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Granite Bay High School

Established	1996
Type	Public, Secondary
Principal	Michael McGuire
Students	2,100
Grades	9th – 12th
Location	Granite Bay, Placer County, California, United States
District	Roseville Joint Union High School District
Colors	Green, Silver, and Black
Mascot	Grizzly Bear
Newspaper	The Granite Bay Gazette
Website	granitebayhigh.org

Granite Bay High School is located in Granite Bay, California. Granite Bay High School was named a National Blue Ribbon School by the United States Secretary of Education in 2002 and a California Distinguished School in 2007.

Contents 1 Notable alumni 2 Intelligent Design Debate 3 Newspaper 4 Extracurricular activities 4.1 Emerald Brigade 4.2 Choir 4.3 Competitive Forensics 4.4 Academic Decathlon 4.5 Student Government 4.6 Technology Programs

[edit] Notable alumni

• Natalie Gulbis - LPGA golfer
• Adam Jennings - wide receiver for the Atlanta Falcons
• Dallas Sartz (2002) - former linebacker for the Washington Redskins and the Seattle Seahawks
• Sammie Stroughter (2004) - Oregon State University and Tampa Bay Buccaneers football player.
• Alicia Parlette - copy editor and former columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle
• Greg Checchi (2002) - Independent filmmaker and cameraman for Smosh.

[edit] Intelligent Design Debate

Granite Bay High School garnered significant media attention before and when the Roseville Joint Union High School District (to which GBHS belongs) was sued by the non-profit foundation Quality Science Education for All. Larry Caldwell, president of QSEA, had children who attended GBHS. Many of his criticisms surrounding his lawsuit, Caldwell v. Roseville Joint Union High School District, were aimed at GBHS teachers. The lawsuit, filed in 2005, came about after about 2 years of debate by the RJUHSD school board and a 3-2 vote denying QSEA's proposed intelligent design curriculum. Caldwell's organization proposes "a science education that exposes students to scientific evidence that supports Darwin's theory of evolution, as well as scientific evidence such as the Cambrian Explosion that poses challenges to Darwin's theory, as recommended by the California State Board of Education."[1]^{[broken citation]}

[edit] Newspaper

Granite Bay High School is host to the nationally acclaimed newspaper, the Granite Bay Gazette. The Gazette has won, in the last decade, the Pacemaker Award from the National Scholastic Press Association, Gold and Silver Crown awards from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association and the George H. Gallup Award from the Quill and Scroll Society. In California, the Gazette has twice been named the first-place winner for general excellence by the California Newspaper Publishers Association, making it the top newspaper in the state. In October 2007, the Gazette won the Best of the West title at the state journalism convention.

The newspaper first was published as the Grizzly Gazette under adviser Kay Bacharach and was a small single-section tabloid. The next year, in 1998, Karl Grubaugh took over the adviser position. For the next four years the paper flourished, turning into a full-sized broadsheet newspaper. In 2003, Lisa Olmo became adviser for a year and a half, followed by interim adviser Kevin Wherry in the spring of 2005. Grubaugh returned in the fall of 2005. The current co-editors-in-chief of the Granite Bay Gazette are Teresa Palkowski, Kurt Chirbas, and Joseph Mullen. [2]

[edit] Extracurricular activities

[edit] Emerald Brigade

GBHS's Emerald Brigade consists of the award-winning marching band and colorguard, jazz band, concert band, and winter programs. From its inception up until 2005, the Emerald Brigade was directed by Paul Everts. Since 2005, the Emerald Brigade has been directed by Lynn Kulikowski. The band is definitely well-known in the area for its excellence, particularly for its marching program. The 2007 program gave the Emerald Brigade its first-ever undefeated season. The band regularly travels to the following competitions: Oakmont (Roseville), Del Oro (Loomis), Foothill (Pleasanton), Folsom, and Lincoln (Stockton). Future plans are to move up to a more advanced and competitive circuit. The band has approximately 135 members and performs at home football games and at parade/field show competitions throughout Northern California. Current Instructors include: Paul Marr, Chris Marr, Vince Velasquez and Ashley Steele. The concert program has traveled to Disneyland numerous times and performed at the world-famous Carnegie Hall in New York in the Spring of 2007. The band was also invited to play at the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, DC in 2005. Future tours are currently being planned, but may include trips to Hawaii in 2009 and Australia in 2011 and hopes for an invitation to the Tournament of Roses Parade one of these years. The concert band plays at the annual Delta College and Golden Empire Festivals.. [3]

[edit] Choir

Granite Bay has six choirs that up until the 2008-2009 school year was directed under the award-winning Jennifer Leighton. Jennifer Leighton directed the choir since it first started in 1996 until the end of the 2007-2008 school year. The choir has had considerable success and won many awards at competitions and festivals. It is now under the direction of Mrs.Faulkner [4] There are approximately 100 members.

[edit] Competitive Forensics

One of Granite Bay's programs is the competitive forensics team, which offers students the opportunity to compete in a variety of speaking events, ranging from dramatic interpretation to policy debate. Under the guidance of teacher and advisor Rita Prichard,the Granite Bay Forensics team is a member of the Sacramento Valley Forensics League.

[edit] Academic Decathlon

Granite Bay High School hosts an Academic Decathlon team. Currently it is coached by English teacher Tony Davis; previous coaches included Sharry Colnar and Marty Newborn. The team has had a long and successful past, winning the Placer County championship 8 of 9 years and sometimes making it to California state competition. The only exception was in 2005, when loss of members due to various reasons crippled the team. Its most notable member was Erika Vause, who achieved the highest score in the state of California in 2000. In 1999, the team won third place in Division II in the state of California. The 2005-2006 captain of the team was senior Kevin Shiiba, and in 2006-2007 is led by second-year members David Pinter and Alex Schmidley. The team placed eighth in Division II at the California state finals in 2006, and fourth in Division II in 2007 (24th in the state of California). Varsity Decathlete Timothy Schmidt has won the "Key to the Team" award two years in a row. In 2008, the Granite Bay Academic Decathlon team came in first place against other Placer County high schools and went on to state finals. They achieved 21st place at the state competition. [5] The 2009-2010 team is led by senior captain Kurt Chirbas, and includes team members Chelsey Lee, Karen Underwood, Gadget Caffery, Paul Basra, Ali Habashi, Jennifer Bonne, and Jerrica Bullis. [6]

[edit] Student Government

Granite Bay High School has a fantastic ASB program. The activities director is Tamara Givens and she has been successfully in charge of the program for many years. This program enables students to grow into servant leaders and put on the campus wide events. Student Government is in charge of all the events in the school including the decades dance, homecoming, sadies, powderpuff, and other class events such as Junior Prom and class floats. This program is fortunate enough to have two classes, one for ASB, whole school events, and one for class specific events. Even though they have won no awards, they have put in many hours of hard work organizing events. It truly deserves 1st place recognition! The current ASB President is Kaitlyn Chiu and the Senior Class President is Kimi Enneking.

[edit] Technology Programs

Granite Bay High is home to many computer technology courses which provide skills to students for future endeavors in the workplace. A program at Granite Bay High School is Granite Bay Information Technology, or GBiT. This program, scheduled as a class during the school year, provides students with the opportunity to engage in real-world technology support, web development, and management. This student-led and student-run group maintains all technology on campus and performs updates and upgrades to this technology, builds the school's web site and websites for outside customers, and provides faculty with technical training. The School also has an broadcast journalism program. Known as "Media", the class puts on weekly broadcasts in broadcast journalism fashion. Students edit packages, segments, to be aired each week, three times a week. The program gives students experience in the tv broadcast and journalism field.