Alumni FAQ

The official name of the school is San Dieguito High School Academy, although most people now refer to it as San Dieguito Academy. The term “Academy” indicates that our campus is a “school of choice.”

The term “school of choice” was coined In 1996. It means that any student living within the district may choose to enroll at San Dieguito High School Academy, not just those who live nearby. (If more students apply than there is room, a lottery is held.) La Costa Canyon High School and Torrey Pines High School are traditional campuses, meaning that only students living nearby may attend.

San Dieguito High School Academy quickly became a popular alternative to La Costa Canyon and Torrey Pines. As a result the district opened Canyon Crest Academy, the only other school of choice in the San Dieguito Union High School District.

The California State Board of Education refers to the school as “San Dieguito High School Academy” on its list of Distinguished Schools, and as “San Dieguito High Academy” on its Directory of Public Schools. The San Dieguito Union High School District occasionally refers to it as “San Dieguito Academy” but more often as “San Dieguito High School Academy,” as is evidenced by their “Our Schools” article, their District Directory, and their district boundary map.

San Dieguito Union High School in 1942

You may be interested to know San Dieguito has undergone two name changes since its founding in 1936, when it opened as San Dieguito Union High School.

According to a former SDUHS District staff member, in the late 1960s administrators realized San Dieguito did not meet the qualifications for a union school in the state of California, so they began to phase out the word Union. The 1968 Hoofprint was the first yearbook to refer to the school as San Dieguito High School, although the diplomas did not reflect the shorter name until 1978.

1997 is the first graduating class to have “San Dieguito High School Academy” on their diplomas.

No and no. San Dieguito has operated as a public high school for almost 75 years without interruption.

Yearbooks used to be kept in the library, but people cut out photos from the pages. As soon as staff realized how serious this problem had become, they moved the yearbooks to the vault in the Principal’s office. Unfortunately, very few of our older annuals are intact. If you would like to donate your annual to San Dieguito, we would be most appreciative.

San Dieguito has been producing winning sports teams since 1937, but as the number of trophies increased, the area available to store them did not. Older trophies were placed in storage and as the decades passed, some disappeared.

In 1998, physical education and social science teacher John Brennan learned that the remaining trophies in the storage room were scheduled to be cleaned out. He saved as many as he could, including all the CIFs and the oldest trophies from the thirties on up, as well as a good representation of trophies from the different San Dieguito sports played throughout the years.

He arranged them for display in the glass trophy case opposite the gym where they have rested safely since then. Some of the oldest trophies may be difficult to read due to their age, but they are there. (Thank you, Mr. Brennan!) In addition, we have all our CIF banners, which are displayed in the gym.

The SDHS Veterans are dedicated to preserving the memory of former students who gave their lives serving in the U.S. armed forces during wartime; the group honors those lives through the memorial, scholarships and other community resources. The SDHS Veterans devoted hundreds of hours to find the names of all former students who lost their lives in the armed forces, but room was left on the memorial plaque for any individuals identified after the memorial was placed.

If you know of an alumnus who died while serving our country during a time of war, please contact Mr. David Gonzales at (760) 750-4347; or contact the SDA Foundation Office at ed@sdafoundation.com and we will pass this information on to Mr. Gonzales.

For many years Mrs. Rosalie Plummer volunteered as San Dieguito’s alumni coordinator. It was an enormous job and she did it wonderfully; we were very sad to learn of her passing some years ago.

Unfortunately, all her alumni records were lost. The school itself never kept alumni records, so the Foundation recently started to do so — from scratch.

We hope to reconnect with our alumni: to have them come and speak to classes on Career Day, to share their life experiences in history classes, to serve on advisory boards, to donate, or to just visit their alma mater to see what’s new since they graduated.

To that end the Foundation will publish an alumni newsletter two or three times a year to keep interested alumni informed of school events. And if you are on record with the Foundation as an alumni representative for your class, our alumni coordinator will be glad to help you publicize your alumni events on the Foundation website. The Foundation will also assist alumni groups with campus tours and other alumni events.

Contact information given to the Foundation will not be sold or traded to any other organization. If an alumnus decides to be excluded from Foundation alumni mailings, they need only call or email the Foundation and their contact information will be removed immediately.

The Foundation is a non-profit organization raising funds and organizing volunteers in support of educational and extra-curricular programs at San Dieguito High School Academy. Ask any teacher at San Dieguito: the Foundation helps provide necessary equipment and services that state and local funding no longer cover.

For example, last year the Foundation gave San Dieguito $62,000 worth of science equipment: incubators, gas spectrometers, electric autoclave, chemistry probes, plankton testing nets, and an on-campus weather station; $2,000 to the school newspaper, The Mustang, $3,000 to the Art Department for silk-screening equipment, and $2,500 to Applied Tech for web design software. This list is just a sample of our recent projects.

You can learn more about the Foundation at SDAFoundation.com or by contacting us at ed@sdafoundation.com.