Talk:Palo Alto High School/Archive 1

Debate team
Hi everyone my name is Alex and I'm a student. Jennie Savage, director of forensics at Paly, has asked me to update the Debate section, since it is so out of date. (April 29, 2011)

New Picture
I have replaced the old Paly sign with a picture of the Tower building with the campanile. Special thanks goes out to Mika B.S. (Photographer for The Campanile 2008) as well as Tallyman, (were you ever a student there?) and his insanely outdated photo of a non-existent sign. Thanks for your photos' many years of service. (Jon Shan, Class of 2008)

More Info
If anyone is interested in updating the history section of the site, the official website has great info at http://paly.net/info/history.php. Dshaffer 06:12 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Theatre
OK, what theatre dork wrote that bit? Edgy underground? Give me a break. JoelC 20:17, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Campanile
There is no way that the Campanile can claim to be "the most famous and recognized" of all the Paly publications when the Voice has a monthly readership of around 40,000 and has won an INTERNATIONAL award for excellence.


 * I have to agree. The Paly Voice reaches a much larger audience. From Jan 1, '06 to Oct 12, '06, the site received about 8 million hits, with an average of 38,000 unique visitors per month. It is doubtful that Campy was quite that popular.


 * Maybe everyone went to Voice to read Campy articles... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.4.200.223 (talk) 01:51, 19 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Voice is only what it is because of the other publications like Campanile. Voice is reaching a larger audience by displaying Campanile's fine work.

Alumni
Someone put Tiger Woods and that is an unverified claim-I researched online and found nothing.

I looked, but didn't find verification that Jerry Garcia attended Paly. Verification is also needed for Whitfield Crane and Money B. Maybe they all did go to Paly - I don't know... I suspect that they might have been *assumed* to have gone to Paly because of their various connections to Palo Alto, i.e., born there, family lived there at some point, etc. When I was going to Jordan and Paly in the 80's, I heard a few times that Steve Perry and Gregg Rolie of Journey had gone to Paly in the 70's; in the early 90's I worked with someone who had gone to Cubberly with them. Anyway, the point is, we should check. Anyone have access to old Paly yearbooks? -- JustDerek 02:41 GMT, 09 June 2006
 * Garcia went to Balboa High School.


 * Pigpen (Ron McKernan) went to Paly for a while but didn't graduate. Whit Crane definitely went to Paly--he's in my '86 yearbook. Schildog 20:04, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Senior Pranks
"Hundreds of crickets unleashed in the library prior to the finals for grades 9-11, Class of '99."

I graduated in 2002. This never happened. Where do you kids come up with this stuff?

There has been tampering and vandalism on this section. The user's IP originates from within Paly, and Paly's IP has as far as I know, been blocked. The again, it may not have any relevance to your question. Sorry Boredome1a (talk) 02:19, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Alumni
Wusu is no longer on the Raiders roster. What happened with that? I hear he was injured in preseason and was cut from the team. Does anyone know if this is true? 76.171.210.232 00:10, 14 November 2006 (UTC)Akshat Rajvaidya Class of 2004

Athletics!
Basketball State champs 2005 Football CCS Open Division champs 2006... state chamionship game next weekend.71.141.131.222 00:35, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

ron wyden
since when did ron wyden go to paly. sure he went to stanford, but this is the first i've heard of this. 71.141.131.222 00:44, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

nevermind. that's actually really cool 71.141.131.222 00:45, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Suicides
From the article: "In 1986, 2002 and 2003, the Paly community was shaken by two students' suicides (by jumping in front of oncoming trains)...."

Ummm...how exactly were two suicides accomplished in three separate years? Or did the second one take so long that it was started in one year and finished in the next? (Man, that's one slow-moving train!) 24.6.66.193 22:08, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

The suicide paragraph has been updated, and that is no longer a problem. Boredome1a (talk) 02:18, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

untitled
Trivia:

Paly was Green and White long before Gunn opened. Anybody know the year? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.10.60 (talk) 20:51, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Concerned with emphasis on smart-ness
Hi, as a resident of Palo Alto, here is an opinion. In comparison to the Gunn High School wikipedia page, this one has a lot of emphasis on the 'amazingly high level of education' because of the 'high-achieving and scholastically-minded students due to the demographics of its location in the heart of Silicon Valley and its proximity to Stanford University'.

Yet, it is well known that the Gunn High School is much more academically rigorous than Paly, being in the top 100, (rather than paly in the top 200) high schools in the US. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.207.155.108 (talk) 00:08, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion you are right, and we should add an "Academic Achievements" section like the Gunn page however Paly's wiki is more PR-oriented and has been worked on much more than Gunn's page. Both Paly and Gunn are great schools so to the last poster, grow up, we know Gunn has an edge in academics, however truth be told, Paly thankfully hasn't had anyone go about killing themselves in front of the train tracks. And please tell me how 'amazingly high level of education' because of the 'high-achieving and scholastically-minded students due to the demographics of its location in the heart of Silicon Valley and its proximity to Stanford University' isn't a fact for most Bay Area schools, hehehe —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.54.186.59 (talk) 22:23, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

It is "well known" that Gunn is much more academically rigorous than Paly? A difference in ranking of 100 out of the 28000 American public high schools is pretty insignificant; that's a drop from the 99.6th percentile to the 99.2nd percentile. If one looks at the various academic competitions Gunn and Paly compete in, one would actually find that Paly is slightly better. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.202.166.218 (talk) 00:08, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

August 2012 Assessment
I am assessing this article after a request was made here.

