Pasadena Unified School District

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The Pasadena Unified School District is a unified school district that is responsible for the schools of Pasadena, California. As of 2005, it has 5 high schools, 3 middle schools, and 24 elementary schools.

The district also serves the city of Sierra Madre and the unincorporated community of Altadena.

1 History
2 High schools
3 Middle schools
4 Elementary schools
5 External links

[edit] History

In its early history, Pasadena had some of the highest performing schools in the state, largely due to a strong affiliation with the California Institute of Technology. Two schools in the area, Noyes Elementary (now closed) and Hale Elementary (now Norma Coombs Alternative School) were named after Caltech professors. However, in 1972, busing was implemented in the district. This busing affected the Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD) since the 1970s; in 1970, when a federal court ordered desegregation of the public schools in Pasadena, the proportion of white students in public schools reflected the proportion of whites in the community (54 percent and 53 percent, respectively). After busing began in 1972, a large segment of upper and middle class families, mostly white, could afford private schooling, and thus pulled their children out of the public school system to avoid bussing them to schools on the opposite end of the city from their homes. In 2002, Superintendant Percy Clark ended the practice of busing altogether, and reinstated a policy of neighborhood schools. Since this change, the district has improved across the board, with three schools achieving an Academic Performance Index or API of greater than 800. Recent school board elections in March 2007 attracted a record number of candidates and voters.