Pinnacle High School

Both my children graduated from Pinnacle High School. Their experience was great. The teachers were invested in the children and would spend any extra time requested from them to make sure they understood all material covered. Both my children graduated with over a 4.0 (weighted scale for AP classes), and received scholarship money for college. Both of them still keep in touch with teachers they had at Pinnacle because of the great impact they had on them. My son as a pre-med student now still values the strong educational foundation that he received from his AP chemistry and AP physics teachers, as it gave him an advantage in his college classes. Pinnacle High School is phenomenal and deserves the high ratings it has received.
--Submitted by a parent

My son graduated there a few years ago; the teachers are overworked and with the exception of a couple I never felt they truly cared. My daughter did attend there and just switched to another school after a truly horrible experience with the administration at that school. She would have been one credit short for graduation this year and counseling never advised us of that. I truly believe the administration cares more about their image than the students and families there.
--Submitted by a parent

Pinnacle is one of the best high schools in Arizona. Being in the Education industry and having a nephew that graduated from PHS I feel I have good information to make that statement. Parents forget some of the responsibility for their Child's performance is on them. It is not all on the teachers. Don't blame schools if your child struggles. Many of the issues kids have in school start at home not the other way around. If pinnacle kids have money to get drugs the question needs to be why does my child use drugs. My nephew didn't even though all schools have them around.

I opened enrolled my daughter here mainly for the highly touted academic program. I am pleased with the cirriculum but this is where I end being satisfied. I feel the school is seriously over-crowded with the result of having a very high student teacher ratio in every class she has. (about 35:1) The traffic for dropping off and picking up students is ridiculous and poorly handled. The school grounds are in need of fresh paint and maintenance and the main electronic sign does not even work. I can see why Arizona schools are next to last in per student spending.
--Submitted by a parent

My daughter attended 9th grade here last year. It was the worst year of her academic life. In Middle School she was a student leader, member of the National Junior Honor Society... model student. At Pinnacle, she had such poor teachers (with the exception of the Spanish teacher and Honors Physics teacher) that I was absolutely amazed. Math was the pits... despite me meeting with the teacher. She became disengaged and was extremely unhappy the entire year. Needless to say, she is not there this year.
--Submitted by a parent

My son had the choice of attending the newest private Catholic high school in N. Scottsdale (where his sibling started out) or PHS. After getting the opinions of others who attended BOTH schools, he chose Pinnacle and is he glad he did! PHS has a superior Counseling Dept. They make out 4-yr.plans for EACH student prior to their beginning and are always available for face-to-face meetings (not so at the private school--far from it, in fact). My son has qualified for Honors and AP classses, plays on 2 PHS sports teams, and likes almost everybody at PHS. They do not have the deep rooted substance problems on campus like the school we were zoned for or the private school my son was considering. I know all schools have that issue, but at PHS it is comparatively minor. Being rated in the top 100 public schools nationally for academics doesn't hurt either!
--Submitted by a parent

My child has been introduced into Drugs since starting that this school. We are working on help, but with the money that these kids have, it's a hard battle.
--Submitted by a parent

It is an excelling school with a lot of support from administration and outside parties. Pinnacle tries to involve the community in anything they do. Pinnacle strives for excellence.
--Submitted by a parent

Great staff and great kids.
--Submitted by a parent

I love Pinnacle High School because of the amazing staff. All the teachers are willing to go the extra mile for their students. Pinnacle also provides a community for the students. An example of this is the mentoring program where a senior is paired with a freshman in order to help with the transition from the middle school into High school. The special ed department is also wonderful in providing services for learning disabled children.
--Submitted by a teacher