The school serves grades 9 through 12. Formerly directly administered by the Los Angeles Unified School District school, the school is now an independent charter school. Its current enrollment numbers 2,903 students. Many students travel long distances to attend Palisades Charter High which is one of the most highly ranked public high schools in the Los Angeles area.
In 2005, Palisades was recognized as a California Distinguished School. In 2015, Palisades was named one of America's Best High Schools by Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report.[6]
The school is located at 15777 Bowdoin Street, Pacific Palisades, California, 90272.
The school was founded in 1961.[1] It was built for $6,000,000 on a filled in canyon. At the time it was the most expensive high school in the LA City Schools. The founding principal was Herbert L. Aigner (died in 2000).[7] The Class of 2012 was the 50th graduating class.
Prior to the founding, the property was called All Hallows Farm and for many years was owned by the Conway family: Hollywood film director Jack Conway; his wife, actress Virginia Conway — daughter of silent screen star Francis X. Bushman — and their two sons, one of whom, Pat Conway became an actor as well. This property was subsequently rented to actress Debbie Reynolds and her husband, singer Eddie Fisher. It was then taken, some years later, by the State by eminent domain to build the high school.
Several members of the class of 1965 were profiled in a Time magazine article, which led to a best-selling 1976 book by class members David Wallechinsky and Michael Medved, What Really Happened to the Class of '65?.[8] The book featured interviews with several members of the class, whose experiences were recounted both individually and in groupings around shared themes such as the Vietnam War and the draft, drug experimentation, and sex. Various teachers from the school also were interviewed, among them English teachers Miss Jean O'Brien, history teacher Mr. Johnson, and Mrs. Rose "Mama G" Gilbert, who retired during 2012-2013 after 63 years of teaching.[9] At age 94, Mrs. Gilbert was the oldest active teacher in the LAUSD.[10][11] The success of the book later inspired a short-lived television dramatic anthology series of the same title, which ran from December 1977 to July 1978 on NBC.[12] The character of Maz Kanata was based on her.[13]
In 1989 20/20 aired an episode about the students of Palisades High School. Howard Rosenberg of the Los Angeles Times wrote that "Palisades High School is characterized here as both an institution of high academic performance and high drug and alcohol use. What "20/20" doesn't ask tonight is how both are possible at the same school."[14]
Circa 1992 there were so few students that LAUSD was considering closing the school. Pali High parents, principal Merle Price, and Pali High staff decided to advocate for making the school into a charter school.[15] In 1993 the school, along with three feeder elementary schools, received approval from the Los Angeles Board of Education to become a charter school. This was the first time a group of schools in California became charter schools.[16] The school asked students to abide by a behavior code and instituted new academic programs. By 1998 student enrollment recovered: it had 200 students previously attending private schools.[15]
This school was the focus of a false email chain letter started around 2002. The message falsely claimed that a satiric message to parents about student truancies and homework problems was actually on the school's answering machine. The message was originally written in response to parent outrage that students who skipped class more than ten days per 90-schoolday semester (not counting legitimate absences, like sickness) could receive a failing grade in that class. This was reported on several web sites, including TruthOrFiction.com,[17]Snopes,[18] and BreakTheChain.org.[19]
The campus is bounded by Temescal Canyon Road to the east, Sunset Boulevard to the north, El Medio Street to the west, and Temescal Academy (formerly known as first Temescal Canyon Continuation School and later Temescal High School) to the south.[20] It is bisected by Bowdoin Street, which runs between the school's football field and the academic center of the school. Located only a mile from Will Rogers State Beach, the football stadium is called "Stadium by the Sea."[21]
Pali High was also used for the Sweet Valley High book, Party Weekend.
As of 2010, approximately 43% of the student body, 1,180 out of 2,742 students, were bused to Palisades Charter High School from more than 100 Los Angeles zip codes.[22] In 1994, approximately 70% of the student body, 1,176 out of 1,680 students, were bused from South-Central and East Los Angeles.[23]
According to US News and World Report, 49% of Palisades Charter's student body is "of color," with 32% of the student body coming from an economically disadvantaged household, determined by student eligibility for California's Reduced-price meal program.[24]
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As of 1998[update] most of its classes are university preparatory in nature, and it hosts a mathematics, science, and technology magnet program. The school also has humanities and marine biology courses.[15]
The school includes a New Media Academy that was, as of 1998, one of three in LAUSD. Pali High uses its charter school status to increase the visibility of this program. By that year DreamWorks had financed it with $100,000 ($153715.8 according to inflation). The location fees generated by Aaron Spelling's use of the school for Malibu Shores were used to, by 1998, install a new computer lab.[15]
As of 2002 Palisades High School offers a surfing class that can be taken for physical education credit. It was established around 1998 by Ray Millette, a marine biology teacher and surfer.[25]
Palisades Charter High School is known for having a great music program. Its marching band has medaled 3 years in a row at the SCSBOA championships: in 2013 getting silver, in 2014 winning the gold for 3A and in 2015 getting bronze. The school also has a winter Drumline that competes in both SCPA and WGI and is also the 2016 SCPA "A class" silver medalist.
