# Everest Public High School

Everest Public High School is a college preparatory, tuition-free, and public charter high school in Redwood City, California, United States. The school, which was modeled after Summit Preparatory Charter High School in Redwood City, opened in August 2009 following State approval of the Everest charter.
In 2016, Everest received U.S. News & World Report's Best High Schools Gold Award, ranking it as #21 in California and #186 nationally.
The AP® participation rate at Everest Public High is 97 percent. The student body makeup is 50 percent male and 50 percent female, and the total minority enrollment is 86 percent. GreatSchools has given Everest a 4 out of 10 rating.
The location of the school has been disputed, with Sequoia District seeking to relocate it to East Palo Alto, but a lawsuit with the district was settled in May 2010. In August 2011, Everest moved to its permanent location on 5th Avenue in Redwood City.
Everest admits roughly 60 freshmen each year. As per California state charter law, when the number of applicants to a charter school exceeds the number of open spots, offers of admission are distributed through a blind lottery.

## Academics

100% of Everest graduates meet or exceed the University of California A to G entrance requirements. The AP® participation rate at Everest Public High is 97 percent.

### Freshmen

As freshmen, students take Biology, English 9, Modern World I, Math I, a fitting level of Spanish, 2 elective courses, and a self-directed learning (SDL) period, also known at some schools as Study Hall. During SDL, students work on projects and take content assessments. Content assessments are tests.

### Sophomores

As sophomores, students take Physics, English 10, World History II, Mathematics II, a fitting level of Spanish, 2 expedition courses, and an SDL period. The workload increases by 30-50% from freshman year, as teachers continue to prepare students for college and for AP classes as juniors and seniors.

### Juniors

As juniors, students take Chemistry, AP English Language, AP US History, Math III, any fitting level of Spanish, and 1-2 elective courses. They are also eligible for internships or independent study projects at home.

### Seniors

As seniors, students must take AP Environmental Science (or chemistry depending on the teacher situation), AP English Literature, AP Statistics, and AP Government. They are also eligible for internships or independent study projects at home.

### Elective courses

For freshmen and sophomore years, Everest students take an elective course. This period is called "Expeditions," it was formerly called "Intersession". During this time students take 2 elective courses. Students rank their choice of courses and then they are assigned to 2 of their choices. Expeditions occurs four times every few months, each for 3 two week sessions and 1 single week session, or a total of seven weeks. The courses offered at Everest are same as they are offered in other schools in the Summit Public Schools system and do not occur at the same time.

## Clubs and teams

Everest formerly had a number of teams and clubs, run by pupils and supervised by teachers. Some of them were the Music Club, Everest Forensics Team (speech and debate), Culinary Diversity Club, Gender and Sexuality Alliance, Comic Club, Alliance of Latin American Students (ALAS), Creativity Club, and Young Dreamers Network (which does local and international charity work). The first club was the Asian Student Union, formed back in 2010 at the Old Building.
Everest students also have the opportunity to participate in a number of team sports.
Currently, only a small handful of clubs exist. Student Ambassadors which allows students to connect better with the community and staff and to improve the school. Student Council, where students can work directly with Math III and AP Stats teacher Nicholas "Nick" Schwartz to plan school event such as fundraisers, dances, and seasonal activities.
Mr. Schwartz additionally supervises the Speech and Debate club, which was founded by Nicholas "Nick" Carrubba (Chancellor of the student council for the 2023-2024 school year) and Julian "JJ" Christensen (who had acted as a co-president of student council until his graduation and the abolition of the old governmental system) as president and captain respectively in 2022. In 2023, Laila Temple was elevated to the position of vice president to join Carrubba, her partner, in running the club, as well as Ashley Candido Antele to the position of competition captain. Newcomers Cristel De La Cruz and Rosi Martinez are prepared to take up leadership roles in 2024 after the previous leaders graduate. The club has worked in conjunction with Kwodwo Moore, a program specialist from the Silicon Valley Urban Debate League, also known as SVUDL. The team has taken home several trophies and medals ranging from 5th place to 1st, additionally with Christensen winning speaker of the year in 2023.

## New Format

Towards the end of the 2012-2013 school year the faculty of Everest PHS, and its sister schools, informed parents and students that the next school year there would be some small changes. Throughout previous years, there were rumors that the schools would provide Chromebooks to students to use. Previously the school had portable computers for the students to use. In the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year, students were given Chromebooks and were told of the changes. The new changes included Self-Directed Learning, Friday PLT, the replacement of IL with PLT, replacement of tests with Content Assessments, and a new tardy policy.
The new system included several online tools such as the PLP Tool, ShowEvidence, Activate Instruction, Khan Academy, and Illuminate. The PLP Tool showed students where they stand in the year, their scores for projects, and what Content Assessments they have passed and need to pass. Students can use the tool to set goals and reflect on them later. ShowEvidence is used for projects as a means of instruction and a place to turn them in. Activate Instruction, which was introduced by Diane Tavenner on March 13, 2013 on the 20th Annual California Charter Schools Conference, is used as a means to host playlists where students can take content assessments, diagnostics, and study. Khan Academy is a third party website that the school uses. Khan Academy has a variety of videos lessons and exercises available to the public for free. Illuminate, the replacement of PowerSchool, is where students would check their grades. Since the new format changes, the school no longer has semesters and grades are given as "Projected Grades" on the PLP Tool. Illuminate is instead used to show how students did on Content Assessments and diagnostics. Many students, parents, and faculty have commented that one or more of the online resources do not work well or at all. Some concerns were over how the Content Assessments did not match the content covered in the Playlists. Before the new system was introduced, parents and students were not told of the major changes. Before the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year, Activate Instruction mentioned in their press release kit they had knowledge of the major changes before students and parents were even notified. Activate Instruction used this information to promote themselves.