Palos Verdes Peninsula High School

PVPHS is an excellent school. It has high academic standards, however it also have a wide variety of classes if your student is not a superstar. Teachers and administrators are caring and respond quickly to emails or phone calls. I have two children with completely different personalities and academic strengths and both flourished at Pen High. It is much more culturally diverse than the other high school. Highly recommend.
--Submitted by a parent

I give this low rating because my son attended this school for almost a year before my husband's job relocated us. He took almost all honors classes and received straight A's. Acedemically, the school boasts. The school's honor students do so well because a huge majority of the students that take the honors and AP classes have their parents pay for daily tutoring. My son found that most of the honors teachers rearely lectured but assigned a ton of homework. It is an extremely unbalanced school. This school reminds me of a caste system (two groups). The first group is the honors students who attend daily tutoring sessions after school, and the second group is the non honors students who are very low acheivers and the bar is set very low for non honor or AP classes. There are a bunch of students who come from outside the area beccause their parent's employers are located in the city and these children are on average the low acheivers taking the regular courses. My son said that the regular classes are a joke. Most of the students taking the regular classes do not care about school and very rearly do their homework.
--Submitted by a parent

This school is a very wonderful school. I am so proud that my son can have chance to learn in this school. This school's education is not only focusing on test scores but also focusing on training students' ability. I hope this website "GreateSchool" can give 10 rating to this school.
--Submitted by a parent

My child used to attend this school until very recently. At the beginning, I had nothing but the best things to say about this school and the entire school district. After all, I even moved here just for the school district. But even in our "perfect" neighborhood of "haves", there are non-students who come on campus. When I told them, nothing was done and they didn't bother to ask follow up questions. I have witnessed first hand the polar opposite punishment given to students based upon color/ethnic background. Same for athletes (I won't mention a particular sport.). The school gives preferential treatment to the "Eddie Haskels" of the bunch. I am completely disillusioned.
--Submitted by a parent

I'm currently attending PHS. You know when people exaggerate critiques for schools, but this school really deserves the standing it has today. It's an amazing school, and the academics are wonderful. Compared to others around the country it is almost a priviledge to attend here.
--Submitted by a student

It's education and amazing for a public school.
--Submitted by a parent

It's a great school with excellent teachers and amazing students!
--Submitted by a student

Peninsula has some of the best teachers ever! Go Panthers!
--Submitted by a parent

There is a wide range of electives, from cooking to glass blowing to digital animation. It also has one of the highest API scores in the nation. In short, panthers rule (or pwn, depending on who you are).
--Submitted by a parent

I graduated from PVPHS in 2008, and let me start of by telling you unbiasedly that it is academically superior to PVHS, and now that I am in college this is readily apparent to me. My PVHS friends, with the exceptions of the ones who really pushed themselves, struggle with workloads and standards that myself and other PVPHS students are already accustomed to. PVPHS, especially the honors departments, expect excellence, which is reasonable when you consider that the teachers demonstrate academic excellence. Many PVPHS teachers have taught for upwards of 10 and 20 years, and many of them worked in other districts before their excellence was recognized and they were invited to teach at PVPHS. PVPHS is excellence incarnate.
--Submitted by a student