Paly crowd

WOULD YOU TRUST A PALY CROWD?

EXPLORING DEBATE ON SCHOOL REPUTATION

THE SCOREBOARD READ 41-0 as murmurs of confusion swept through the crowd. The football game came to a sudden halt. There were still five minutes left on the clock, so what happened?

On Sept. 9, Palo Alto High School and its local rival — Henry M. Gunn High School — faced off in a football game for the first time in 12 years. Energy and excitement swept through the Paly crowd and in the last 12 minutes of the game, Paly students ran over to the Gunn bleachers, shouting celebratory chants like “Sko Vikes!”

No violence between Gunn and Paly students was reported. However, the game ended early as a result of Paly students’ “unsportsmanlike” behavior and administrators’ safety concerns, according to Paly Principal Brent Kline.

In the following week’s morning broadcast, Kline announced school-wide consequences for the disruptive actions that unfolded at the football game including cutbacks to the upcoming Spirit Week events and further consequences if unsportsman like behavior continued.

In addition, the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League sanctioned Paly as a result of student conduct at the game banning students from the next few sporting events.

The events of the Paly-Gunn football game were just one of many incidents that have created a negative image of Paly students within the Palo Alto community. Other historic events and traditions including “egg wars” and streaking have also tarnished Paly students’ reputation.

Paly’s unsanctioned “egg wars” is an outside of school event where seniors and juniors throw eggs at each other on private and public property throughout Palo Alto, often causing damage. In 2009, the school paid $3,200 for clean-up and repair for Gunn after “egg wars” took place on its campus, according to a 2019 Verde article.

The same article also discussed streaking, another controversial Paly act where students ran naked in public areas. This tradition has not continued since 2016 when Assistant Principal Jerry Berkson enforced suspensions for all who participated.

These actions provide a very different perspective of Paly than its well-known academic achievements. This year, Paly was ranked the 34th best high school in California and its students placed in the 98th percentile overall for the Smarter Balanced assessment, according to US News.

Kline said that Paly is now defined instead by the inappropriate and unsportsman-like behavior of its fans, which must be countered by implementing new student expectations.

In light of Paly students’ recent behavior at the Gunn-Paly football game and long standing reputation for intense school spirit and rowdy traditions, Verde asked Palo Alto community members one simple question: “Would you trust a Paly crowd?” v “I would 100% trust a Paly crowd right now. After the football game, I saw a change happen before my eyes. I saw more people helping each other, more people being friendly with each other, more people encouraging each other, more people being the right kind of person, and more people listening to those people. It feels like there was an understanding that that’s [the football game] not who we are, and in the last few football games, it’s like a whole other group of people. It’s the same people just channeling their energy and their spirit in the most appropriate way. We’re all trying to reach the same conclusion and to understand and to make tomorrow a better day.” Photo: Andrew Xue

SHROUDED SPIRIT — Palo Alto High School senior Isabelle Jacobi and her friends actively listen during Timothy Alexander’s motivational speech following the Gunn-Paly football game incident. “I liked that we got a more personal talk where he focused on what everyone should keep in mind during senior year and what to value in these last couple months,” Jacobi said. Photo: Cayden Gu

Brent Kline

Palo Alto High School Principal

Timothy Alexander

Palo Alto High School Guest Speaker

“Yes, I would trust the Paly crowd because they’ve all been through something. We’re always taught if you do the crime, you gotta pay the time, and the Paly crowd decided to go forth, which they didn’t know was gonna be a crime and ended up doing the time. Things had to be refocsed and recentered, but I believe it showed them that they can get together and make their own decisions and the right decisions. Regardless of what we have, or regardless of what we have access to, these are still high school students and not adults. They’re going to make mistakes, but we just hope they don’t make this mistake again. At the end of the day, I still have that love for the school.” Photo: Jonathen Chen

53.1%

of students surveyed reported they would

trust a Paly crowd. Data presented is from an opt-in survey by Verde Magazine of 132 Palo Alto High School students and was collected from Oct. 28 to Nov. 4 through a digital form published on Schoology pages and Verde social media. Responses were anonymous and all questions were optional. VERDEMAGAZINE.COM 17

James Hamilton

Palo Alto High School Guidance Counselor

“Yes, I would. I think by and large, our kids are great. I have great experiences with them. I enjoy working with them. I know there have been incidents like the football game, but I think those things normally happen. That doesn’t reflect who they are as a people and I think they’ve responded very well to the situation. I think we have good kids and I trust them to do what’s right.” Photo: Andrew Xue

Juno Kim

Gunn High School Senior Class President

“Yes, Paly has a lot of people I trust and don’t trust, but that’s just about everyone. I don’t have the most perfect picture of Paly students, but I’m also on Gunn’s SEC and I know I don’t perfectly represent Gunn’s students, so I trust Paly students.” Photo: Juno Kim

Lili Wakenshaw

Palo Alto High School Junior

“Accidents do happen but I don’t think it’s really correlated to the Paly crowd. We are high school students and stuff is gonna go down. This is the age where we are developing our brains and taking risks, that’s how we learn. So I feel like all the stuff that’s going on is not really representative of Paly a school. Rather, it’s representative of high school students as a group.” Photo: Andrew Xue