This is the version being assessed

The editor requested assessment of this article.

It was requested that this article be assessed against the B-Class criteria, however after having examined the article I do not believe this to be appropriate. For now I am assessing the article as Start class, however I have outlined some easy areas for improvement below that will bump it up to C-class straight away.


 * The article in its current form falls foul of WP:NPOV and comes across as being very biased towards making the school sound fantastic, whilst I cannot comment on if that is actually the case as far as Wikipedia is concerned all articles must read as unbiased. This point can easily be fixed by attending to the point below.
 * The Academic Achievements, College Readiness, Standardized testing statistics and Campus traditions sections should be removed as they make claims they make are either unreferenced, or irrelevant and not generally accepted for a school article on Wikipedia. For an idea of what is generally considered acceptable please see the WikiProject Schools Article Guidelines. I propose to remove these sections in 5 days time (6 August 2012) if there are no valid objections - if you would like to raise an objection, please reply to this section stating why you think removal may be misguided.
 * This has now been done GlanisTalk 08:52, 6 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Not relevant for getting C-Class but moving forward the most notable section that is missing from the article is a History section. Given the schools age there should be plenty of interesting, relevant content available for this section. Again for information regarding which sections could be included to improve the article further have a look at the WikiProject Schools Article Guidelines.

If require any further assistance with developing this article or have any queries regarding this assessment then please contact me on my talk page. Thanks GlanisTalk 09:24, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The NPOV issue has been mostly addressed, but a second set of eyes would be appreciated. Gtwfan52 (talk) 21:12, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Proposed merge with The Paly Voice
Not individually notable high-school publication. Drmies (talk) 02:16, 1 October 2013 (UTC) ✅ John from Idegon (talk) 17:41, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Merge per Drmies. Nowhere near meeting WP:ORG, which would be a requirement for a freestanding article. WP:VANITY all the way.Gtwfan52 (talk) 22:38, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Robotics team
Hello Everyone. I've updated the Robotics section with more current information and a little bit about the competitions we attend. Dardeshna (talk) 22:20, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Is robotics the only student activity (outside of journalism, music and athletics)? Then why does it alone need to have its own section? Music athletics and journalism have encyclopedic achievements and the existence of sections on athletics and arts is endorsed in the guidelines for school articles. There are enough encyclopedic level achievements in journalism to justify a subsection in a clubs and activities section. This school's robotics team has NO encyclopedic level achievement.  All that should be here is a mention of the team's existence in a discussion of all activities at the school. This is not the school's webpage. It is not the robotics teams webpage. It is an encyclopedia article. All facts in an encyclopedia must be based on what independent reliable sources have written. Per guidelines, the only achievements we discuss are ultimate achievement. Participating in a state tournament is not that. Until someone wants to create something suitable, I will be removing it. John from Idegon (talk) 23:09, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
 * The team was a regional finalist at the CVR competition, so I would assume that counts as an encyclopedic level achievement. Robotics isn't the only activity but is considered a non-athletic team at Paly (I do believe it is the only one or one of a few). Paly also has numerous clubs.  Perhaps a section on notable clubs or notable extracurriculars would be appropriate, and include others such as Debate team? I agree that maybe an entire section devoted to Robotics wasn't the best way to do it.   Dardeshna (talk) 20:03, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
 * First off, do you know what "notable" means? Whether you, I or the Pope thinks something is important has no bearing on it. Notable means it has been made note of, or in simpler terms, has been written about in reliable sources independent of the school. I doubt there are many clubs that would fit that. A section on competitive academic teams like forensics and robotics would be quite appropriate. A simple listing of them could be sourced to a school source. Any achievements however needs a reliable independent source. And again, the ONLY achievements we discuss are ultimate achievement. Participation at a regional tournament is not that, as obviously winning it would be a greater achievement.  However, the term regional implies that there is at least one more level above it, so even winning the regional would not be an ultimate achievement. High school athletic competition and in some states academic completion terminate in a state tournament. Winning that is the ultimate achievement. First Robotics is a national organization and hosts a national tournament. Winning that would be the ultimate achievement. Nothing else needs to be mentioned. We also do not discuss individual achievement of either students or staff and we do not name students or staff past or present.  There are two exceptions to the last. We do name the head of the school, in US public schools usually the principal and we can name individual students or staff that have garnered enough notability to have their own Wikipedia biography. If I can help you in any way please let me know.  Thanks. John from Idegon (talk) 02:28, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

untitled
Looking through this wiki page i realized Palo Alto High School gives a little more praise towards alumni athlete Jeremy Lin. Why is he extolled when there were other talented athletes from this school?

Why are some of the dates not provided ?

J.lee.17 (talk) 02:28, 10 November 2016 (UTC)Simon Lee