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.
• 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.

Our Human Devel­op­ment program is based on the Body Trust modal­ity (body image, body diver­sity aware­ness, what it means to occupy and care for your body), the Our Whole Lives curricu­lum (knowl­edge, life prin­ci­ples, and skills neces­sary to express sexu­al­ity in life-affirm­ing ways), and greatly influ­enced by social and racial justice, inter­sec­tional femi­nism, shame resilience theory, self-compas­sion, rela­tional cultural theory, and mind­ful­ness-based approaches. Our spaces are inten­tion­ally gender spec­trum affirm­ing. Names, pronouns, and expres­sions of iden­tity can be fluid at all ages and stages and as such, we pay atten­tion and check in often.

The three most impor­tant tenets of our trauma-informed Human Devel­op­ment program are Body, Iden­tity, and Rela­tion­ships, which sepa­rately and together affect every­thing we are and do as ever-devel­op­ing humans. Sexual and gender iden­tity, sexual health and repro­duc­tion, inti­macy and consent, sensu­al­ity, and sexu­al­iza­tion are woven through­out our discus­sions, as is the idea of values: our own and those of family, friends, and culture.

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.