Evie Kramer

Palo Alto High School ASB Spirit Comissioner

“I know we don’t have the best reputation, but I think that as a campus, we are typically very respectful individuals. I think that when we came together, especially after the Gunn-Paly football game, we’ve learned that that type of behavior is not acceptable and in the future, I would trust Paly students to act responsibly. Additionally, I think that as the football season has continued on, and we’ve gone back to having students in the stands, you’ve seen that we can be respectful and I think that shows good growth.” Photo: Andrew Xue

Roxanne Lanzot

Palo Alto High School Teacher

“I think my perspective is informed by the fact that I have worked with lots of different schools and I’m from New York which can be absolutely crazy. My perspective may be quite different than a person who’s lived their entire life in Palo Alto because they’ve only ever seen PAUSD schools. In my experience, it [Paly and its students] feels safe and it feels almost always positive.” Photo: Andrew Xue

Mayerly Short

Palo Alto High School Campus Supervisor

“No, I wouldn’t, because some students, not all, don’t even pay for games and are disrespectful to people who are trying to just follow the rules.” Photo: Andrew Xue

Jennifer Crane

Palo Alto High School Atheletic Director

“Yes, absolutely. We have a great student body full of responsible, polite, good spirited kids and I think that they’ve done a really good job this fall season at showing that. I think the Paly-Gunn football game gave us an opportunity to look at the systems we have in place for athletic events, and to remind students of the expectations for good sportsmanship and how to behave at those events. Students stepped up to that call and I appreciate that they did.” Photo: Andrew Xue

Jason Auzenne

Palo Alto High School Parent

“It depends upon the situation but overall I’d say yes, because I think that they come from responsible parents. I know kids get out of hand but they’re logical and can understand the consequences of their actions. The Gunn-Paly football game didn’t influence my trust for the Paly crowd because kids are gonna be kids. This is high school sports and kids should get a little more leeway for the game; admin was really strict about a lot of minor stuff.” Photo: Andrew Xue

Michelle Steingart

Palo Alto High School Assistant Principal

“Yes, I would trust the Paly crowd as they have shown to be incredibly respectful and positive for the games that I’ve been with them.” Photo: Andrew Xue

Charlie Jurney

Palo Alto High School Senior

“I don’t think a random sample of Paly students could be completely trusted because here, there’s a lot of corner cutting and there’s definitely cheating of all kind. For me, their honesty is put into question, but generally I feel like we’re a pretty good school.” Photo: Andrew Xue

Paul Wang

Green Middle School 8th Grader

“It’s not the overall student body that should be trusted or not trusted, but individual students who should be judged.” Photo: Paul Wang

Ink Jamil

Palo Alto High School Freshman

“It depends on the size of the crowd but it also depends greatly on the type of people that are in that crowd, because I feel like people would generally get peer pressured to do silly things sometimes. I recently started high school and it [the Gunn-Paly football game] feels like a normal thing that would happen occasionally. It’s a bunch of high school students in a football game, what can you expect? However, the Paly aspect influences my trust because kids here are very privileged and we do have to accept that they’re going to be less focused on obeying the rules because they don’t get in trouble that much.” Photo: Ink Jamil

Jeff Lamb

Central Coast Section Coordinator

“No, I wouldn’t completely trust any high school crowd because you’re high school students and high school students will want to act in a certain way. There could be differences between schools, but teenagers are teenagers, and they like to push limits. That’s part of growing up.” Photo: Andrew Xue

Kathie McGinn

Peers Park Resident

“I totally trust a Paly crowd. I think they are stand up young people and they have a great community of teachers and administrators and of course, their parents. There’s always a bad apple in every group, but generally I’d say 99% I would trust them. I had been involved in the PTA at Pally for a number of years and I’ve worked at Paly on a part time basis and my experiences were very positive.” Photo: Andrew Xue

Marcy Mckee

Peers Park Resident

“I am glad they skipped the egg wars. because my answer might have been different. It [egg wars] happens with a rather big mob around my house and it’s damaged my cars and it scared the bejesus out of everybody in the house. I think overall, however, I trust high school students. There’s limitations, but I would trust them to be doing things that are reasonable for teenagers.” Photo: Andrew Xue

Luis Camacho

Kirk’s Steakburger Worker

“It’s probably like a 50 - 50. A lot of kids that come in here, they’re nice and they comply with what we say. But on the other hand, we’ve been having kids that make spitballs and they leave them on the walls, under the tables and on the tables. They get mad because we tell them the water cups aren’t for other drinks and they’ll spill the drinks on the table and leave stuff like that.” Photo: Andrew Xue

Tristan Jud

Peet’s Coffee Barista

“It’s hard to tell. I don’t know anything about their personal lives or how they’re brought up, but from the privilege in this area, my trust for them becomes questionable. Students who come in for Peet’s are pretty chill; it’s mostly the adults that are annoying. I would say my overall experience with them [Paly students] is positive.” Photo: Andrew Xue

Lun Yuen

Peers Park Resident

“In general, I think most kids are pretty responsible. The football game is a different story because there will be a bunch of students who start doing things because they see other people doing so as well. However, if you ask them if they would do that before the game, they would probably say no.” Photo: Jonas Pao

WE MEAN BUSINESS — Palo Alto High School students cheer for their respective classes as representatives of each grade play games in order to win points for their class. “Some guys can get really competitive out of school spirit, especially in rivalries, but when stuff happens, they’ve all had pretty good sportsmanship,” said Paly Alumni Zach Mann. Photo: Annelise Balentine