Pacific Collegiate School

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Location
Pacific Collegiate School
Santa Cruz, CA
Information
Principal	Andrew Goldenkranz
Enrollment	By lottery
Type	Charter
Color(s)	Black and Silver
Established	1999

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.

According to Newsweek^[1], Pacific Collegiate is among the top 22 "elite public schools" in the United States.

PCS was named the #2 high school overall in the nation and the #1 charter school in the nation in the December 10 issue of U.S. News & World Report.

1 History
2 Awards
3 Admission
4 Diversity
5 Curriculum
6 References
7 See also
8 External links

[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. There are some who question the use of having a high school and a middle school crammed into what was originally intended to be an elementary school.

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.^{[citation needed]} The class of 2006 includes 8 National Merit Finalists, and all of the students in this class were accepted at colleges. In 2006, PCS's AP World History program (directed by teacher Tara Firenzi) won an award for being the best AP World History program in the nation.^{[citation needed]} PCS was named the #2 high school overall in the nation (behind Thomas Jefferson High School in Alexandria, VA) and the #1 charter school in the nation in the December 10 issue of U.S. News & World Report.

[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^[who?] as a way of meeting this demand.

[edit] Diversity

Like many charter schools, Pacific Collegiate has been accused of inadequately representing the diversity of the community ^[2]. As its charter with the Santa Cruz County Office of Education requires its student body to represent county demographics, Pacific Collegiate's Board has been making active efforts to increase minority enrollment, though some proprosals are still challenged ^[3]. In the February 2007 lottery for admission, minority enrollment was up significantly, though is still well below city and county levels ^[4]. As of 2006, 50% of students in the County of Santa Cruz were Latino, 30% of students in the City of Santa Cruz were Latino, and 5% of the Pacific Collegiate student body were Latino. However, 15% of the 2007-08 7th grade were Latino, indicating significant change ^[5].

In response to complaints to lack of diversity, some have pointed out the impossibility of consiously diversifying the school with the current random lottery entry system. As it is completely random, there is no way to choose who gets into the school or even who enters the lottery.

[edit] Curriculum

The curriculum at PCS aims to prepare students for Advanced Placement classes, classes that are considered equivalent in difficulty to college level classes. All students are required to take several AP classes, which are shown in the table below. Classes marked with an asterisk are not required in order to graduate. In years with multiple classes listed, the student can choose between them.

	Year 1	Year 2	Year 3	Year 4	Year 5	Year 6
Mathematics	Pre-Algebra	Algebra 1	Algebra 2	Geometry	Pre-Calculus/AP Computer Science	AP Calculus BC/AP Statistics
English	American Literature	Ancient World Literature	Medieval World Literature	Modern World Literature	AP English Language	AP English Literature
Science	Life Science	Physical Science	Conceptual Physics	Chemistry	AP Biology	AP Physics C/AP Chemistry/AP Environmental Science*
History	American History	Ancient World History	Medieval World History	AP World History	AP United States History	AP Comparative Politics*
Drama	Arts Rotation	Arts Level 1	Arts Level 2	Arts Level 3	Arts Level AP*	Elective
Foreign Language	Language 1	Language 2	Language 3	Language AP*	Elective	Elective

The Arts department at Pacific Collegiate offers Instrumental Music, Choir, Visual Art, Dance, Drama (Performing Arts), Video Production, and Arts Rotation. All 7th grade students are required to take Arts Rotation for one year, after which they must take 3 years of any arts to fulfill graduation requirements.. Dance is only a one-year class, as is Video Production and Arts Rotation. The foreign languages offered are Spanish, Latin, French, and Japanese. All students are required to take levels one, two, and three of at least one language. The Advanced Placement level is optional.