| Palm Bay Senior High School | |
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To educate and inspire students for the challenges of today and tomorrow.
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| Location | |
| Melbourne, Florida, United States | |
| Information | |
| Type | Public |
| Established | 1958 |
| Principal | John G. Thomas |
| Enrollment | 1893 |
| Number of students | Grades 9-12 |
| Color(s) | Black, Red, Silver |
| Mascot | Pirate |
| Information | (321) 952-5900 |
| Website | http://palmbay.hs.brevard.k12.fl.us/ |
| Data from 2004-05 NCLB School Public Accountability Reports | |
Palm Bay Senior High School is a public high school located in Melbourne, Florida, 2,000 feet (610 m) north of the boundary of Palm Bay, Florida. It is part of the Brevard County School District.
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The campus consists of several main buildings that house administration and classrooms, as well as a gymnasium and auditorium. During the 2004-2005 school year, the school received a private donation which was used to expand the library. The school created more classrooms within the same building for classes in criminology, law, forensics and other social sciences. The building was renamed to reflect the benefactors and law studies. There are rooms modeled after American courtrooms in which school's law classes perform mock trials. In 2005 the school added a separate law academy.
There are a number of portable classrooms. Campus buildings have hallways that are open to the outside and lockers are outdoors.
The school originally opened as Southwest Junior High School in the 1950s, in an area near what is now the Florida Institute of Technology and a historically black neighborhood in the south Melbourne area. At the time, Stone Middle School was serving as a school primarily for black students in the area, serving multiple grades. As desegregation progressed, the schools were re-purposed as Stone became a middle school with white children being bussed in from all neighborhoods south of New Haven Avenue (US 192). Shortly thereafter, Southwest became Palm Bay Senior High. Southwest Middle School was reconstituted within Palm Bay in 1988.
There was some controversy regarding the school's chosen graduation venue in 2005, which was an auditorium in a local Calvary Chapel facility which featured a large cross shape carved into the wall behind the stage. A suit was filed in court by the families of two Palm Bay Senior High students, in an attempt to block the usage of the religious facility for a secular public school ceremony in favor of a secular venue. The judge presiding over the case ruled that it was too late to change the venue (and thus that the 2005 graduation ceremony of Palm Bay Senior High School, as well as those of several other local high schools, would proceed as planned in the Calvary Chapel facility), but that in following years the Brevard County public schools would have to find a secular venue for graduation ceremonies.[1]
In 2006-2007, Palm Bay had the highest reported incidence of behavioral offenses[2] within the school district's traditional high schools. This could be due to high reporting standards which could vary among schools.[3]
In July 2011, the school's Advanced Placement Calculus teacher went public with her plans to leave teaching after 13 years, forced by divorce and the district's low salaries.[4]
The school competes in class 4A within the Florida High School Athletic Association. The football team won the state championship in 2000 and 2002. In 2006, the school became one of the first high schools in Florida to have an artificial turf football field.[5]
The team averaged 33.3 points during the 2010 fall season. The team has a 151-36 record for 1988-2010.[6]
The Palm Bay Senior High School Engineering program, dubbed PiraTech Robotics, has a group of robotics teams that compete in various FIRST Competitions. In 2011, there were three Vex Robotics Design System teams.[7]
In January 2008, the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) Team 508 part of PiraTech Robotics stood first at the Florida Regional held in Tampa, Florida. FTC Team 509 as with Piratech Robotics won the "Amaze" award for their Omni Directional Robot.
FIRST Robotics Challenge (FRC) Team 2023 also won the award for best website design at the Orlando regional competition.[8]
In 2008, a visually impaired student placed third nationally in a robot-building competition for Discovery Channel's "MythBusters" program.[9]
The school has a Marine Corps Junior ROTC.[10]
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