league, district, and state playoffs, and placed second in districts in the 2001 season. Garden Spot boys' basketball star Todd O'Brien went on to play division 1 basketball at Saint Joseph's University and is currently playing professionally overseas.
Boys' football
The 2008 football team reached the District 3 semi-finals. The previous team to make it past the first round was the 2004 squad.
Boys' soccer
The 2002 Lancaster Lebanon League Section 2 soccer team won 14–0, and are the only undefeated soccer team in the school's history. The 1967 soccer team was 12–1–3, winning the League Championship, the PIAA District 3 Championship and the Inter-District 1–3 Championship. There was no state tournament during this era.
School changes
In March 2011, because of education cuts under Governor Tom Corbett, the school laid off at least five teachers who would otherwise have stayed. Many other teachers were disappointed because of the education cuts. The cuts have stayed in place since.
GSHS underwent major renovations in 2010 and 2011. Changes were made to the science wing, family consumer science classrooms, art and visual arts classrooms, cafeteria, performing arts rooms, auditorium, library, staircases, health room, and administration and guidance offices. Renovations were also made to the middle school, high school and main entrances. The middle school was renovated along with the courtyards in the high school. Outdoors, new bleachers and scoreboard were added, along with a concession stand and restrooms.
