Burbank High School (Burbank, California)


Burbank High School is a public high school in Burbank, California. It was established in 1908 and opened on September 14, 1914, and its inaugural class had 334 students. It is a part of the Burbank Unified School District. The area had previously been served by the Glendale Union High School District.
Burbank High began an extensive facility update in 2003, and its first phase of reconstruction was a building housing new classrooms for the entire school. By 2005, the campus also had a new gym, pool, visual and performing arts center, parking structure, athletic field, and tennis courts.
In addition to a core curriculum that satisfies the University of California A-G requirements, Burbank High offers 17 Honors and Advanced Placement classes, a wide variety of visual arts classes, career technical classes and nationally recognized performing arts.
In the past several years, the Academic Performance Index score has risen by 95 points to a score of 806. No other school in the State with similar demographics made this amount of gain.

History

Burbank High was first established in 1908. Previously students attended Burbank schools until the high school level, when they moved onto Glendale Union High School District. After 1908 the Burbank School District withdrew from the Glendale High School district. The school was named after a local citizen and land donor, not the American botanist Luther Burbank.

Show Choir Program

Burbank High is known for its nationally ranked advanced mixed show choir called In Sync, directed by Brett Carroll. Also directed by Brett Carroll, is the advanced women's group, "Impressions", the advanced men's group, "Sound Dogs", and an intermediate mixed group, "Out of the Blue". The Burbank High School show choir program was recently ranked number one in the country for 2009 and 2010 and is ranked number one on another ranking list for the 2009 to 2010 season. Burbank High School hosts its own non-competitive show choir competition called Burbank Blast, intended to be held annually starting 2008; starting in 2011, Burbank Blast became a full-fledged judged competition, the first Burbank High has ever hosted. Burbank High Show choirs finished the 2010 competition season ranked in the top five overall in the nation. This marks the third straight year for this accomplishment.

Journalism

The school newspaper is titled "The Burbank Bulldog".
The students and staff also publish a yearbook, the Ceralbus. "Ceralbus" means "blue and white". In 2010, Burbank High's 2009 yearbook reached the finalist round in the National Pacemaker Award for the first time.

Speech and Debate

Burbank High School began its most successful Speech and Debate season in recent history during the 2019-2020 school year, bringing home 4 first place finishes in various tournaments, 5 second place finishes, 4 third place finishes, and 3 fourth place finishes. They compete in the Tri-County Forensics League, a chapter of the California High School Speech & Debate Association.

Athletics

Burbank High School fields a full range of high school interscholastic athletic teams including both men's and women's basketball teams, tennis, American football, cross country, baseball, softball, golf, track and field, swimming, water-polo, volleyball and soccer. It competes in the California Interscholastic Federation's Southern Section as a member of the Pacific League.

Notable alumni

The Nickelodeon TV show Victorious used digitally altered images of Burbank High School as a model of the front of Hollywood Arts, the fictional high school in which most of the series took place. The interior of the school, however, was filmed at Nickelodeon on Sunset. Also, the Disney Channel TV show A.N.T. Farm used only the front of the school as transitions between scenes.