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Palo Alto High School

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File:Palo Alto High School billboard.jpg
The Palo Alto High School sign of late. It was replaced by a billboard with a digital display around 2002.

Palo Alto Senior High School is the older of the two high schools in Palo Alto, California, United States. Founded in 1898, today its enrollment is near 1700 students. "Paly," as the school is known locally, due to the demographics of its location near Stanford University and in the heart of Silicon Valley, draws high achieving and scholastically-minded students; in 2002 Newsweek ranked it among the top 200 public high schools, based on test scores.[1] The school also carries on a distinguished athletic tradition, marked in recent years by a rivalry with crosstown foe Gunn. Titles won by teams from Paly include California State Championships in Boys Varsity Basketball in 1993 (when the team went undefeated) and 2006.

Paly is situated on the older, northern side of Palo Alto. The western boundary of the campus is El Camino Real, on the other side of which stands Stanford Stadium, and beyond it the campus of Stanford University. The north end of Paly runs along Embarcadero Road, from which the main parking lot is accessible; across the street lies the Town & Country Village shopping center. Students take full advantage of their proximity to Town and Country (or "T&C," as they once called it), and lunch hours during the school year will generally find them giving brisk business to its eateries.

In contrast, the eastern edge of the Paly campus abuts the Caltrain rail tracks, which separate the school from Alma Street. In recent years, the Paly community has been shaken by several students' suicide (by jumping into oncoming trains) at the Alma Street-Churchill Avenue crossing. Commuter trains thunder by on their route between San Jose and San Francisco, their window-rattling passage routinely ignored by all but the newest students and teachers. Some have attributed these suicides to the emphasis on grades, achievement, and pressure to compete for acceptance at highly selective colleges that characterize many Palo Alto families.

The southern side of the school grounds, with its expanses of athletic fields, reaches its end at Churchill Avenue and the leafy residential area beyond. What would be the extreme southwestern corner of the campus is occupied by the main offices of the Palo Alto Unified School District.

The school can reached by the VTA bus line 22 along El Camino Real, the Dumbarton Express bus, the SamTrans bus line KX, Stanford's free Marguerite shuttle, Caltrain's Palo Alto station, as well as by the Palo Alto city shuttle, which runs along Embarcadero Road.

The school mascot is the Viking.

Publications

Aerial photo of Palo Alto High School.
  • The Campanile is Paly's most famous and recognized publication. It claims the largest circulation of any high school newspaper in the Bay Area. It prints around 20 broadsheet pages once every three weeks. It has won four Pacemaker awards and also a West regional award for editorial excellence from Time.
  • Verde is Paly's school magazine publication, published five times each year. Verde is the widest distributed student-run magazine in the nation, and has won numerous Pacemaker and Gold Crown awards for scholastic journalism, including the 2005 Gold Crown award in the Newspaper category. In 2006 Verde won the Best in Show at National Journalism Convention held in San Francisco.
  • The Paly Voice, launched in the 2002-3 school year, is Paly's online news source. It features searchable archives of all of the above publications as well as exclusive online content. In the spring of 2005 the site won both the People's Voice and Overall Webby Award in the "Student" category, a rare accomplishment for a high school level Internet site. The Voice was also one of the national Online Pacemaker award recipients in 2006, 2005 and 2004, and was a finalist for the same award in 2003. The Voice can be accessed at voice.paly.net.
  • InFocus is Paly's television news channel. It is broadcast five days a week during fourth period, and available only on Paly campus and online at voice.paly.net
  • Calliope is Paly's literary magazine, published once or twice a year. It is also available online at calliope.paly.net.

Theater

Housed in the historic Haymarket Theater, Paly's theater department is the edgy underdog of Palo Alto high school theater. In 2006, Paly was host to the world premiere of the musical "Love Songs in Traffic," written by Paly choir teacher Michael Najar. Every two years, Paly holds a Spring showcase of student-written one-act plays called "Speed Limit 25." The Grateful Dead played at the Haymarket back when they were known as The Warlocks.

The Thespian Society is the oldest club on campus, and facilitates field trips to see plays as well as to attend acting and improv workshops. Since 2004, the annual Play in a Day festival has been held the first weekend of Winter Break, when theater alumni join current students in the Haymarket to write, rehearse and perform one-act plays within a period of just over 24 hours.

Campus Traditions

Since Palo Alto High school was built at its current location in 1919, it has acquired a host of campus traditions.

Spirit Week

Each class is assigned a color for Spirit Week, which they wear on Wednesday. Each day has its own costume theme, which is broken down into sub-themes by class. Rallies and competitions are held on the quad at lunch and points are awarded to each class based on their performance. Points can also be taken away for poor sportsmanship or the wearing of unauthorized class apparel.

  • Spirit Week Themes
    • Monday: Class Theme
    • Tuesday: Salad Dressing
    • Wednesday: Class colors/shirts
    • Thursday: Ages
    • Friday: School colors

Senior Pranks

  • Six-foot C painted on Stanford's main quad (c. 1940)[2]
  • Cow in Tower Building (possibly apocryphal)[3]
  • Library broken into; library carrels moved to quad (1997)[3]
  • Giant inflatable water polo ball taken from Stanford was re-inflated on top of the library building (2003)[3]
  • Eight-foot paper maché and chicken wire penis was tied between palm trees and dangled across the quad (1991)[4]
  • Hundreds of crickets unleashed in the library prior to the finals for grades 9-11, Class of '99.

Streaking

Typically a group of just graduated seniors streak across the quad during the last week of school (usually the last day of classes at brunch).

Notable Alumni

Notable Visitors

  • Walter Mondale, Former U.S. Vice President, 2006
  • David M. Kennedy, Historian and author of The American Pageant, 2006
  • Mary Tillman, Mother of the late American football player and soldier Pat Tillman, 2006
  • Alan Bersin, California Secretary of Education, 2006
  • Annette Bening, American Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe-winning actress, 2006

Sources: The Paly Voice at http://voice.paly.net

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Jeffries, Kimberly and Laila Ouhamou, researchers. [1]
  2. ^ Marek, Grant. "There's More to the Big Game than 'the Play': Rivalry has Storied Tradition of Pranks, Acts of School Pride," Daily Californian, 17 November, 2001. [2]
  3. ^ a b c Cook, Gavin. "Pranks brighten, blemish Paly environment," Campanile, 2 June, 2005. [3]
  4. ^ Blakely, Participant, Class of '91
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