Walter Reed Middle School

Walter Reed Middle School
Location
4525 Irvine Avenue North Hollywood, CA, 91602 United States
Information
Type	Public
School district	Los Angeles Unified School District
Principal	Donna Tobin
Faculty	90
Grades	6 - 8
Enrollment	~2,000
Campus type	Urban
Color(s)	Green & Grey
Mascot	Wolves
Information	818-487-7600
Website	http://www.reedmstech.com/home

Walter Reed Middle School is a year-round school located in North Hollywood in Los Angeles, California. Its original name was North Hollywood Junior High School, and was later renamed in honor of U.S. Army Major Walter Reed. At the 2008 Republican National Convention in Saint Paul, Minnesota, a photograph of the facade of Walter Reed Middle School was displayed behind GOP nominee John McCain as a backdrop to his acceptance speech. There has been speculation that the campaign meant to display the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the Army's leading medical institution and a facility widely associated with care for Iraq War veterans.[1]

The school is a part of Local District 2 of the Los Angeles Unified School District. It is nationally known for having above-average academic and art (music, dance, drama) programs.

Several areas, including much of North Hollywood, Valley Village, Studio City, and Woodbridge Park [2], are zoned to Reed.

The school boasts a variety of special academic programs, each unique to their own track, excluding the "SAS" program. On the "A" track, there is the normal school in addition to the School for Advanced Studies and Individualized Honors Program; on the "B" track, once again, School for Advanced Studies and Humanities Academy in addition to the regular school and on the "C" track can be found the regular school, School for Advanced Studies, and the Technology Academy. Out of these tracks, the "A" track is the one that has the most similar schedule to regular schools. The school will return to a "traditional" schedule in September, 2008.

The "A" Track has an advanced program called the Individualized Honors Program, or IHP, which Time magazine called "perhaps the most successful junior-high curriculum in the U.S."

Founded in 1971 by William Fitz-Gibbon, the IHP's purpose is to serve the needs of highly-gifted children. Its curriculum includes classes such as Advanced Placement Physics and Calculus. Walter Reed is believed to be the only middle school in the nation that offers AP Physics. The IHP also provides many extracurricular opportunities to its students. One such example is the yearly school trip. The 6th graders go to Catalina Island, the 7th to Yosemite National Park, and the 8th to Washington, D.C. These destinations are subject to change every year, however.

Walter Reed possesses an award-winning music department. Its alumni include the famous conductor and composer, Michael Tilson Thomas. The school offers an orchestra, wind ensemble, various singing groups, and a jazz band.

Reed Middle School's award-winning music program has orchestra, jazz band, chorus and barbershop groups participating in numerous performances throughout the year including a Broadway musical and a musical review and in various regional and California state competitions. 2003 was a record year for Reed Middle School’s California State competitions - winning first place in almost all categories - even against high school competitors. In addition, a Reed student won the California State PTA Reflections Music Composition and was honored at the PTA State Convention held this past year in Sacramento.

Reed's drama department has trained some of the top actors of stage and screen. The list is extensive of the famous celebrities that have graduated from Walter Reed.

Reed Middle School is also unique in that it houses both an award-winning Drill Team and an award-winning Hip Hop Team, which compete on an ongoing basis performing in local, regional and state competitions, many times pitted and winning against long-established high school teams.

Since Studio City, home of CBS Studios, lies right next to WRMS, regular filming has been done at the school for the television shows such as Head of the Class (which was based on Reed's IHP program and several of the actors on the show were IHP students at Reed at the time), Growing Pains, 7th Heaven, CSI, Malcolm in the Middle and many more; and many films including Transformers, Joe Dirt, "License to Drive",The Shaggy Dog,"Little Big Men", and Accepted were filmed there. Also portions of the HBO miniseries Tell Me You Love Me were filmed at Walter Reed Middle School aka Walter Reed Junior High School. Reed is one of the most popular film locales in the San Fernando Valley/Los Angeles area.

Reed feeds into North Hollywood High School.

In the News

File:Percentage of blog posts mentioning walter reed middle school graph.png

Percentage of blog posts mentioning "Walter Reed Middle School" May-September 2008

At the 2008 Republican National Convention in Saint Paul, Minnesota, the facade of Walter Reed Middle School was displayed behind GOP nominee John McCain as a backdrop to his acceptance speech. The use of the school as a backdrop led to widespread speculation, starting in the blogosphere. Blog posts referencing "Walter Reed Middle School" jumped from being mentioned in roughly 0% of all blog posts in the last six months to .0325% of all blog posts the night of the convention according to Neilson BuzzMetrics' BlogPulse (see right). Although the campaign has not released an official statement, many have jumped to the conclusion that the campaign meant to display Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the Army's leading medical institution and a facility widely associated with care for Iraq war veterans.

The principal of Walter Reed MS, Donna Tobin released a statement on the school's website saying that the school had not given permission for the footage to be used, "is the use of our school’s picture an endorsement of any political party or view."

The current district rate for one day of filming at an LAUSD school is $2,500.

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