Palo Alto High School Totally Explained

Everything about Palo Alto High School totally explained

Palo Alto Senior High School is among the oldest high schools in the region, located in Palo Alto, California, United States. Founded in 1898, its enrollment today is over 1700 students. "Paly", as the school is known locally, draws high-achieving and scholastically-minded students due to the demographics of its location in the heart of Silicon Valley and its proximity to Stanford University. In 2002 Newsweek magazine ranked it among the top 200 public high schools, based on test scores. In 2007 US News & World Report magazine ranked it #85 out of over 18,000 public high schools. Palo Alto High 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 (during which the team went undefeated) and 2006, along with CCS Championships in Football in 2006 and 2007.
   Paly is situated on the older, northern side of Palo Alto, a location it has occupied since 1919. The western boundary of campus is El Camino Real, opposite which stands Stanford Stadium and the campus of Stanford University. The northern end of Paly runs along Embarcadero Road (from which the main parking lot is accessible).
   At the eastern edge of the Paly campus are Caltrain rail tracks, which separate the school from Alma Street. Commuter trains pass by on the track using the route between San Jose and San Francisco. The Paly community has experienced tragedy three times, in 1986, 2002 and 2003 when students have committed suicide by jumping in front of oncoming trains near the Alma Street-Churchill Avenue crossing. Since the last tragedy, signs with 1800 SUICIDE have been placed along the tracks. The back of Paly student body cards now include “emergency” numbers to make sure the organizations are available to teens. Among these numbers there's a 24/7 help line, a teen health line and numbers for the Adolescent Counseling Services both on and off campus.
   On the southern side of the school grounds extends to Churchill Avenue, and contain the athletic fields and the school district's bus depot. The southwestern corner of the campus is occupied by the main offices of the Palo Alto Unified School District.
   The school can be 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.

Student organizations

Student Government

Paly ASB leadership includes the ASB President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, Spirit Commissioners, Class Presidents and VP's, and Web Design/Communications Officer. The purpose of the ASB, as defined by its constitution, is the representation on behalf of the student body, the conduct of activities on behalf of the students of Palo Alto High School as approved by the principal and the governing board of the Palo Alto Unified School District. Activities include school dances, Spirit Week, and other ceremonies.

Publications

The Campanile is Paly's school print publication. It claims one of the largest circulations of any high school newspaper in the Bay Area and is one of the longest running student journalism programs on the west coast. It prints 24 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 other Paly 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 2007, 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

. It has recently come under fire from Campanile for its unreliability, an issue highlighted by the occasional missed broadcasts due to technical difficulties. Their conflict has manifested in a cartoon, written by Michael Schisler, in the Campanile in October, 2007 and a subsequent InFocus segment

Calliope is Paly's literary magazine, published once or twice a year. Its first publication was in 1981-82. It is also available online at calliope.paly.net

The Viking is Paly's campus sports magazine. It was first published first semester of the 2007-2008 year. The received "Best in Show" at the National Scholastic Press Association in Anaheim in 2008. The Viking is the first sports magazine in the nation at the high school level.

Mock Trial

Palo Alto's mock trial team, run by former Social Studies Instructional Supervisor Suzanne Stewart, is a perennial force in the Santa Clara County division of the Constitutional Rights Foundation's mock trial competition. Palo Alto competed in the 2004, 2006, and 2007 county finals, beating Lynbrook High School in 2005 and 2007 to represent Santa Clara County in the California Mock Trial Competition. In 2005, Palo Alto placed 10th in the state..

Theater

Past productions include: Big Love, The Fantasticks, A Chorus Line, Flaming Guns of the Purple Sage, Metamorphoses, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Learned Ladies, Romeo and Juliet, Anything Goes, The Laramie Project and 43 Plays For 43 Presidents. Every other year, Paly holds a Spring showcase of student-written and directed one-act plays called "Speed Limit 25".
The Thespian Society is the oldest club on campus, and facilitates field trips to see plays throughout the Bay Area, 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.
In 2008, Kristen Lo left the theatre department and was replaced by Kathleen Woods.

Robotics

The Palo Alto High School (Paly) Robotics Team, established in 1996 by Doug Bertain and his engineering technology students, is one of the many active academic programs at Paly. They are funded mainly by corporate sponsors. The team competes annually in competitions such as the For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) Competition, the Electric Vehicle Rally, Botball, and The Tech Challenge. In 2006, the team won first place at the FIRST Las Vegas Regional Competition. In 2007, the team was selected to participate in, and given a $10,000 grant from, MIT's InvenTeams

program. This year, the team participated in 3 FIRST regional competitions: Portland, San Jose, and Las Vegas. After placing 6th in Las Vegas, the team will travel to Atlanta for the FIRST Championships in mid-April.

