Ventura High School


Ventura High School is a secondary school located in Ventura, California. The school was founded in 1889 and is a California Distinguished School. It is part of the Ventura Unified School District.
In 2012, Sebastien De Clerck, a French and Italian language teacher at VHS, was honored as a California Teacher of Year for 2013.

Music

Ventura High's music department has an Instrumental Jazz Ensemble, a Vocal Jazz Ensemble, a Wind Ensemble, a Symphonic Band, a String Orchestra, a Global String Ensemble and a pep-band that is open to all music students and plays at sporting events. The Vocal Jazz Ensemble was added in the 2018-2019 year, and consists of members of the Instrumental Jazz Ensemble and vocalists from all around the school. Both the Wind Ensemble and String Orchestra have earned distinction nationwide at invitational music festivals Boston, New York, Hawaii, and most recently in 2015 at the NAI Invitational Festival in Chicago, Illinois in which both groups won first place gold superior in their divisions and String Orchestra won the entire competition.
The Global String Ensemble is both the intermediate level orchestra which performs basic high school string ensemble repertoire as well as traditional Mariachi ensemble repertoire. The department also has an Honors String Quartet chosen every year that has earned distinction nationwide at District, Regional, and State Festivals.
Most recently in the 2014-2015 school year, the school reestablished a Ventura Unified School District Youth Symphony.

Athletics

Ventura High School athletic teams, nicknamed the Cougars, compete in the Pacific View League, a CIF Southern Section conference which the school joined in 2018. Prior to this, VHS was a long-time member of the Channel League. The school has 21 teams competing at the varsity level. Ventura's primary rival is Buena High School in east Ventura. As of the 2018-19 academic year, David Hess is the athletic director.
Larrabee Stadium, located on the north end of the campus and overlooking the city, is named for alum Mike Larrabee. The football field within the stadium is named for alum Eric "E-Rock" Turner. The gymnasium is named for former coach Bob Tuttle.

Notable alumni