Pacific Collegiate School

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Pacific Collegiate School is a grades 7-12 charter school located on the westside of Santa Cruz, California.

Currently, the number of students hovers around 400. The school mascot is the Puma, and the school colors are "officially" black and silver; however, most of the athletic teams wear blue and white on their uniforms. The school code is 053270.

Contents 1 Mission 2 History 3 Awards 4 Admission 5 Puma Pride 6 Controversies 7 External links

[edit] Mission

Pacific Collegiate School's mission is to provide exemplary, standards-based, college preparatory and fine arts education for public school students (grades 7 - 12) of Santa Cruz County and outlying areas. Our vision is to offer to any motivated student the same standard of education offered by the most academically distinguished private and public schools in California. Our graduates will be prepared to enter and thrive at the world's finest colleges and universities.

[edit] History

The school was founded in 1999 by a small group of educational visionaries, including Reed Hastings, who served as President of the California State Board of Education for two terms under Governor Gray Davis, and now serves as CEO of Netflix. The school is known also as "Pacific Collegiate" or "PCS". From 1999 to 2004, it rented facilities from the neighboring properties of the First Congregational Church and High Street Community Church, as well as borrowing space from Westlake Elementary in 2004. Since the fall of 2004, Pacific Collegiate has occupied the former campus of Natural Bridges Elementary.

In 2005, the original 7th grade class of 1999 graduated from Pacific Collegiate, marking the first group of students who had completed the entire curriculum at PCS. The Class of 2005 was also (at the time) the largest class to graduate from PCS, at 60 students (twice as large as the Class of 2004; indeed, it was larger than all of the previous graduating classes combined).

[edit] Awards

In 2006 PCS was named California Charter School of the Year by the Charter School Association. The class of 2006 includes 8 National Merit Finalists, and all of the students in this class were accepted at colleges.

[edit] Admission

With the exception of about two spaces reserved for children of volunteer Board members, admission is by lottery for families. This means that if your oldest child is selected by lottery, your younger children will have spaces reserved for them in future classes, if you choose.

A waiting list is constantly maintained in case spaces open up in future years due to a family moving out of the area or transferring to another school. Demand is very high, and there are typically as many students on the waiting list as there are enrolled in the school. A second campus, located in mid-county, has been discussed as a way of meeting this demand.

[edit] Puma Pride

[edit] Controversies

Somewhat controversially, it was decided by the California State Board of Education that PCS needed 6 more minutes of classes—one minute per period. It has been decided that the school will subtract 2 minutes each from break and lunch, as well as ending at 3:02 PM, rather than 3:00 PM. This decision has been understandably unpopular with students.

PCS is routinely in the news each school year when its recruiting cycle begins. Those who are opposed to the school marshall the same arguments each year:

• The school is "elitist" because it is college-prep. Detractors feel that, although there are no academic requirements for admission, the reputation of its academically challenging curriculum encourages smarter students, and discourages worse students, in the admission application process.
• The school is "racist" because more parents of white students choose to apply for admission than parents of Latino students. Furthermore, after spending all of elementary school in the public schools, which are more likely to send poor, minority, and English-learning students into special ed classes, a disproportionate number of parents of English-learning students are already convinced that there will be no college in their child's future, so why should they send their child to a college-oriented school? The effects of this institutional racism are blamed on PCS when these parents are not interested in applying.
• The school is "classist" because families are encouraged to make a voluntary donation to support the school budget. Any student may attend without making this donation, but detractors feel that confusion on this point might hypothetically discourage poor families from applying. The same argument is launched about PCS's drive to have parent volunteers involved in the school: some families, such as single parents, may not be able to afford the time to become involved, and might therefore prefer their local public school.
• The school "takes money from the public schools." This is true, in the sense that public schools which enroll fewer students, for any reason, will receive fewer dollars in state funding. However, this is also true of any other alternative to the local public high school: private schools, homeschools, and even public schools which allow students to transfer out of their home district and into a neighboring district -- as well as being true of demographic changes, such as families moving out of Santa Cruz County because of the high cost of housing.
• The school also "prevents students from getting to know people from all walks of life." To the extent that students with serious mental disabilities, such as Down Syndrome or low-functioning Autism, are unlikely to apply for admission, and to the extent that institutionalized racism discourages poor and minority students from applying for admission, this is likely a true statement -- within the limits of the school day itself. Of course, the same claim can be made, and is made, about four-year universities.

[edit] External links

• Pacific Collegiate School Homepage

• Student Government Homepage