Northwest Guilford High School
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Northwest Guilford High School is a public high school in Guilford County, North Carolina. The school has an enrollment of around 2200 students in grades 9 through 12, making it the public school with the largest enrollment in Guilford County. It operates on a traditional bell schedule that has 6 periods in a day for the entire year, as opposed to the block, college-styled schedules in place for many of the other local schools. The school is located on Northwest School Road next to Northwest Middle School in the Northwestern region of Guilford County. Among other distinctions, Northwest was listed by High Schools That Work as one of the top 36 high schools in the United States, the only high school in North Carolina to receive an honorable mention. The ranking was based upon Northwest's outstanding AP success rates among other academic excellencies.
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[edit] Colors and mascots
The school's colors are actually black and white, the red is only added for decoration. The mascot is the Viking.
[edit] Traditions and rivalries
The school has long had a sports-based rivalry with Western Guilford High School, which has lead to some minor cases and one major case of vandalism between the two schools. Traditionally, upon playing in a sports game with Western, the students at Northwest dress up as "Thugs" and the Western Guilford students dress up as "Hicks." For the last five years Northwest Varsity Football has lost to Western Guilford. A heated rivalry between the Vikings and the Grimsley Whirlies also exists. One of the latest antics beween the schools was when the Northwest Student Section held up copies of the newspaper that showed a Grimsley player crying after a football game in response to Grimsley's "At least we have football" chant after losing to the Vikings on their home floor.
Northwest has three dances throughout the year including the Homecoming celebration following the Homecoming Football Game; the Twirp (an acronym for "The Woman Is Required to Pay") Dance which plays off of the Sadie Hawkins tradition; and then the Junior and Senior Prom.
Other traditions include the Bachelor Auction, the annual senior prank and a graduation party for the graduating Seniors.
[edit] Facilities
Because of the recent increase in population in the area, several additions, including a two-story educational building completed in 2002, gym completed in 2003, and cultural arts wing at the school, have been constructed. Northwest now has two gyms: the "old" gym and the "new" gym.
The original main building at the school serves as the English and Environmental Science building, and the Educational Building serves primarily as the Mathematics, Foreign Language, Biology, and Physical Science building. The Vocational Building houses classes such as Yearbook and Graphic Design, and trailers (modular classroom buildings) serve as the Social Studies classrooms.
[edit] Athletics
Northwest is a 4A school with a large athletic program, with sports programs in soccer, basketball, football, tennis, swimming, lacrosse, baseball, wrestling, track, cross country, and volleyball, among others.
The Cross Country team is among the most successful teams in the school, gaining a major advantage this year with the departure of long time rival Mount Tabor High in 2005. With this in hand, Northwest quickly accelerated and defeated many conference opponents with perfect scores, easily taking the Metro 4A Championship, as well as becoming Mid-West Regional Champions, advancing all the way to the state competition where they were unfortunately plagued with injuries to several top runners and did not meet their potential. Although the team did enjoy much success this year, the school remains vaguely indifferent to its successes, choosing to devote more attention to popular yet less successful sports teams, such as the football and basketball teams.
[edit] Academics
Northwest has the largest selection of Advanced Placement courses in Guilford County, and has the highest success rate with the students that take the courses. More AP credits have been awarded to Northwest than any other school in the recent years.
The school also has Honors and College Prep courses. Due to lack of interest, it no longer has an ROTC program.
The school is also actively involved in competitions such as We the People, Mock Trial, the National Forensic League and Science Olympiad.
[edit] Arts
One of the most developed and successful programs in the entire NWHS community is the Cultural Arts Program. This program consistently produces top-level work in every area--including art, drama, chorus, and band. The entire program offers AP-courses in every subject area and consistently has students scoring "4" and "5" on the AP-exams.
The competitive Northwest Guilford "Viking" Marching Band was created in 1975 with 32 students attending Northwest Junior and Senior High Schools. For over 40 years, the Band Program at Northwest Guilford has maintained a tradition of high standards in music education and instruction. Their reputation for musical excellence is known throughout the state and nation. Recently, at the national level, where under the direction of D. Brian Roberts, the Viking Band performed in the Bands of America National Competition in Indianapolis. The combination of quality classroom instruction paired with extra curricular performance exposure is one of the main reasons students from Northwest Guilford consistently earn some of the states highest musical achievement awards, academic placements and scholarships for continuing education. This legacy of excellence in music is a great source of pride for our students, alumni, and for the Northwest Guilford County community! With the recent addition of our new director, Brian McMath, the band has proved to continue its success, even through transition. This year, 2006-7, the "Viking Band" and color guard has 125 members. The "Viking Marching Band" only meets during the fall semester, playing at home football games, local and regional competitions and holiday parades. This group consists entirely of volunteers who enjoy the excitement of music and marching together, and the thrill of "putting it on the line" during games and competitions. They rehearse outside of the school days two or three afternoons per week. On various Saturdays, they travel in and out of state to competitions, in which they are very successful, receiving numerous awards and ratings.
The 2004-05 Marching Vikings competed in the Outback Bowl Parade and Field Show Competition at the Outback Bowl in Tampa, Florida. They won the Field Show division and were honored to perform a portion of their competition show at the pre-game festivities of the Outback Bowl Game.
In 2006, the Marching Vikings traveled to Toronto, Canada. On the trip they were able to see the sights of Niagara Falls, CN Tower, a performance by The Blue Man Group and many other wonderful attractions. Although this was a non-performance based trip, the students were thrilled to travel and see a different culture and area other than their own.
The band's website can be found at http://nwvikingband.org/.
[edit] The International Beijing Competition
Due to Northwest's outstanding Academic Performance, two of its students were chosen to represent the United States of America at the International Beijing Science Competition in March, 2006. China invited the United States for the first time to compete along with New Zealand, Japan, Italy, Denmark and South Korea.
[edit] We The People
The 2005-2006 North Carolina State History Teacher of the Year, Ray Parrish, heads up a group of Northwest's finest students as they vigorously prepare for national competition every year in April. The team first took the state title in 1997, and on February 10, 2006, won the State Competition for the tenth year running.
On the last weekend in April of 2006, the We the People team went to the national competition in Washington, D.C. The team did quite well, bringing home a Unit 2 Award, only the third award NW has won on the national level. Northwest Guilford brought home its first national award--a Unit 1 Award--in 2000, and the 2004 team won the Southeast Region Championship. These national awards demonstrate a desire to set a standard even higher than the numerous Unit awards the school has won at the state competition. More information about We the People can be obtained here [1].
[edit] Battle of the Bands
During the 2002-2003 school year, Northwest held its first annual Battle of the Bands. First place was given to the ska group, "King B and the Two Tones," second place to "Chicken Fist," and third to "Selfish Motive." The winner of the 2003-2004 year was "Gillross and the Coopers," a funk/jam band consisting of members of the High School Jazz Band.
[edit] National Forensics League
On December 2nd, Northwest Guilford will host the first annual Guilford Challenge in association with the National Forensics League. More than 30 schools from across the piedmont are expected to attend with participants numbering more than 200 students.
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