West Valley High School is an American high school located at 3805 Happy Valley Road, Cottonwood, California, 96022, 6.5 miles west of Interstate 5 near the intersection of Gas Point and Happy Valley Roads. The closest major city is Redding, California which is about fifteen miles north of the school. The school's mascot is the eagle. West Valley is a small school of approximately 900 students. It is part of the Anderson Union High School District which is headed by superintendent Victor Hopper. The district includes Anderson, Anderson New Technology, Oakview, North Valley, and West Valley High Schools. The high school is known locally for its academics and is a California distinguished school. It is also well known in the North State area for its athletic programs, and proudly touts its efforts to maintain a drug-free and vape/cigarette-free campus. History Before West Valley's opening in 1981, Anderson High School found itself unable to expand in size due to topographical constraints, and a new high school had to be built within the district. As a result, the Board of Education approved a tax override measure to be placed on the local ballot. The voters approved the measure, but because of the earlier passage of Proposition 13, special legislation in Sacramento had to be introduced and passed to allow for the tax levy to be utilized for a new school. The bill passed, and land was subsequently purchased through the state's power of eminent domain, and construction of a new high school in Cottonwood ensued. West Valley High School was dedicated on October 1, 1981. At the dedication ceremony, the Honorable Richard B. Eaton, Shasta County Superior Court Judge, remarked: "A younger generation can go forward only if it begins, not where its fathers began, but where they finished . . . . The public school presents, in effect, a conducted tour to the frontiers of present knowledge, after which the student must break his own trail into the unknown . . . . [It is] my high honor and privilege to dedicate West Valley High School . . . in the name of those goals to whose service a public school should most fittingly be dedicated . . . to truth, to freedom, and to equality."In the late-1980s and early 1990s, a performing arts center was built as well as an addition to the cafeteria. A few years later, a pool,