The debate was between the proposition's sponsor, John Briggs, and San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk.

[4] In December 2007, a petition was made to move Northgate to the Acalanes Union High School District.

Diablo school district board[5] and the Contra Costa County Office of Education[6] both denied the petition.

[8] On May 2–3, 2017, the Contra Costa County Board of Education held public meetings on the petition.

A fixed cadre of students takes three "threaded” classes (English 1, World History, and Art Design) that build connections between the content in all three.

Northgate's sports include football, cheerleading, basketball, baseball, soccer, volleyball, cross country, golf, lacrosse, swimming, tennis, track and field, softball, water polo, and wrestling.

[19] All Northgate performing arts programs operate chiefly out of the Jack De Rieux Little Theatre, which was remodeled and enlarged in 2006.

Symphonic Band is the largest instrumental music group, typically consisting of 10th, 11th, and 12th grade members.

All the other groups perform together at the Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts in downtown Walnut Creek.

In order to be a part of Cantiamo or Il Coro, students must choose a song to audition with.

To get into Bella Voce or Madrigals, any prospective member must have first spent at least one year in Il Coro or Cantiamo (some exceptions have been made in the past), and audition with a song of their choice and a selected choir piece.

The drama program consists of four levels, the last being Production Workshop which produces at least one play per semester.

Northgate also participates in the Devil Mountain Improv League, a completely student-created and student-run coalition of competitive high school improvisational theater students that has been around since 1996.

[26][27] Northgate was chosen as a location for its partial-wall "open environment" classroom design, representing an easy teaching job at a "nice school" for the character Rick Latimer (James Belushi).