Shaker Heights High School

Public high school in Shaker Heights, Ohio

Shaker Heights High School is a public high school located in Shaker Heights, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. The high school is the only public high school in the Shaker Heights City School District, which serves Shaker Heights and a small part of Cleveland. Shaker Heights High School is an International Baccalaureate World School, the only public high school in Cuyahoga County to hold this accreditation and offer rigorous IB classes. It is consistently ranked among the top districts in the state for National Merit semifinalists. According to a 2004 survey by The Wall Street Journal, Shaker Heights High School is one of the top feeder schools in the nation for admission to the most selective colleges and universities. The high school has also been recognized by Money and Redbook magazines. The school colors are red and white and its mascot is Tuffy the Raider.

Although the population of Shaker Heights is 55% White, 37% African American and 8% Asian or other, The Shaker Heights City School District's approximate enrollment is 48% African American, 40% White and 12% Asian, Hispanic, multiracial or other. The school has received national attention for its efforts to close the gap between achievements of ethnic and racial minority students and non ethnic and racial minority students. One of the most active organizations at the school is the Student Group on Race Relations (SGORR), which helps foster positive race relations and fight against racial injustice. Founded in 1983, the group has high school students visit elementary schools to "promote good social relations among racially diverse children." SGORR received recognition from the Human Relations Commission of Shaker Heights and the Ohio Governor's Youth Award for Peace, as well as being a finalist for the Isaiah Award of the American Jewish Committee. In addition, as a way to help narrow the achievement gap, the Minority Achievement Committee scholars/sisters program was established in 1990. The program has 11th and 12th grade high achieving African Americans mentor and serve as role models to underachieving minority students in lower grades using five core values: respect, pride, honesty, sensitivity, and confidence.

Shaker Heights High School offers 23 Advanced Placement courses, the largest advanced Advanced Placement in Cuyahoga County. In 2009, 153 students, 38% of students taking Advanced Placement exams, won Advanced Placement Awards because of high scoring on multiple exams, a record for the school. The high school began offering International Baccalaureate courses in 2010 and is the only public high school in Cuyahoga County to hold this accreditation. Shaker Heights High School sports a science wing with a roughly fifty seat planetarium and several laboratory rooms. Sciences offered include astronomy, biology, chemistry, geology, engineering applications, environmental science, oceanography, project physics and engineering, and physics. In addition to English, the school offers six world languages, more than any other public high school in Cuyahoga County, including Chinese, French, German, classical Greek, Latin, and Spanish. The high school has a Confucius Classroom supported by the Confucius Institute and the Office of Chinese Language Council International (Hanban). The high school also serves as a location for a Chinese language immersion camp affiliated with Ohio State University. The high school has two week long student exchange programs with the Universidad del Valle de México in Mexico City, Mexico and a semester long program with the Ratsgymnasium in Goslar, Germany. The Asian studies class is offered in cooperation with Beachwood High School and the Cleveland Museum of Art. The program focuses on the history, literature, art, politics, and contemporary society of China, Japan, and India. Students in the class are offered an opportunity to travel to those three countries in the year they are studied. This number also includes the Raiderettes, a dance team that performs with the band. The marching band went on a trip to Beijing and Shanghai, China in late March and early April 2007, and performs internationally every three years. The bands, orchestra, and choruses also travel abroad periodically, both to perform and to see cultural landmarks. The band performed in Austria, Italy and Germany in March 2010, performing in Venice, Brixen, Innsbruck and Salzburg. In 2013, the band traveled to The Republic of Turkey, playing concerts at Robert College and Taksim Square in Istanbul; as well as in Bergama and at the historic ruins of Ephesus. In 2016, the band traveled to Spain to play in Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia and other smaller towns. In 2023, the band traveled to France, playing concerts in Caen, Rouen, and Paris. The band has band camp a week before school starts, preparing a halftime show for American football games during the fall football season. After the marching band season, the school has five concert bands: one Class AA band, one Class A band, and three Class B bands. In 2013, the AA and A class bands, Wind Ensemble and Symphonic Band, respectively, performed at Severance Hall.

The Shaker Theatre Arts Department was founded in its present form by former Artistic Director James Thornton, and has prepared many students for successful careers on stage and screen. Shaker Theatre Department offers a variety of classes, allowing the students to have a full view and access to the "circle" of theatre. Classes include Playwriting, Acting, the Ensemble Program, as well as the theatre management classes Theatre Production Seminar and Ensemble Coordination Management Course. The season includes the fall main stage production, the Ninth Grade Theatre Experience (written and performed by the ninth graders), New Stages (the student generated playwriting festival), and the Spring Ensemble Show (a performance consisting of movement theatre and poetry prose performed by the Senior Acting Ensemble, the Advanced Acting Ensemble and the Junior Acting Ensemble). Other Shaker Theatre Showcases include the Theatre Social, Fall Ensemble Preview, Winter Solstice Sharings, and Theatre awards. Every new Broadway season since 1991 has included one or more Shaker Theatre alum in major New York productions. In addition, Shaker Theatre alums hold positions in every area of professional theatre and the entertainment industry.

Shaker Heights' Latin Club functions as a local chapter of both the Ohio Junior Classical League (OJCL) and National Junior Classical League (NJCL). In 2010 and 2013, the team placed first in the Academic Per Capita trophy, winning more than 180 individual awards, and in 2014, the team placed first in both the Academic Per Capita competition as well as the Overall Sweepstakes competition, a first in the club's history. The club went on to repeat this feat for the next two years. Shaker Heights High School is noted for its strong performance on the National Latin Examination, with nearly one hundred students receiving recognition for high scores in 2010.

The school's student newspaper, The Shakerite, has won numerous awards, including the 2006 Golden Flash Award from the Northeast Ohio Scholastic Press Association and the National Pacemaker Award from the National Scholastic Press Association in 2006. This was the second time The Shakerite received the award. In addition, the paper has received a Gold Medal Award from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association and a First Place Award from the Great Lakes International Press Association.

Students from Shaker Heights High School have won awards at regional, state and national levels at many academic competitions, including the Federal Reserve Challenge, Math League, Model United Nations competitions, National History Day, Poetry Out Loud, Science Olympiad, The Maltz Museum's Stop the Hate essay contest, TEAMS, United States National Physics Olympiad, and the Vex Robotics Competition.