Emerald Ridge High School is a high school in the Puyallup School District of Washington, United States and is commonly referred to as ERHS or simply ER. Emerald Ridge opened in September 2000. It features green, black and silver as its primary colors and has a jaguar as its official mascot. As of the 2023-2024 school year, the school had an enrollment of 1,574 students. Of these students, 71.9% met English standards, 30.5% met Math standards, and 38.6% met Science standards in state assessments.

Inaugural Class of 2002

This first class to graduate from ERHS was in 2002, and had their 10-year class reunion in July 2012.

Commencement

Commencement, or graduation, is held every year at the Puyallup Fairgrounds in June.

Notable alumni

Athletics and activities

On October 8, 2010, the Jags defeated their crosstown rivals, the Puyallup Vikings, by a score of 20–17, earning their first victory since the 2008 season. The win snapped a 19-game losing streak for the team, and was the first time they had beaten the Vikings in the school's history.

Daffodil Festival

Every year, Emerald Ridge participates in the Pierce County Daffodil Festival. A competition is held in house to select the Puyallup Princess, who goes on to compete against other regional schools, for the Daffodil Festival Queen title. The Queen title is considered the highest honor of the regional festival. The Emerald Ridge band accompanies the float of Emerald Ridge's princesses every year in the parade, held annually in April. The Queen and runners-up receive scholarships for post-high school education, and 2009 was the first year that one of ERHS's princesses was selected as Queen (Melanie Stambaugh). In the 2013–2014 school year ERHS selected two Daffodil princesses. One of them went on to become the Daffodil Queen (Marissa Modestowicz).

JagWire newsmagazine

Emerald Ridge's official newspaper is {JagWire} newsmagazine. The paper was named by a Puyallup High School teacher and the adviser of the Viking Vanguard. {JagWire} published a 28-page monthly newspaper for many years until it was dropped to a 16-page newsmagazine in 2010. During that time the print publication followed mostly the same design, until a redesign in 2010 led by then Editor-in-Chief Allie Rickard, the 2010–2011 WJEA Journalist of the Year. During the 2014–2015 school year, {JagWire} dropped down to six 16-page publications that year instead of the usual eight. That same year {JagWire} started its online addition to the print publication, erhsjagwire.com, and set up social media accounts for Twitter (@GetJagWired) and Instagram (@erjagwire). The print publication also featured a new design, the first since 2010. For the 2018–2019 school year the school district dropped the newspaper class at Emerald Ridge due to low student interest, marking the first year JagWire did not publish an issue. However, despite the continued absence of a newspaper class to run it, {JagWire} now exists as an exclusively online publication, with articles by volunteer students and staff. This online publication is found on jagwire.org, which replaced the old, now unavailable website. {JagWire} has won various state and national awards for its print publication, as well as numerous individual write-off awards from its staff members.