In 2016, extensive hate graffiti was found at the campus including references to the Ku Klux Klan, Jews, African-Americans and LGBTQ people.[26]
In June 2017, Palisades Charter High School gained national media attention after an African-American student was depicted in a student blog with a noose drawn around her neck.[27]
On June 1, 2018, a Muslim teacher at Palisades Charter High School filed a civil rights lawsuit, number BC708497. The lawsuit alleges that the teacher was subjected to retaliation by administrative staff after speaking out about discrimination at the school. A trial is set to begin July 29, 2019.
Michael Trope '69 – trial lawyer, co-founder of Trope and Decarolis in Los Angeles; previous sports "super" agent; as a lawyer won the largest settlement of back child support in U. S. history in 2010 against Las Vegas magnate Kirk Kerkorian
As some LAUSD zoned high schools do not have enough space to educate all residents in their attendance boundaries, some schools send excess students to Palisades.[5]
Brentwood is a neighborhood in the Westside of Los Angeles, California. It is the location of seven private and two public schools.
Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles
Pacific Palisades is a coastal neighborhood in the Westside of the city of Los Angeles, California, located among Brentwood to the east, Malibu and Topanga to the west, Santa Monica to the southeast, the Santa Monica Bay to the southwest, and the Santa Monica Mountains to the north. It is about 9 miles northwest of the UCLA campus. The area currently has about 25,000 residents. It is primarily a residential area, with a mixture of large private homes, small houses, condominiums, and apartments.
Westchester Enriched Sciences Magnets
Westchester Enriched Sciences Magnets (WESM) is a magnet high school in the Los Angeles Unified School District, West Region.
It is located in Westchester, a neighborhood adjacent to Los Angeles International Airport and bordered by Playa Vista to the north, Inglewood to the east, El Segundo to the south, and Playa del Rey to the west. Until the 2010–11 school year, the school was a comprehensive high school known as Westchester High School.
North Hollywood High School
North Hollywood High School is a public high school in North Hollywood in Los Angeles, California, United States. NHHS is located in the San Fernando Valley and enrolls approximately 2,500 students each year. Several neighborhoods, including most of North Hollywood, Valley Village, Studio City and Sun Valley, send students to this school. As of 2019, NHHS is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. As of 2019, the school principal is Mr. Ricardo Rosales.
Fairfax High School (Los Angeles)
Fairfax High School is a Los Angeles Unified School District high school located in Los Angeles, California, near the border of West Hollywood in the Fairfax District. The school is located on a 24.2-acre (98,000 m2) campus at the intersection of Fairfax Avenue and trendy Melrose Avenue.
Birmingham High School
Birmingham Community Charter High School is an independent charter coeducational high school in the neighborhood/district of Lake Balboa in the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles, California, United States. It was founded in 1953 as a 7-12 grade combined high school, and became solely a senior high school in 1963. The school has a Van Nuys address and serves Lake Balboa, parts of Encino, and Amestoy Estates. It is within the Los Angeles Unified School District but it is operated as an internal charter school.
University High School (Los Angeles)
University High School Charter, commonly known as "Uni", is a public secondary school, built 1923-1924, and founded 1924, located in West Los Angeles, a district in Los Angeles, California, near the border with Santa Monica. University High is part of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). The campus also holds Indian Springs Continuation High School. The school contains the Serra Springs, a sacred site of the Tongva–Gabrieleño native people and a registered California Historical Landmark.
El Camino Real Charter High School
El Camino Real Charter High School is an independent charter secondary school located in the Woodland Hills district of the San Fernando Valley region of the city of Los Angeles, California, United States. The school, founded in 1969, was designed to emulate a small college campus, with a large central "quad" and an open campus policy.
William Howard Taft Charter High School
William Howard Taft Charter High School is a public school located on the corner of Ventura Boulevard and Winnetka Avenue in the Woodland Hills district of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, California, within the Los Angeles Unified School District. The school gained affiliated charter status beginning with the 2013–2014 school year.
Grant High School (Los Angeles)
Ulysses S. Grant High School is a secondary school in the Valley Glen neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, in the east-central San Fernando Valley. It is located adjacent to Los Angeles Valley College.
San Fernando High School
San Fernando High School is a high school of the Los Angeles Unified School District. It is located in the Pacoima neighborhood of Los Angeles, in the northeastern San Fernando Valley, California. It is near and also serves the City of San Fernando.
Daniel Pearl Magnet High School
Daniel Pearl Magnet High School (DPMHS) is a magnet school within the Los Angeles Unified School District in Lake Balboa, Los Angeles, near Van Nuys, in the San Fernando Valley.
Granada Hills Charter High School
Granada Hills Charter High School is an independent charter school consisting of over 4,200 students in grades 9–12, located in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Granada Hills. It is the largest charter school in the nation. Granada also has a high Academic Performance Index (API) score of 878, which greatly exceeds the target API score of 800 for all schools in California. On April 12, 2011, Granada was named a 2011 California Distinguished School. On December 22, 2011, Granada became an International Baccalaureate World School. Since 2011, the school has won seven National Academic Decathlon Championships.
Los Angeles Unified School District
The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is the largest public school system in the U.S. state of California and the 2nd largest public school district in the United States. Only the New York City Department of Education has a larger student population. During the 2016–2017 school year, LAUSD served around 734,641 students, including 107,142 students at independent charter schools and 69,867 adult students. During the same school year, it had 26,556 teachers and 33,635 other employees. It is the second largest employer in Los Angeles County, after the county government. The total school district operating budget for 2016–2017 is $7.59 billion.
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