In 2010, the California Court of Appeals Fourth District, Division 2 visited the school in an educational experience and as an outreach to young people.

In October 2021, a video went viral the footage displayed showed the math teacher Candice Reed[3] at John W. North High School in Riverside Unified School District wearing a fake feather headdress while dancing around the classroom and chanting "SOH-CAH-TOA", which is a mnemonic for remembering a trigonometry principle.

North High is one of the few schools in California that awards the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma and Certificate to students.

This includes the "Advancement Via Individual Determination" (AVID) program which is designed to help motivate financially disadvantaged kids into college.

John W. North's Track and Field Team has won more CIF and state titles than any other school in the Inland Empire.

She would later become the 2004 Olympic Gold Medal Winner in Athens in the 100m Hurdles and credits his coaching to the root of her success.

Other women athletes at North included Keiana Shannon, April Holliverse, Chaunte Howard, Ashlee Brown, Domenique Manning, Lorainne King, Tanika Ward, Gayle Hunter, Kiersten Kirkland, Frances Chase-Dunn, and Marjani Maldonado.

Under his tenure, Leathers coached both the boys' and girls' teams to back-to-back CIF championships, placing North among only seven schools to do so.

Since these heady successes, Coach Leather's command of the Huskies has come to an end and the team's prestige has slowly faded.