Dougherty Valley High School

I'm a parent of a Dougherty Valley High School student. I would say as a parent to other parents of prospective student:Consider sending your child to this school, ONLY IF your child likes or can adapt to an extremely academically focused, no balance, and very stressful environment. Or, you don't care your child will very likely have  emotionally miserable high school years.My child had been a happy kid and role model student from elementary through middle school and then at another high school before came here. Always enjoyed learning with very good grades and had many close friends at school. But, huge shock after came to Dougherty Valley High School. While school grades kept still good, no long enjoy going to school and hardly made one close friend.  Most of students appear highly stressed and extremely focused on grades.  If your child is a well balanced type student who not only willing/able to study hard and earn good grades, but also wants to enjoy life and make friends who won't just mainly talk about grades outside  classrooms, then it will be very hard to connect and make friends at DVHS. This school facilities look pretty nice and relatively new. But, It is overly crowded. Student populate grew too much over the last few years and outpaced the available space. Many classes take place at those temporary  units that look like made of shipping container. School lunches appear and taste terrible. My child started to develop depression symptom a few months after came here. And I heard from other people who knew this school to say that stress and depression are common among DVHS students. Many students got so stressed out by the school environment and student community here.I consider it is the biggest mistake that I have ever made on my child's wellbeing by enrolling at DVHS.I hope my shared experience can be helpful to some other parents who are looking for high school in this area for their child.  Do not focus too much on this school's high ranking, but rather check out the school environment and student community in person to get a first-hand feel. You might feel shocked  once you really get to know this school.
Mar 14th, 2023

I love Dougherty high school so much I miss high school so much I had a lot of fun I have amazing experience in high school and have a great time with other people either hope everyone good luck with everything and keep up the good work I love you Wildcats
Dec 24th, 2019

I used to think DVHS is a good school until I encountered its students in a robotics competition.  The students are rude and arrogant.  If you check out the conversation from its students in discord VRC forum, the comments are impudent, offensive, and sexism.  Oh, I forgot it is a closed forum because they knew what they wrote is inappropriate and they don't want others to find out.If all you care is academic, it may be ok.  However, if you want your kid to be a better person as a whole, think twice.  If you have a daughter who wants to advance in STEM, don't send her there!
Jan 10th, 2019

I'll be honest - this place nearly drove me insane. It's not a happy place. I attended 2014-2018 and I hated most of it. There were a few teachers I loved - but they are actually gone now (moved to different schools) such as Mr. O'Haire (math) and Mr. Seipel (PE - weights class) who moved to schools closer to where they live. The teachers, for the most part, were good and cared about the students to an extent. My issue lies with the other students. This place is infamous for the student community, which, in short, was not enjoyable, for the most part. While I did make some lifelong friendships, I do not miss 80% or more of the people I knew.As well as teachers, most administrators were okay. And DVHS has the best proms/balls in the bay area. Also, DVHS is academically superior. I was an average student at DVHS, with a GPA around 3.7, only a few Honors/AP courses. I had friends with over 4.5s, but also knew people with under 3.0s. I believe this place is a top 10 public high school in California, academically.The struggles I've had in high school made my time in college a breeze. College is so easy to me because DVHS was just so hard. I went from average at DVHS to (well) above average at my current school (which is certainly not prestigious like an Ivy League or UC school, but is a decent school indeed). If you plan on going to a small liberal arts college or a community college after graduating DVHS I think you will have a really easy time.I know many people currently (2020-2021 high schoolers) that transferred to Cal High or other schools because of how notoriously bad DVHS is. I actually switched to Venture Independent Study next to DVHS (public, part of SRVUSD) in the middle of my junior year and only took 2 classes at DVHS for the last 2 years (concurrent enrollment for AP calculus and a science class). My diploma is technically Venture and not Dougherty Valley.Of course I miss high school sometimes, but I am certainly glad to be done with that period of my life.Also, if you are 16-19 and know someone from DVHS, I would try to go to prom with them ;) My prom in May 2018 was memorable, definitely my most prominent (lol, no pun intended) memory of this place.
Jun 25th, 2021

As a high school soccer referee, I will be writing reviews for all the fields I officiate at.  Although you give 1 - 5 star ratings for Yelp, I will be making five separate ratings and the overall average will be the final Yelp rating.The following is my rating for Dougherty Valley High School:Field / Turf Condition     **Field configuration        *****Lights                             ****Seating                          *****Scoreboard                    ****OVERALL RATING          4.0Note:  Like most of the soccer fields, they have field markings for football, soccer and lacrosse.  The turf has gone through a lot of wear & tear due to the play of the three aforementioned sports along with track.  The turf needs to be revitalized.
Feb 25th, 2019