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.

The inter­sec­tion of love and justice is an impor­tant space to hold together with our students. Many of the curric­u­lar areas and approaches we have always engaged with in Well­ness – social justice, sexu­al­ity, healthy commu­ni­ca­tion and consent, deci­sion making, human devel­op­ment, body image, gender iden­tity, psychoe­d­u­ca­tion, and many more – have a new home in the Love and Justice program. 

Love and Justice classes meet by grade level on a weekly basis. Through a social justice lens, and informed by inter­per­sonal neuro­bi­ol­ogy, the Love and Justice program supports student under­stand­ing of self and community. 

Ninth Grade: The 9th grade Love and Justice program inte­grates body, brain, and rela­tion­ship through a unit-based curricu­lum. Units include Body Trust, ​“Zombies: Manag­ing Anxiety,” and a Rela­tion­ships curricu­lum that covers human devel­op­ment, commu­ni­ca­tion, sexual health, consent, and much more. The Love and Justice compre­hen­sive sexual educa­tion curricu­lum relies on the work of Advo­cates for Youth, which is mapped to the National Sexu­al­ity Educa­tion Stan­dards, covers all 16 topics deemed essen­tial by the Centers for Disease Control and Preven­tion, is LGBTQ-inclu­sive, trauma informed, and cultur­ally respon­sive. or a full descrip­tion of the 9th grade units, please view our high school course catalog.

Tenth Grade: The 10^th grade Love and Justice program begins with a strong focus on social justice, and utilizes compo­nents of the Story of Self, Us, Now, devel­oped by Harvard profes­sor Marshall Ganz, Black Lives Matter School, and Learn­ing for Justice curricu­lums to engage students in learn­ing about racial justice. Student learn­ing will culmi­nate in an action project in Febru­ary. In the late spring, students will partic­i­pate in a unit-based curricu­lum that centers on Dr. Kimberlé Cren­shaw​’s frame­work of inter­sec­tion­al­ity. Tenth graders will also have a unit in the spring that focuses on rela­tion­ships and healthy sexuality. 

Eleventh Grade: Love and Justice in 11th grade centers around the theme of restora­tive justice and asks students to explore the essen­tial ques­tion: What does it mean to be in just rela­tion­ships with one another? In the fall, students will partic­i­pate in learn­ing around restora­tive justice, and spend time explor­ing the frame­work of inter­sec­tion­al­ity as it relates to iden­tity and rela­tion­ships. Students will work in small groups as well as a larger class commu­nity. In the spring, students will have the oppor­tu­nity to work on a project that deeply exam­ines the ways in which oppres­sive systems inform their expe­ri­ences, rela­tion­ships, and identities. 

Twelfth Grade: In the 12th grade, Love and Justice elec­tives prepare and empower students to choose an area of focus that is mean­ing­ful to them. Devel­oped in collab­o­ra­tion with facil­i­ta­tors, 12^th graders have oppor­tu­ni­ties to partic­i­pate in two of the follow­ing elec­tives over the course of the fall and winter: Radical Self-Love, Racial Iden­tity Devel­op­ment, All About Love, Queer Spec­trum, Inter­sec­tional Femi­nism, Men’s Story Project, and more. For more on the 12th grade elec­tives, please view our high school course catalog.

In the spring, 12^th grade students re-engage with the themes of Love and Justice with partic­u­lar atten­tion to empow­er­ing and prepar­ing students to launch young adult lives after high school. Themes for the spring semes­ter include creat­ing healthy adult rela­tion­ships, approaches to healthy sexu­al­ity after high school, and empow­er­ing students to navi­gate their lives during these impor­tant next steps. 

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.