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High school in Palo Alto, California, United States
Established in 1964 (61 years ago) (1964), Gunn High School was named after Henry Martin Gunn, who served as the Palo Alto superintendent from 1950 to 1961. In 1964, the Palo Alto Unified School District announced that it would name the district's third high school after him. The Class of 1966 was the first class to graduate from Gunn High School.[4]
1,993 students attended the school in the 2019–2020 school year.[5] In 1992, the school was honored as a California Distinguished School.
History
The land under Gunn High School was purchased in 1963 by the school district from Stanford University for $358,641 (equivalent to $4,019,237 in 2023), under the condition that it could not be sold to another entity.[6] The land was originally part of Stanford's campus, but it was deeded to the Palo Alto Unified School District in 1964 for the construction of Gunn High School. Gunn High School opened in August 1964 with an initial enrollment of 600 students, comprising 300 sophomores and 300 juniors. It was named after Henry Gunn, the superintendent of the Palo Alto Unified School District from 1950 to 1961. Students were drawn from Fletcher Middle School and from the other two PAUSD high schools then open—Palo Alto High and Cubberley High.[7] The 974-seat auditorium was named in 1965 after Karl Spangenberg, a recently deceased school district trustee.[8][9] The school held its first football game in 1965, with Cubberley High.[10] The 1966 class was first to graduate.[11]
Gunn High School received national attention in 2009 after four of its students died of suicide over a span of seven months.[12][13] Over the period of 2006–2016, the school's suicide rate was four to five times higher than the national average.[14] In 2017, a senior student died of suicide.[15] In 2024, a 16-year-old girl, who was a student at Gunn High School died of suicide.[16][17] In the past decade, attempts have been made to improve the psychological health of students attending the school.[18][19][20]
Academics
Gunn offers 29 Advanced Placement (AP) classes and 20 Honors classes which are included in the weighted Grade Point Average (GPA).[21][22]
In May 2010, 658 students took 1820 AP tests. 93% scored 3 or higher and 54% scored a grade of 5. Gunn no longer ranks students, but ranking was previously recorded by decile.[23]
Hanna Rosin wrote in a 2015 The Atlantic article that due to the emphasis on academics and competition between students, Gunn became "an extreme distillation of what parents in the meritocratic elite expect from a school." Around that time, families clamored to buy houses in Gunn's attendance boundary so their children could attend the school.[24] According to Rosin, after a spate of suicide deaths of Gunn students in the 2010s, parents began to worry about whether the competitive atmosphere was harming students' mental well-being.[19]
Mathematics
Gunn offers a wide selection of mathematics courses ranging from Algebra to AP Calculus BC. There are often three tracks of each subject offered: one at the college-prep level, another at the Advanced level, and one at the Honors level. Students who have completed the AP Calculus pathway before their senior year also have the opportunity to take Multivariable Calculus and Linear Algebra as a dual enrollment pathway in partnership with Foothill College. There are also two mathematics electives at Gunn: Applied Math H and AP Statistics, available to juniors and seniors. [25]
The math circle is one of the largest clubs on the Gunn High School campus, and its corresponding math team has participated in many competitions. Each year, the school has about 30 American Invitational Mathematics Examination qualifiers. After placing 15th nationally in 4 different tournaments during the 2020–21 school year, the 2021–22 math team won HMMT November and placed 4th in the Berkeley Math Tournament.[26][27]
In 2023, a group of 25 students spoke out at a Palo Alto school board meeting, urging for PAUSD to implement more fluid math lanes, offer multivariable calculus during the school day, and more. They emphasized the importance of math classes meeting the needs of all students.[28]
PLTW
Gunn is a host to Project Lead the Way (PLTW), an organization that promotes STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education. Courses from this program include Digital Electronics and Introduction to Engineering Design, as well as Principles of Engineering.[29]
1,939 students: 1,006 Male (51.9%), 933 Female (48.1%)
Asian
White
Hispanic
Two or more races
African American
Filipino
Pacific Islander
American Indian
Unreported
862
733
173
126
25
14
4
2
0
44.5%
37.8%
8.9%
6.5%
1.3%
0.7%
0.2%
0.1%
0%
As of 2015[update], according to Hanna Rosin, 74% of Gunn's student body has one or more parents with a master's degree or higher, or other graduate-level degree.[19]
In 2012, the Robotics Team won the National FRC Championship Excellence in Design Award (3D Animation) sponsored by Autodesk. GRT is the only team that has won a total of three Animation awards in the history of FIRST.[34][35][36]
Notable alumni
This article's list of alumni may not follow Wikipedia's verifiability policy. Please improve this article by removing names that do not have independent reliable sources showing they merit inclusion in this article AND are alumni, or by incorporating the relevant publications into the body of the article through appropriate citations.(January 2021)
^Rosin, Hanna (December 2015). "The Silicon Valley Suicides". The Atlantic. Retrieved August 31, 2018. But in the e-mails traded among parents in the weeks after Cameron's death, the obvious worry surfaced about whether all this emphasis on excellence imposed a cost on the kids[...]
^"Math Path Pathways". Gunn High School. February 20, 2020. Retrieved December 14, 2021.
