Ventura High School

Ventura High School (VHS) is a public high school in Ventura, California. The school is part of the Ventura Unified School District and serves students in the western portion of Ventura and surrounding unincorporated communities including Casitas Springs, Oak View, and La Conchita. VHS is a California Distinguished School. History Ventura High School was established in 1889. In 2012, Sebastien DeClerck, who was a French and Italian language teacher at VHS, was honored as a California Teacher of Year for 2013. Music Ventura High's music department has an Instrumental Jazz Ensemble, a Vocal Jazz Ensemble, a Wind Ensemble, Honors Wind Ensemble, a String Orchestra, a Global String Ensemble and a pep-band that is open to all music students and plays at sporting events. The Vocal Jazz Ensemble was added in the 2018–2019 school year, and consists of members of the Instrumental Jazz Ensemble and vocalists from all around the school. Both the Wind Ensemble and String Orchestra have earned distinction nationwide at invitational music festivals Boston, New York, Hawaii, and most recently in 2015 at the NAI Invitational Festival in Chicago in which both groups won first place gold superior in their divisions and String Orchestra won the entire competition.