Rio Americano High School

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Rio Americano High School, colloquially known as Rio, is an American public high school in Sacramento, California, part of the San Juan Unified School District. The current principal is Robert Hollingsworth (2000-present), preceded by Ronald Uzelac (1985-2000), Alice Cubo, Lloyd Snellson and Joseph Brewer. Rio also has one of the highest API scores in the state at 783. Rio is one of 41 High Schools in the nation to be named a 2006 National Blue Ribbon School, an accolade they've held consistently for many years.
Rio Americano students come from the surrounding areas of Arden Park, Arden Oaks, Sierra Oaks, Fair Oaks, Carmichael, Gold River, and to a much lesser extent, the La Sierra community. In recent years, more students have been transferring from other districts and areas, partly due to the shift of Sacramento High School to a charter school. Rio's two rival schools are Jesuit High School and to a lesser degree El Camino High School because of its close proximity to the Arden Park area. Controversy continues to surround the school's principal, Robert Hollingsworth, over his management style and resulting low-morale amongst the staff.

Contents 1 History 2 Campus 3 Demographic 3.1 2005-2006 4 Curriculum 4.1 Courses 4.1.1 Advanced Placement 4.1.2 Band 4.2 Electives 5 Extracurricular Activities 5.1 Academic Decathlon 5.2 Mock Trial 5.3 Moot Court 5.4 Radio & TV 5.5 Science Bowl 5.6 Science Olympiad 5.7 Speech and Debate 5.8 The Mirada 5.9 The Tesoro 6 Sports 6.1 Baseball 6.2 Basketball 6.3 Cross Country 6.4 Football 6.5 Golf 6.6 Soccer 6.7 Softball 6.8 Swimming & Dive 6.9 Tennis 6.10 Track and Field 6.11 Volleyball 6.12 Water Polo 6.13 Wrestling 7 Clubs

[edit] History

Rio Americano High School was established in 1963 as a temporary high school, built to offset a huge baby boomer population increase. It was supposed to be a temporary solution for education shortages, to be demolished 20 years later and used for housing purposes. As demand increased and Rio's academic and extracurricular programs proved strong, the school has remained a permanent fixture in the community.
On November 2, 2000, a fire destroyed the school's "Little Theatre" and severely damaged several neighboring classrooms. The theatre has since been rebuilt as the "Betty Miller Little Theatre", (in honor of Rio Americano's Readers Theatre and Drama Director Betty Miller,) and the damaged classrooms have been restored. The school went through a major cosmetic overhaul known as "remodernization" from 2001-2002.

[edit] Campus

[edit] Demographic

[edit] 2005-2006

White	Asian	Hispanic	African American	American Indian	Filipino	Pacific Islander
76%	9%	7%	5%	1%	1%	<1%

There are white men, Asian men, hispanic men, black men, and all types of men at Rio Americano. However, there are officially no snowmen at Rio Americano due to a rule enacted by Mr. Holingsworth in the 2005-2006 school year.

[edit] Curriculum

[edit] Courses

[edit] Advanced Placement

Rio Americano offers 14 AP courses in addition to various Honors classes. Although there are no official classes, students have been known to take the AP Music Theory, AP Statistics, and AP French exams.

AP Biology - Ruggiero AP Calculus AB - Baker and Dunkum AP Calculus BC - Dunkum AP Chemistry - Montbriand AP Comparative Government - Blenner AP English - Mahoney AP Macroeconomics - Westover

AP Microeconomics - Westover AP Physics - Baird AP Psychology - Casazza AP Spanish - Losada AP US Government - Mason AP US History - Blenner and Deville AP French - Murray (Pending Enrollment, to begin in the 2007-2008 School Year)

[edit] Band

The Rio Americano band program is nationally recognized, having 4 levels of concert band and 3 levels of jazz ensemble. The AM Jazz Ensemble was recognized as one the United States' top 15 high school jazz bands at the Essentially Ellington Jazz competition in New York City in 2001, 2002, 2006, and 2007. The Rio AM Jazz Ensemble has also won the Monterey Jazz Festival in the High School Big Band category an unprecendented 7 times. They have toured Japan, Europe and most recently China in the summer of 2006 and are scheduling a tour of Australia in the summer of 2008.

[edit] Electives

The following are electives available at Rio Americano.

Art I Auto Technology Drafting Drawing & Painting Photography Ceramics

Computer Graphics Drama Reader's Theatre Speech & Debate Woodshop Teacher/Office Assistant

[edit] Extracurricular Activities

[edit] Academic Decathlon

[edit] Mock Trial

Mock Trial is a program that places students in a courtroom environment in which they play the parts of attorneys, witnesses, court clerks and bailiffs. Rio Americano's Mock Trial team is known for its record of success at both the county and state levels. The team has reached the final round in the California Mock Trial State Finals twice in 1999 and 2006. The program is successfull due mostly to the dedication of the attorney coach, James R. Greiner. He is well-regarded across the state as one of the best Mock Trial coaches in California due to his experience and extreme commitment to the team. In the 2007 county competition, Rio failed to reach the final round of counties for the first time since 2001. This is widely attributed to the unfair scoring of a scoring judge who scored one of Rio's trials in such a slanted fashion that it was impossible to make up for the deficit. Later examination shows that the scoring sheets were altered by the scoring judges prior to being submitted and that had neither of the two scoring sheets been altered before being entered, Rio Americano would have won the trial keeping them from getting to the final round by a single point.

