Palo Alto Unified School District launched its third high school, Palo Alto Middle College, on August 14.

Middle College is an alternative program where students earn both high school and college credit by taking courses at Foothill College. Previously, Palo Alto students were able to enroll in Middle College through the Mountain View-Los Altos program. Now, PAMC is open to sophomores and juniors, with plans to expand into a four-year high school next fall, accommodating up to 240 students.

Foothill College has dedicated a building to PAMC, featuring six rooms: an office, a student activities room and four classrooms. A bus also picks up PAMC students from Paly and Gunn every day and drops them off at the Foothill campus.

Having a separate high school allows “more comprehensive, scaffolded support for a small learning environment,” PAMC Principal Emily Garrison said.

“We really wanted to have close and connected families [at PAMC],” said Dr. Jeong Choe, the PAUSD Assistant Superintendent in Innovation and Agility, who oversees PAMC. “So [Garrison] individually called every single family, inviting them to events.”

Academic Life

PAMC students can choose up to three classes from the Foothill course catalog and can earn double credit and a year of high school credit from a class taken in a quarter. Although they share the same graduation requirements as Palo Alto High School and Gunn High School, their high school course options are limited. All students take Counseling 5, an introductory college course. Sophomores and juniors are required to take English and History as their high school classes with an option of taking Algebra 2, Living Skills and Positive Psychology as electives. PAMC curriculum also implements evidence-based grading, where final grades are determined using mode and recent performance to reflect growth using a four-point scale.

The PAMC staff include four teachers, a full-time guidance counselor, an education specialist and an expert in special education. Although students will be on campus five days of a week for their high school classes, Foothill College courses are available both on campus and asynchronously.

“Something that I tell the students a lot is that this is an adult environment,” Garrison said. “There’s no one taking attendance … you just have to go to your classes and perform in your classes.

A feature unique to PAMC students is the 30-minute “buffalo period” built into their schedule. This time is reserved for supervised work and also alternates as a guidance period, which includes social emotional learning and digital citizenship lessons.

Student Life

PAMC students have free access to a wellness center, food pantries, libraries, Foothill College clubs, and study spaces. Now that the quarter has started, students have access to the college’s dining options. Students can also join Foothill clubs, according to Garrison. The application for a student board representative closed earlier this month and the position was filled by junior Aishwarya Balasubramaniam.

“Our students are amazing. I have been absolutely, totally impressed by the kindness and the culture that is part of our school so far,” Garrison said. “My birthday was last week, and they came and they sang happy birthday to me in the office as a surprise.”

For some students, the transition to the larger college-like atmosphere of PAMC was difficult at first, as it is devoid of many traditional high school experiences such as spirit weeks, sporting events and schoolwide dances, junior PAMC student Liam Wong said. Nevertheless, many students who have transitioned from more traditional high schools appreciate the greater freedom they have as PAMC students when picking classes and formatting their schedule, Wong said.

Wong was initially drawn to PAMC to earn college credit in a different way than AP courses, which contribute to high levels of stress and unfairly determine college credit, he said.

“I didn’t like how one test could determine whether your credit could transfer to colleges, and having multiple tests throughout the year is definitely less stressful,” Wong said.

Despite the flexible and low-pressure environment PAMC has fostered, junior Sanjan Joshi said he’s felt more isolated and lonely because of the small number of students enrolled. Joshi said he underestimated the amount of time he would be away from his friends and felt secluded due to the proximity of the PAMC location to Gunn, his former high school.

Still, Joshi feels confident in his decision to switch to PAMC, he said, mainly because of the opportunities with the University of California Transfer Admission Guarantee and Transfer Admission Planner programs at Foothill College, which have higher acceptance rates to the University of California system than the first-year admission process, according to the University of California.

“I know some other students view [Middle College] as kind of a cheat code, but with the acceptance rates getting so low now, [attending Middle College] might be the smarter thing to do,” Joshi said.