page_title: Amador Valley High School
section_title: Region and districts
hierarchical_section_title: Amador Valley High School / History / Region and districts
caption_attribution_description: English: A map of the Amador Valley High School Campus.
context_page_description: Amador Valley High School is a comprehensive public high school in Pleasanton, California, United States, a city east of Oakland.
  The school has been named a California Distinguished School, a National School of Character, and a National Blue Ribbon School. Amador Valley is one of four high schools in the Pleasanton Unified School District, along with Foothill High School, Village High School, and Horizon High School. Student groups, including the Marching Band and Math Team, have toured out-of-state after achieving high rankings in Californian competitions. In national competitions such as We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution, the Amador Valley team has ranked in the top four places from 1994 to 1996, 2006 to 2009, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2018, and 2019. Similarly, the Amador Valley Robotics Team, AVBotz, is recognized nationally as the best performing high-school team in the autonomous underwater vehicle competition hosted by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International.
  Since 2009, Amador Valley offered its 2,500 students 20 Advanced Placement courses, 23 varsity sports, a program to study local aquatic wildlife, and vocational training.
context_section_description: Amador Valley High School, originally Amador Valley Joint Union High School, was named for its location in the Amador Valley (part of the Tri-Valley area of the San Francisco East Bay). The valley's namesake was a wealthy Californio rancher, Don José María Amador. The school was founded on March 14, 1922, as part of the Amador Valley Joint Union High School District (AVJUHSD), out of concerns of overcrowding and transportation for students traveling to nearby Livermore High School. Amador Valley's first class graduated in 1923.
  
  From 1922 to 1988, the school was part of the AVJUHSD. Originally this district also taught students from nearby Dublin and served the local rural community. In the late 1930s, the Amador Theater was added to the main campus building. The "original" campus building (c1922) was taken down in 1968 leaving only the theatre towards the front of the Amador Valley High School campus. The theater hosted school plays, band concerts, performances, lectures, and assemblies, and was the former home of the successful community theater group Cask and Mask, now known as The Masquers. The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 led to the building of a series of freeways in the region, which led to increased population and an increase in student enrollment. 
  In 1988, voters approved the unification of several school districts in the region. On July 1, 1988, the AVJUHSD merged with the Pleasanton Joint School District to form the Pleasanton Unified School District. As of 2009, the district contained two comprehensive high schools (Amador Valley and Foothill), two continuation high schools (Horizon and Village), three middle schools, seven elementary schools, and an adult education program.
  The school grounds are bordered on the east and southeast by Santa Rita Road, a Union Pacific railroad track on which the Altamont Corridor Express runs, and Arroyo Valle. To the north are several businesses and residential districts lie on the western border. The school is the launch point for the annual Pleasanton Hometown Holidays Celebration Parade and the annual Fall Festival Parade, a part of the Alameda County Fair since the 1940s. The Fall Festival Parade, which features bands, floats, balloons, horses, and antique cars, starts on the Amador Valley parking lot, travels down Main Street, and ends near the fairgrounds.
caption: 2009 Student-drawn map of school campus
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