Mentor High School

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Mentor High School is the public high school for the city of Mentor, Ohio. It is the only high school in the Mentor Exempted Village School District. The school serves about 2,300 students in grades 9–12 with roughly a 20:1 student-teacher ratio. The school colors are scarlet and gray, and its teams are called the Fighting Cardinals.

Mentor High moved to a four-year high school in 2009, after previously serving grades 10–12. It draws students from Mentor, Mentor-on-the-Lake, and parts of Kirtland Hills and Concord Township. Memorial Middle School and Shore Middle School feed into Mentor High; Ridge Middle School closed in 2018-19 and became an elementary.

Academically, Mentor High earned the Ohio Department of Education’s “Excellent” rating from 2003–04 through 2011–12. Since 2012, the state changed its evaluation system, so overall building ratings aren’t issued in the same way. The school has National Merit recognitions and appears in various independent rankings.

The school offers a strong arts and activities program. The Fighting Cardinal Marching Band (FCMB) has earned multiple Superior ratings at state contests. There are four orchestras (Concert, Sinfonia, Symphony, Mannheim) and several choirs, plus an auditioned show choir. The Science Olympiad team has had high finishes at state and national levels.

Notable, though sensitive, events in the school’s recent history include suicides of five students between the mid-2000s and 2008, linked to harassment. Families filed lawsuits, one settled in 2014 and another dismissed in 2015. The issue was covered in the 2014 documentary Mentor.