High school students serve their commu­nity and learn lead­er­ship skills by joining the Ravens. Ravens help conduct admis­sions tours, sponsor prospec­tive student events and visits, host the annual Red Cross blood drive, orga­nize fund-raising events, lead assem­blies, and run the spring prom (open to all high school students). Student inter­est also deter­mines extracur­ric­u­lar clubs (past clubs have included a ukelele club, an animé fan club, a Jewish Student Union, a gay-straight alliance, and an envi­ron­men­tal activists club).

Service to the greater commu­nity is one of the basic commit­ments upon which The Waverly School was founded. We use the term ​“service learn­ing” rather ​“commu­nity service” because we strive to create curricu­lum that inspires involve­ment and action locally and glob­ally. We encour­age and support students to do their service learn­ing in areas that reflect their passions. Some of the service is orga­nized during school hours; addi­tion­ally, the assis­tant head of school will make peri­odic announce­ments about service oppor­tu­ni­ties. High school students are required to partic­i­pate in a total of 60 hours prior to graduation.

Several courses, partic­u­larly in the human­i­ties and sciences, can be taken for Advanced Place­ment (AP) credit. The require­ments for AP include an increased and more diffi­cult reading load, addi­tional meeting time with the teacher, and a commit­ment to intense inde­pen­dent study. Some AP courses require a supple­men­tary summer session for an addi­tional fee. All students enrolled in an AP class must take the AP exam in order to receive AP credit on their transcripts. 

At the high school, two 30-minute confer­ence blocks offer students time to meet one-on-one with teach­ers. This time is used to discuss areas for growth as well as areas of success. In addi­tion, high school students have a daily study block built into their sched­ule. Students are encour­aged to do home­work during this time, in part to limit how much time is spent on home­work at home.

Waver­ly’s phys­i­cal educa­tion program aims to build life­long, healthy exer­cise habits. All students in the 9th and 10th grades are required to complete phys­i­cal educa­tion units. Given the varying needs of the commu­nity, Waverly offers multi­ple options for fulfill­ing the phys­i­cal educa­tion require­ment. Students can earn a phys­i­cal educa­tion credit for a given school year in the following ways:

• Partic­i­pa­tion on a school team for one season.
• Partic­i­pa­tion in two seasons of Cross­Fit at a local gym.
• Partic­i­pa­tion in a full year of Waverly’s Bolly­wood Dance Club.
• Consis­tent, docu­mented partic­i­pa­tion in a club sport or class outside of school. 

High school students partic­i­pate in the Inter­na­tional League, affil­i­ated with the Cali­for­nia Inter­scholas­tic Feder­a­tion (CIF) in girls’ and boys’ basket­ball and volley­ball. Student inter­ests deter­mines club sports each year. In the past, Waverly students have enjoyed soccer, golf, tennis, hiking, cross-country, camping, pool (billiards), Ulti­mate Frisbee, Bolly­wood dance, and cheer­lead­ing. Read more about athletics.

Outdoor educa­tion excur­sions typi­cally occur in the spring. Options have included rock climb­ing in Joshua Tree, explor­ing music and the record­ing indus­try in Nashville, and staying in Los Angeles to produce a music video. Every other acad­e­mic year, juniors and seniors have a chance to go to Costa Rica to live with local fami­lies, shoot white­wa­ter rapids on a raft trip, and contribute to the local area by helping with a commu­nity service project. 

Day-long field trips include visit­ing the Getty Villa or the Norton Simon Museum, explor­ing Little India in Artesia with the Bolly­wood Dance Club, rein­forc­ing physics concepts at Six Flags Magic Moun­tain, and seeing local cultural exhibits or perfor­mances that fit in with the curriculum.

Trips are designed to accom­plish many objectives:

• For students to enjoy and learn about the world around them
• To chal­lenge them­selves indi­vid­u­ally and as a team
• To bring students and faculty together away from the pres­sures of school.

Unless a student cannot attend for a medical reason, all students are expected to participate.

At Waverly, well­ness is an age-appro­pri­ate, posi­tive approach that empha­sizes the whole person, with a focus on students’ phys­i­cal, emotional, intel­lec­tual, and social devel­op­ment. Through the lens of iden­tity and multi­cul­tur­al­ism, students learn devel­op­men­tally appro­pri­ate skills and discuss a wide range of topics in a four-year scaf­folded wellness curriculum.

Ninth Grade Well­ness: Who am I? As an intro­duc­tion to high school, fresh­men well­ness focuses on basic health issues related to teen life. Students discuss topics related to commu­nity, iden­tity, sexu­al­ity and self-care, as well as life skill topics that prepare students to develop the study and orga­ni­za­tional skills needed to be success­ful in high school.

Tenth Grade Well­ness: What does it mean to be part of a commu­nity? The 10th grade class intro­duces students to service partic­i­pa­tion at the high school level. Students learn about commu­nity needs and oppor­tu­ni­ties and discuss current topics relat­ing to social justice. Tenth grade students complete 10 hours of service outside of class time towards their grad­u­a­tion require­ment and create a presen­ta­tion about their project that they share with the class.

Eleventh Grade Well­ness: What do I believe? The This I Believe class is intended to develop mind­ful­ness, self-aware­ness, and lead­er­ship skills. Students prac­tice public speak­ing, dele­ga­tion, deci­sion-making, and orga­ni­za­tion. Students compose a This I Believe essay and read it aloud for an audi­ence of family, peers, and faculty. A signif­i­cant portion of the second semes­ter is also spent in person­al­ized coun­sel­ing with the college counselor.

Twelfth Grade Well­ness: Who do I want to be in the world? The 12th grade class contin­ues the college search and begins the tran­si­tion from high school to college. The first semes­ter focuses on the appli­ca­tion process. In the second semes­ter, students read about and discuss topics related to prepar­ing for college life, and they work on an inde­pen­dent senior project. In the week follow­ing the AP exams in May, seniors take their final exams and then have approx­i­mately two weeks to complete their senior projects, present­ing them to the Waverly commu­nity in June.