Paly Clubs

Paly offers a range of clubs. Major established clubs include Paly Key Club

, Science Olympiad/Science Bowl

, Math Club

, the Millard Fillmore Trivia Club, the Inside-Out (Christian) Club, the GSA (Gay Straight Alliance) Club, the YCS (Youth Community Service) Club. A full list of clubs can be found online at (External Link

)

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

The senior class has almost always won Spirit Week. One exception was of the class of 2006. The class theme was voted to be "Herbology: We're higher than you" but the school decided it wouldn't be appropriate and students found wearing the shirts were asked to remove the shirt, turn it inside out, or add language making the statement political. During Spirit Week, the class was penalized for wearing the shirts and was the first senior class to get a negative score. Additionally, the class of 1987 won Spirit Week three years in a row, sophomore through senior years and the class of 2002 won it all four years 98-02.

Senior pranks

Six-foot C painted on Stanford's main quad (c. 1940)

Cow in Tower Building (possibly apocryphal)

Library broken into; library carrels moved to quad (1997)(2007)

Notable alumni

Erle Stanley Gardner, novelist, class of 1909.

Lester Steers, world record holder in high jump from 1941-1953, class of 1937

Rink Babka, Olympic discus thrower, class of 1954

Jon Huntsman, billionaire founder of Huntsman Corporation, class of 1955

Joan Baez, folk singer, class of 1958 - But her BIO says "Redlands Senior High School classroom in southern California"

Charles Haid III, Actor/Director, class of 1961(?) - Hill Street Blues (Andy Ranko)

Joe Simitian, California State Assemblyman (2000-2004); California State Senator (2004-), class of 1970

Ron Wyden, U.S. Senator, Oregon, class of 1967

John Markoff, reporter, New York Times, class of 1967

Tad Williams, author of the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, Otherland, and Shadowmarch Science Fiction/Fantasy series, class of 1975

Dave Schultz, Olympic gold medalist and World Champion wrestler, class of 1977

Allan Therkelsen, noted Danish sculptor, class of 1977

Mark Schultz, Olympic and World Champion wrestler, class of 1978

Rob Minkoff, director (The Lion King, etc), class of 1980

Kirk Wise, Film Director, (Beauty and the Beast, Hunchback of Notre Dame), class of 1981

Jim Harbaugh, football player and Stanford University football coach, class of 1982

Margot Early, romance author, class of 1982

Dave Feldman, Sportscaster WTTG-TV (FOX) Washington DC, class of 1983

Bill Pidto, ESPN Anchor, class of 1983

Whitfield Crane, Lead Singer - Ugly Kid Joe, class of 1986

Ron "Money B" Brooks, Rapper - Digital Underground class of 1987? (This is NOT the Ron Brooks who was Paly class of 87).

Ted Turkington, Baseball coach, St. Ignatius College Preparatory, class of 1991

James Franco, actor, class of 1996

Luke Paquin, guitarist - Hot Hot Heat, class of 1996

The Donnas, rock band (Brett Anderson, Maya Ford, Allison Robertson, and Torry Castellano), class of 1997

Timi Wusu, Stanford Football, Oakland Raiders, class of 2001

Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, Blues Singer/Organist, Grateful Dead, didn't graduate

Tony Brewer of the Los Angeles Dodgers

Tom Stern, Cinematographer, Million Dollar Baby, Flags of Our Fathers, Mystic River, class of 1964

Karen Joy Burke Fowler, novelist-(The Jane Austen Book Club) class of 1968

Ollie Johnston, Disney animator

Herbert J Susmann, co-founder of Nature Sound Electronics, Inc. Developer of the SongFinder digital birdsong hearing device. Class of 1978

Notable visitors

Philip Zimbardo, Professor of Psychology at Stanford, 2008.

James Franco, actor, alumni, spoke at the baccalaureate of the class of 2007.

Walter Mondale, former U.S. Vice President, 2006

David M. Kennedy, historian and author of The American Pageant, 2006, 2007

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

Steve Young, football player for the San Francisco 49ers, 2004.

LeVar Burton, actor, producer, director, spoke at the baccalaureate of the class of 2000 and 2005

The Grateful Dead, when they still went by "The Warlocks" (They played a show in the theater) Sources: The Paly Voice at http://voice.paly.net

Trivia

The school colors were green and red until school year 1947-48 when they were changed to green and white by student vote. Further Information

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