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Palo Alto High School, almost always called Paly, is the older of the city's two comprehensive public high schools. It sits on the corner of Embarcadero Road and El Camino Real on land that came from Stanford. The school has been on this site since 1918. Generations of local students have walked its Tower Building hallway, played for the Vikings and written for The Campanile.
This page goes deeper than the summary on our schools hub. It covers the school's history as Paly itself tells it, the campus, the journalism program and athletics. We do not rank schools or cite test scores here. The state's California School Dashboard reports official data for every public high school.
From 1894 to the Embarcadero campus
The school's history page starts the story in 1894. Palo Alto High School opened that year as a private school with three teachers, 24 students and tuition of $6 a month. Classes met in two upstairs rooms of the Channing Avenue Grammar School.
Three years later a trustee and parent, Anna Zschokke, mortgaged her home to fund a three-room high school at 524 Forest Avenue near Cowper Street. Paly counts her as its founder. In 1900 voters approved a bond and a new building went up at Channing Avenue and Webster Street, where the Channing House retirement community stands today.
Milestones from the school's history
- 1907: 200 students and nine faculty members.
- 1908: The first girls' athletic team, in basketball.
- 1911: Twenty students formed a band and marched in the May Fete Parade. The Paly Band has marched in it ever since.
- 1917: Voters approved a $200,000 bond for a new campus.
- December 24, 1918: Staff, students and the school board marched from the Channing site to the new campus at Embarcadero and El Camino Real. The Campanile appeared for the first time that same year.
- 1921: Football coach Howard "Hod" Ray joined the staff.
- 1949: School colors changed from red and green to green and white.
- 1981: The first Spirit Week.
- 1997: On the 100th anniversary of Paly's founding, alumni formed the Alumni and Friends of Palo Alto High School.
What about 1898?
You will often see 1898 given as Paly's founding year. Wikipedia uses it and describes the school as becoming public a few years after its private start. The school's own history page does not name 1898. It dates the founding to the 1897 building and celebrated its centennial in 1997. The safest summary is that Paly's roots go back to 1894 and that it became a public high school in the late 1890s.
The campus at Embarcadero and El Camino
The street address is 50 Embarcadero Road, but the campus fronts both Embarcadero Road and El Camino Real. Stanford land lies beyond it and Town & Country Village sits across Embarcadero, which makes the shopping center a lunchtime stop for students.
The school's history notes that later remodeling left only the Tower Building and the theater from the original 1918 campus. The Tower Building is the landmark most alumni remember. A photograph of the 1918 march hangs in its hallway. Room 33 of the same building is the main office of the Palo Alto Adult School, which uses Paly classrooms in the evenings.
Newer buildings include the Media Arts Center and a performing arts center. During the 2018 to 2019 school year Paly celebrated 100 years on its current campus. Events included a reenactment of the 1918 march with the Palo Alto Historical Association and tours of the campus arboretum led by the tree nonprofit Canopy.
The journalism program
Paly's student journalism is the part of the school most often in the news. Its home since October 2014 is the Media Arts Center, or MAC. The MAC website describes a building of more than 20,000 square feet that serves about 600 students a day in photography, video, audio production and journalism across print, web, radio, television and social media.
Publications
The school's publications page lists these titles:
- The Campanile: the campus newspaper, first published in 1918.
- Verde: a news and features magazine, founded in 1999.
- C Magazine: arts and culture.
- Anthro: a news and feature magazine focused on activism and social justice.
- Paly Voice: the online news site, launched in 2003.
- InFocus: the broadcast journalism program.
- KPLY: student radio.
- proof: the arts magazine, published each semester.
- Video Production: student filmmaking.
The Madrono yearbook dates back to around 1918. Wikipedia records a long list of national awards for these titles. Examples include The Campanile's place in the National Scholastic Press Association Hall of Fame since 2004 and Webby Awards for the Paly Voice in 2005.
Archive and summer camp
The MAC runs a searchable Paly Journalism Archive that digitizes student publications from 1895 to today. It is a useful source for anyone researching local history. The program also runs Camp MAC, a student-led journalism camp for rising eighth and ninth graders. The MAC site credits longtime adviser Esther Wojcicki with four decades of work building the program.
Athletics
Paly's teams are the Vikings and the athletics department posts schedules and news on palyathletics.com. The school competes in the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League within the CIF Central Coast Section. That holds for most sports. Football has played in a combined league of SCVAL and Peninsula Athletic League schools since 2022, as our school sports guide explains. Wikipedia counts about 25 varsity teams, from football, basketball and volleyball to field hockey, wrestling, badminton and women's flag football.
Wikipedia's summary of the school's titles includes CIF state championships in boys basketball in 1993 and 2006, a Division I state football title in 2010 and Division I volleyball state titles in 2010 and 2011. The crosstown rivalry with Gunn High School is a fixture of the sports calendar.
Classes and pathways
Paly lists several programs and pathways on its site, including AP Capstone, child development, design and media arts, a social justice pathway and STEAM. The school also lists a Tower Learning Center for academic support and a College and Career Center that hosts college admissions visits. The course catalog and graduation requirements are posted on the school's learning pages. Read the current catalog rather than relying on older lists, since course offerings change from year to year.
Who attends
Paly serves students in grades 9 to 12 who live in its attendance area. The California Department of Education's Census Day count was 1,828 students in the 2025 to 2026 school year. The National Center for Education Statistics counted 1,932 in 2023 to 2024. Students arrive from the district's middle schools. Our middle schools guide explains what is published about feeder patterns. New families register through PAUSD rather than the school. See our enrollment guide.
Good to know
- Daytime visitors need a parking permit. Evening parking is open after the school day ends.
- Embarcadero and El Camino are busy at the start and end of the school day, so allow extra time.
- Researching an old classmate or a historic event? Start with the Paly Journalism Archive.
- Alumni news and reunions run through the Alumni and Friends of Palo Alto High School.
Frequently asked questions
When was Palo Alto High School founded?
Paly's own history page says the school opened in 1894 as a private school with three teachers and 24 students. The school marked the 100th anniversary of its founding in 1997. Wikipedia and many other references give 1898 as the year it became a public high school, a date the school's history page does not state.
Where is Paly?
Palo Alto High School is at 50 Embarcadero Road, at the corner of Embarcadero Road and El Camino Real, next to the Stanford campus and across Embarcadero from Town & Country Village. The current campus opened in December 1918.
What is Paly's mascot?
Paly's teams are the Vikings. The school colors are green and white, which replaced the original red and green in 1949 according to the school's history page.
What student publications does Paly have?
Paly's publications page lists The Campanile newspaper, Verde magazine, C Magazine, Anthro, the Paly Voice website, InFocus broadcast news, KPLY radio, the arts magazine proof and video production. Most are based in the Media Arts Center, which opened in October 2014.
Is the Palo Alto Adult School at Paly?
Yes. The Palo Alto Adult School's main office is in Room 33 of the Tower Building on the Paly campus. Adult classes meet at Paly in the evenings and at other district sites.