West Monroe High School
West Monroe High School is a high school in West Monroe, Louisiana, United States. It is administered by the Ouachita Parish School Board. WMHS is fully accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The school's mascot is The Rebel Man. History. In 2013, 87 percent of WMHS students who took the Advanced Placement test passed the examination, the highest rate in the state. Four thousand more students in Louisiana took the 2013 exam compared to the number doing so in 2012, the largest increase in participation of any state. Louisiana students taking the  exam earned a collective 5,144 college credits, an increase of 25 percent over 2012. In 2015, WMHS principal Shelby Ainsworth banned students from displaying the Confederate battle flag from vehicles parked on campus though the school team is called The Rebels. Ainsworth said that students may wear clothing with the flag displayed at games, but flags cannot be waved from sticks or poles. Administrators confiscated several flags on August 28 but offered to return them to students or parents. In 2017 Andre Perry, previously the founding dean of the urban education division of Davenport University, wrote an article published  in "The Hechinger Report" which criticized West Monroe for continuing to use the rebel mascot. Extracurricular activities. Student Council. The West Monroe High School Student Council is one of the largest active clubs on campus. It boasts over 100 members per year. The club is active on the state and regional level attending both state and regional conferences each year. The Council has also held the title of District President in the past. French Club. The West Monroe High School French Club competes at A.L.C.F.E.S. (Association Louisianaise des Clubs de Français des Écoles Secondaires) annually against the state's best  public and private schools. Over the past few years, the club has done exceptionally well in theatre, media, and music. Five students (in 2014, 2015, 2018, 2019, and 2020) have competed and won scholarships to study abroad in Nova Scotia and Belgium. Band. The band received consecutive Superior ratings at Marching and Concert festivals since 1966. The band consists of 200 students. In 2014, the band appeared in the London New Years Day Parade in Westminster, UK. The band has appeared in two Presidential Inaugural Parades, George W. Bush in 2005 and Donald Trump in 2017. The band was one  of only 7 high school bands invited. The band has also been invited to the Louisiana Showcase of Marching Bands in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. In those years, they placed 11th (2014), 6th (2015), 5th (2016), 9th (2017), and 3rd (2018,) in the state of Louisiana. Choir. West Monroe High School's Rebel Choir has a total of about 120 students. It is an auditioned ensemble that performs at an advanced level. The choir is directed by Greg Oden. The choir has an unbroken streak of Superior Ratings beginning in 1994, and has toured Italy, Europe, and Austria . The students were also invited to sing at New York's Carnegie Hall in 1999, 2003, 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020. AFJROTC. In the 2015–2016 school year West Monroe's Air Force Junior ROTC was awarded the Distinguished Unit with Merit award recognizing the program for being in the top 10% of 878 AFJROTC programs located around the world. Their Falcon Honor Guard was recognized as one of the best in the state at a statewide drill meet held in January 2016 at Louisiana Tech University. The AJFROTC program is led by Retired Lt. Col. Brain Buck and was named , instructor of the year worldwide. The accomplishments of LA-061 continue and live on forever at West Monroe High School Junior Classical League. West Monroe High School has an established chapter of the Junior Classical League that over a hundred students are involved in. Athletics. Football. Under the late Don Shows's coaching, the Class 5-A Rebels have won seventeen district and eight ('93, '96, '97, '98, '00, '05, '09, '11) state championships. National championships were won in 1998 and 2000 and were runners-up in six state designations. The school has a fully outfitted football stadium, mostly funded by  the team's Rebel Booster Club. The Rebels have ranked nationally for more than 10 years and have won district titles 19 years in a row. Their most recent state championship was in 2011 when they defeated Carencro(Lafayette) by a score of 20–13.