Boulder High School was founded in 1875 as a preparatory school to the University of Colorado. In 1876, it was the first high school in Colorado to graduate a class. The school is located in downtown Boulder, across Boulder Creek from the university’s campus and four blocks from the Pearl Street Mall.
Construction
Boulder High School's building at 1604 Arapahoe Avenue was constructed in 1933 by the Works Project Administration.[2] The facade is classic Streamline Moderne. The school's art deco auditorium has also been preserved. The building was constructed with "Colorado Red" flagstone and limestone, the same materials from which the University of Colorado is built. With funding from a Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) bond program, parts of the school were renovated or expanded in 2008. The changes include a remodeled ESL wing and counseling office, a new gymnasium, a larger administrative wing, and a bigger auditorium backstage.[3] Most of the school's recent additions also have flagstone facades, but none retain the original art deco design.
Stadium
Boulder High football, soccer, lacrosse, and track teams compete at Christian Recht Field, accessed via a bridge spanning Boulder Creek. Recht Field received a multimillion-dollar upgrade in 2003, which included artificial turf installation to conserve water and reduce injuries caused by frozen turf during the winter. As part of the BVSD bond program, a visitors' field house was constructed at the west end of the field. A separate bond initiative launched in 2022 resulted in further renovations in Summer 2023.[4] The turf on Recht field was replaced and the access bridge leading to the stadium was repaired and repainted.
Fairview High School shares Recht Field for a number of varsity-level events. When Boulder and Fairview football compete against each other in the annual Boulder-Fairview duel, the schools' fans alternate use of the visitor and home stands each year.
Flood danger
Boulder High School is in the Boulder Creek flood zone. The school's adjacent soccer fields were the site of housing as late as the 1980s, but the houses were removed due to the flash-flood risk. The City of Boulder continues to remove residential buildings in the path of the most dangerous portions of the creek, replacing them with parks and fields. The Boulder Creek 100-year flood took place in 1894, destroying all buildings in the area. The 2013 Colorado floods caused the school to be closed for several days. The soccer fields flooded, as did the softball field, which was the most damaged.[5]
Attendance zone
The neighborhood attendance zone for Boulder High School includes the North and central portions of Boulder and the mountain communities to the West of Boulder.[6]
Boulder High School is a 5A member of the Colorado High School Activities Association's (CHSAA) Front Range league and a former member of CHSAA's Centennial League (1964–2008). Boulder High School won a 6A state title in football in 1992, and also had state titles in 1943 and 1963. Boulder High School baseball has had some success as well winning a state title in 1991.[8]
In 2012, Boulder High School's varsity boys' soccer team won the Colorado 5A Soccer Championship, beating Smoky Hill in the final game at Dick's Sporting Goods Park.[9] After 14 rounds of penalty kicks, Boulder High earned its second Boys Soccer 5A State Championship in 2016 with a win over Broomfield High School and a perfect 20-0 season.[10][11] The 2016 Panthers finished the season ranked second in the nation by USA Today on its Super 25 Expert Rankings.[12]
History
In October 2007, to make competition locations more convenient for athletes and parents, BHS and crosstown rival Fairview petitioned to leave for the more accessible Front Range League.[13] The request was approved in January 2008 and took effect at the start of the 2008–2009 school year.[14]
Boulder High students create a weekly broadcast, showing announcements and student-made content to the entire school.
The Owl
The Owl is Boulder High's student-run newspaper founded in 1909. Started primarily as a club, the newspaper became a year length class in the 2019-2020 school year.
Student Worker
In 1999, Boulder High students founded the political activist group Student Worker, which has carried out a number of demonstrations, including the January 2005 "sleep-in" protesting the war in Iraq and the May 2001 "kiss-in" supporting alternative sexuality.[21][22] In May 2005, Student Worker, in a partnership with Peace Jam, erected 1,650 miniature American flags in memory of soldiers killed in Iraq. In September 2007, the group protested the Pledge of Allegiance, citing an objection to the "one nation, under God" clause.[23] They instead recited a revised version.[24] This student group is no longer active.
