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Hillsdale High School (San Mateo, California)

high school in California, United States

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 13, 2026
Entity authorityQ5763796 ↗
Source-derived summary

Hillsdale High School is a public co-educational high school in San Mateo, California, serving grades 9–12 as part of the San Mateo Union High School District. Hillsdale generally serves the residents of San Mateo and Foster City. The main feeder schools to Hillsdale are Abbott, Bayside, Borel, and Bowditch Middle Schools of the San Mateo-Foster City School District.

History

When it opened in 1955, Hillsdale High School was awarded the School Design Award from the American Institute of Architects. It served as the prototype for Bay Area high schools, with indoor/outdoor passages, landscaped courtyards, and skylights in classrooms. The design is credited to John Lyon Reid.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, teachers Greg Jouriles and Sue Bedford developed and implemented an integrated humanities curriculum, scheduling social studies and English classes back-to-back. The extended periods were first rolled out to first-year honors students in 1989, followed by a parallel program implemented by Christine Del Gaudio and Marty Kongsle for the remaining first-year students in 1992. 1994 marked the start of the annual Battle at Dawn, a re-enactment of the Battle of Neuve Chapelle for first-year students at HHS as part of their studies about World War I.

In 1996, HHS proposed implementing a senior exhibition as a graduation requirement to pass fourth-year English classes. Students would have to defend a fifteen-page thesis before a three-member panel for their senior exhibition, which drew attention from parents concerned their children would not pass.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Hillsdale High School (San Mateo, California)” as high school in California, United States. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Hillsdale, High and School.

Editorial reviewMost valuable as an event-and-institution map that identifies actors, dates and record creators for deeper historical inquiry. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1955, 1989, 1992, 1994—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1955. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Hillsdale, High and School providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Hillsdale High School (San Mateo, California)”, the useful work is to connect “high school in California, United States” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5763796. Authority coordinates are 37.532, -122.313. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1955, 1989, 1992 and 1994.

Critical limits

Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Hillsdale High School (San Mateo, California)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Hillsdale High School (San Mateo, California) primary sources, Hillsdale High School (San Mateo, California) archive and Hillsdale research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Hillsdale High School (San Mateo, California)”?
  2. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
  3. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Hillsdale High School (San Mateo, California)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.