[edit] Moot Court

Rio Americano's Moot Court team has won the Sacramento County competition the past two years, in both 2006 and 2007.

[edit] Radio & TV

The Radio & Television program has won the award for best High School News show in Sacramento several times, last awarded to them in 2002, by the Sacramento Educational Cable Consortium. The program has been reportedly falling apart by students and graduates after Gebhardt retired.

[edit] Science Bowl

Science Bowl is a high school academic competition that tests students on their science in seven different categories (Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Earth Science, General Science, Math, and Physics). There exist two 2007 teams (Team A and Team B), each consisting of five members. In the Sacramento Regional Completion, Team A placed 2nd and Team B 3rd. Team A defeated Mira Loma A in the double-elimination round, but narrowly failed in thier attempt to beat them a second time in the final winner-take-all match. Team B lost only to Mira Loma A and Rio A.

[edit] Science Olympiad

A science competition with various events. Their '07 A team placed second at Regionals. States will be held at UC Merced April 21st.

[edit] Speech and Debate

[edit] The Mirada

The school's newspaper. It is made by students of all grade levels, and covers nearly every event and new items. Mostly juniors and seniors are editors, two seniors for editor and chief, and junior and senoirs for News, Opinions, Features and Sports. The Mirada also has three graphic artist, and one main photographer. There are many staff writers, obviously, of all grade levels. The paper even has a business manager. There are about 21 staff members overall. One teacher, supervises. The features are: Bachelor and Bachelorlette, Prep of the issue, Car of the issue and sometimes food reviews. The paper has an issue every month and has won various awards. The raider icon on the front page to the side of the heading changes every month. The students work really hard to get a masterpiece, and they always do that very well. March's issue recently came out, you get it in the front office, or some classrooms. http://the-mirada.net

=======Awards=======

• Gold Medal Standing From Columbia University Journalism Review Program.

• Two individual awards from the International Quill and Scroll Competition.

[edit] The Tesoro

The school's yearbook. Each year the Tesoro has a different theme, the 2005-2006's being 'Curious'. On the bottom each page, varoius students wrote things they were curious about, such as: "Why do guys wear girl pants?" The yearbook also features clubs, sports, outside-of-school ports, senior favorites, quotes and pictures. Parents of senoirs can submit a page dedicated to their son or daughter in the "Diapers to Diploma" section.

[edit] Sports

[edit] Baseball

[edit] Basketball

Their Boy's Basketball recently won the 2006 Jack Scott Tournament, a tournament hosted by Rio. In 2002, the Rio Varsity Boy's Basketball team won the section title at Arco Arena and went all the way to the state semi-finals at UC Davis.

[edit] Cross Country

The Rio Americano varsity boys cross-country team placed 5th in the 2006 Sac-Joaquin Division III Section Finals Meet at the Willow Hills course in Folsom, CA. This is the teams best performance in many years. The varsity boys also received two CAL (Capital Athletic League) All-League awards. The varsity girls team subsequently ran to a best performance in many years, placing 7th in the 2006 Sac-Joaquin Division III Section Finals Meet, and also received two CAL All-League awards as well. Both teams placed second in the Capital Athletic League. The freshman boys team placed first in the Capital Athletic League, the SJS Div. III Sub-Sections Meet, and the SJS Div. III Sections Meet.

[edit] Football

Rio Americano's football team has been the center of many jokes in the surrounding area. In the past ten years, Rio Americano has failed to procure a winning record in the regular season. However, the 2006 season showed much promise as the team began the season 4-1, later falling off the momentum to end the season at 5-5. Yet, this record is still much better than any record for Rio Americano in the the past five years. With the incoming sophomore class (which went 8-2 in their JV season) to the varsity team, there is much hope that the program is finally turning around and returning to the high level of prestige that it was once known for.

[edit] Golf

[edit] Soccer

Rio has excellent boys' and girls' soccer programs, coached by Jim Sullivan and Danny Cruz. They are both excellent coaches, inspirational leaders, and gifted motivators.

[edit] Softball

[edit] Swimming & Dive

The boys' coach is Chris Nissen, and the girls' coach is Kirk. Rio's Swim Team has repeatedly won the Section title over the perennial power, Jesuit High School.

On the diving side of the pool deck however, a much different story is to be told. Lincoln "blue balls" Bartlett the reginig champion of awsome currently commands the Varsity boys diving board. With signatures moves such as "the nut cruncher" and "belly flop" blue balls claims the crowds as his own time and time again with more power and vigilance than his weak contemporary, Micheal "Useless" Uslan. Every one on the pool deck knows that with out blue balls the diving team wouldn't stand a chance, we love him with all our hearts and can't wait 'till he claims his rightfully deserved MVP award at the end of this season.

[edit] Tennis

[edit] Track and Field

[edit] Volleyball

[edit] Water Polo

Water Polo is one of the most recognized of the sports at Rio. Girls Water Polo has won 5 straight section titles. Men's Water Polo has produced division 1 players such as Brian Kinsel and Matt Hillard, both of whom play for UC Berkley. The Air Force Academy recruited Austin Bartlett.

[edit] Wrestling

[edit] Clubs

• Rowdy Raiders- The best and most important club at Rio, Justin Ray is the 2006-2007 president, and Kevin Skelly is his Vice President and will be president the 2008 year.
• Asian Culture Club-Meets every Friday at lunch in B6
• French Club- Meet every Tuesday in B5
• French Conversation Group-Meets every Wednesday in B5

Add some more!