The school offers college prep, honors, and Advanced Placement (AP) courses in many subjects.

With help from the students, parents, alumni and the Garces community, numerous items are donated and auctioned off at these events.

[citation needed] Founded in 1947, the school is named after Father Francisco Garcés, a Spanish Franciscan friar and missionary who explored much of the southwestern part of North America, including what is now the Bakersfield region.

The school is located near the terminus of the Panorama (aka China Grade) Bluffs, on the exact site that Garces wrote would make a perfect place for a mission for the local Indian populace in his exploration of the Rio Bravo de San Felipe, now known as the Kern River.

[5] In the fall of that year, Garces became the first high school in Bakersfield to have a boys and girls water polo team.

In 2011, Garces built a swimming pool on campus, making it the only high school in Bakersfield to have such a facility.