Scares and controversies
Safety scares
On May 10, 2007, a cafeteria worker reported seeing two masked men enter the school before class hours wearing camouflage and ski masks. Classes were subsequently canceled while the school was locked down and searched by police. After multiple inspections, nothing suspicious was found, and school returned to normal the next day.[25]
Rumors that a song performed at a school talent show would include death threats to the president also garnered national attention, although a subsequent investigation indicated that the rumors were false.[26]
Boulder High School has endured multiple scam bomb threats in the past several years, prompting a moderate increase in school security.
On February 22, 2023, CU Boulder police received a call from an individual who claimed they were bringing semi-automatic weapons into the school. Boulder High School entered lockdown and the building was searched by police and K-9 units.[27] No injuries or threats were discovered. Students and staff were evacuated to a nearby auditorium and class was cancelled for the remainder of the day.[28]
Conference on World Affairs: 2007
Each year, Boulder High hosts several panels of the University Of Colorado's Conference on World Affairs (CWA). The panels have been well attended by BHS students, have typically been supported by the faculty, and despite a focus on politically sensitive issues, have caused little public controversy with the exception of one on April 10, 2007.
The panel, entitled "STDs: Sex, Teens, and Drugs," was to debate the merits of teens' different attitudes toward sex and drugs. According to some, the views presented by panel member Dr. Joel Becker, an associate clinical professor of psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles, were too extreme. Becker allegedly encouraged students to have sex and use illegal drugs, told them where to easily find marijuana, and poked fun at condom use. Others argue that the objections were unfounded, and he was taken out of context.[29] A transcript of the panel is available from BVSDWatch.org.
A Boulder High sophomore and her mother, Priscilla White, complained to the school board and protested some teachers' mandatory panel attendance policy.[30] The board reviewed the case, but meanwhile, the complaint attracted the national media's attention. The panel was covered most prominently by Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly and radio talk show hosts Don Caplis and Craig Silverman.[31] In an attempt to refute O'Reilly's views, a group of students publicly demanded an apology and organized to defend the CWA panel and BHS administration.[32]
The school board concluded on May 22 that the comments in question had been generally taken out of context and that the overall panel was appropriate for high school students. The school board also recognized that several statements were unnecessarily crude and recommended that, in the future, student attendance at the Conference on World Affairs be optional.[33] Today, the CWA at Boulder High School is overseen by a committee to assure the school board's recommendations are carried out and to prevent a similar conflict from occurring again.[34]
Notable alumni
This article's list of alumni may not follow Wikipedia's verifiability policy. Please improve this article by removing names that do not have independent reliable sources showing they merit inclusion in this article AND are alumni, or by incorporating the relevant publications into the body of the article through appropriate citations. (June 2022)
^"Photos: Dick Anderson Presents Super Bowl Ball to Boulder High". Daily Camera. December 8, 2015. Archived from the original on March 1, 2016. Retrieved May 2, 2017. Dick Anderson, left, and current BHS football coach, Bob Simmons, have a laugh before the ceremony. Dick Anderson (Boulder High School '63 / University of Colorado '67) earned two Super Bowl rings with the Miami Dolphins for the '72 and '73 seasons.
^Staff. "Prodigal punk: Boulder's Jello Biafra at CWA"Archived 2015-05-08 at the Wayback Machine, Daily Camera, April 8, 2008. Accessed May 2, 2017. "For Jello Biafra, this week's Conference on World Affairs is a homecoming. A 1976 Boulder High School graduate, Biafra -- born Eric Boucher -- went on to success and controversy as the lead singer of the San Francisco-based punk band the Dead Kennedys."
^Miller, Vanessa. "Former Family Ties star Brian Bonsall arrested again in Boulder"Archived 2012-01-13 at the Wayback Machine, Colorado Daily, December 7, 2009. Accessed May 2, 2017. "Bonsall, who most notably starred as Michael J. Fox's little brother Andy Keaton on the 1980s TV series Family Ties, lived in Boulder for several years -- graduating from Boulder High in 2000 -- before leaving town and skipping a court hearing in 2008."
