Ensign Intermediate School

(Horace) Ensign Intermediate School is a public junior high school located in Newport Beach, California, United States. It is one of four public junior high schools located in the Newport Mesa Unified School District.
History
Ensign Intermediate School was built in 1949. It is named after Horace Ensign, who was the first teacher-principal of the school. It was the first intermediate school in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District.
About Ensign
The school currently has about 1,600 students enrolled. It is evenly divided into two grade levels, 7th and 8th. Students from 12 different ethnic groups are on campus, with the majority being White or Hispanic. Ensign is a neighborhood school, and most students walk or bicycle to school. A small percentage of the students are bussed. More than 1/4 of students qualify for the free or reduced price lunch programs.
The school colors are royal blue and white, and its mascot is the Seabee.
Academics
The school offers a variety of pre-high school preparatory curricula, including World and United States History, Science, English, Spanish and exploratory electives such as Visual Arts and Music. Particularly progressive are the Mathematics and Physical Education departments. The mathematics programs currently offered at Ensign Intermediate allow for qualified students to enroll in high school at the Algebra II level, and the physical education program offers team sports such as volleyball and basketball.
Incidents
On March 20, 2004 six male students dressed in pink were prevented from posing in the school photo by principal Ed Wong, who believed their attire could have been gang related. The next day, hundreds of students at the school protested by wearing pink.
On Tuesday, December 11, 2007 students were threatened when a student brought hazardous materials onto the campus and subsequently caused a lockdown that lasted three and a half to four hours. The "vulnerable explosives" were originally claimed to be some sort of an "acid bomb" that could cause a blast with a radius of 300 feet. Between 10:55 and 11:45am, the principle transmitted an urgent message on the PA system that "This is not a drill" and ordered teachers to close and lock the doors. Students crawled underneath their seats. Later a staff member came to most of the classrooms to say that "vulnerable explosives" had been found in room 26 (which happened to be the detention room that year); other sources say it was found in a locker. Most of the student body was evacuated to the school's gymnasium for a while, before being sent out to the school's soccer field for a few hours until bomb squad took care of the situation. The school was officially released at 2:35pm, five minutes earlier than its normal, bell-schedule ending time. The threat had been initiated by a 7th grade male student attending the school who had stowed these materials in his locker. The student consequently went to Orange County Juvenile Hall. The chemicals he brought would not have been able to create a big, life-threatening explosion anyway had the chemicals mixed in a chemical reaction, said Sergeant Randy Sterett of the Orange County Sheriff's Bomb Squad.
On Friday, March 21, 2008, there was another brief five-minute lockdown sometime between 10:55 and 11:45am.
In late 2015, vandalism on one of the square walls caused seven mural paintings to be painted over. The murals were painted from Friday, March 27, 2009 to Sunday, March 29, 2009; most of the hard-working-yet-rewarding hours took place on Saturday, March 28, 2009.
On the morning of November 11, 2016, a fire started in the gym area, causing major fire damage to the PE offices, the gym, and the girls' locker room, and smoke damage to the boys' locker room. Whether this was arson remains unclear.
Feeder schools
Students at Ensign arrive from different schools, both public and private, from Costa Mesa and Newport Beach. These include:
* Newport Elementary
* Newport Heights Elementary
* Mariners Elementary
* (Heinz) Kaiser Elementary
* Whittier Elementary
* Rea Elementary (formerly)
Typically, graduating students go on to attend Newport Harbor High School.

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