Henry M Gunn High School

Gunn is a pretty decent school but has a lousy administration. Judging from the earlier posts, they don’t teach grammar there :).

I graduated many years ago. My opinion of the school boils down to one reality: rapists staff as teachers. Or at least one rapist is currently on staff. I was a victim of acquaintance rape by this teacher. If anyone wants to know who this person is for the safety of your children please contact me and check out this person on your own terms. He rapes only after graduation. Being hireable at Gunn does not a good character reference make.

This school has many great qualities. It has an amazing theatre department, nice sports facilities (they recently completed a new gym and redid the old one), and it’s located in Palo Alto, which is the tech capital of the world, spawning companies like hp, facebook, and apple.
I had a great experience on the freshman volleyball team, the team had a great connection, and although the training was difficult and intense (2 hours every week day and tournaments every other weekend), I thoroughly enjoyed the program.
My problem was with the size of the school. about halfway through Freshman year, I had a mental breakdown. All of the stress and pressure of grades and academic achievement was getting to my head, and I fell into a deep depression. I started to stay home from school for weeks at a time, I just couldn’t get myself there, the anxiety was too overwhelming. My mom notified the school of my problem, and it took about a month for action to be taken.
At first, they were going to let me have a 504 plan. Then when we had a meeting, they sprung the idea of putting me in special ed, which hadn’t been on the table in previous conversations. They kept pushing it on us and I had no choice but to agree.
The special ed students at Gunn are greatly unappreciated and in most cases are forgotten about. It’s all about the high achievers with their 5.0 GPA’s and national merit scholarships to an Ivy league school. The special ed classroom is in an almost deserted part of the school, two small classrooms with old dells and desks, there is barely any place to breathe. The rest of the school has updated computers and software (the recently made a move to replace the old white macbooks with brand new macbook airs and pros, and imacs), where the special ed department is stuck with old computers (there is one old imac, not the new sleek silver ones, a white one with a small screen).
So, I ended freshman year enrolled in 3 classes with horrifying grades. I started sophomore with a new attitude, I tried to get my work in on time and do what I had to do to get by. But then I started slipping. I was treated unfairly by my case manager and eventually I just couldn’t deal with it anymore. I wasn’t going to school, and when I did, I was berated and excluded from most things on campus. Don’t get me wrong, I had a core friend group, but it was in the classrooms I felt most uncomfortable.
So, we had another meeting and eventually decided that staying at Gunn wasn’t in my best interest. The best thing the school district has done for me was paying my tuition to Mid-​Peninsula high school, a small, private high school located on Willow road in Menlo Park. I’ve flourished and thrived at Mid-​Pen, and that’s where I’ve been ever since.
The teachers at Gunn aren’t as amazing or inspiring as you’d expect from a top 100 public high school. It was really surprising, I though I would be getting a quality education but I found myself bored out of my mind, even in subjects I usually enjoy.
Gunn is a great school if pressure doesn’t get to you and you’re able to keep up with the genius environment. For me, I just couldn’t handle it. A lot of kids can, and a lot can’t. The school doesn’t seem to care much about those who can’t handle it, we seem to be dusted under the rug more often than not.
I would’ve given one star, but I actually enjoyed my time in the sports program and in theatre. I wish my new school had more opportunities for me in those fields.

Judging from this school’s track and field area and artificial turf that would rival most community colleges in the U.S., this high school is definitely in an affluent zip code. With surrounding $ 1M+ homes, the land of the HP, center of Silicon Valley universe and Facebook, this area’s housing market will probably never depreciate, and neither will the tax revenue for this high school. Love coming here to use the track. You can never say you’ll injure your knee here because this is an all weather polyurethane rubberized track surface. From track and field activities here during the summer months, this school probably opens its doors to the local community activities.

Gunn High rocks. I finally visited Gunn High and I like it! However, I’ve noticed the cheapest home around the school is a mere $ 1.2 million! Ouch!: (I am sure as soon as Facebook, with its HQ being in Palo Alto, goes IPO next year, the housing prices will go up even higher.

I graduated from Gunn semi recently and have very mixed feelings about the place… I loved the sports programs and camaraderie I had with my teammates, but did not feel that sense of camaraderie in the general student body. I met some really awesome people at Gunn, along with some total assholes, as is the case at most high schools I would imagine. I had some great teachers and some terrible teachers, less good ones than I would expect from a top notch school. I could see how asian students focused on there studies or perhaps certain people and cliques of people could have had a great time at Gunn, and I can also see how kids could get extremely depressed to the point of suicide. I had a lot of friends at Los Altos High, and overall would have rather gone there. The academic standard at Gunn is high because of the quality of the students and specifically the hyper disciplined asian contingent… not the quality of the teachers. My dad said when he went to Gunn there was almost no asians in the whole school lol… how things have changed…
I must say tho:
March Madness on the quad was awesome…
GO TITANS!!!

My son attended Gunn HIgh School and graduated in 1997. He received a top notch education.
Just heard on KTVU Channel 2 News this morning that Gunn High School is listed as one of the top 100 schools in the United States.
Go Titians!

As in most High Schools there are good and bad teachers. At Gunn the mediocre teachers out weigh the really great ones. For example the Math department is abysmal. It is run by an authoritarian who should have retired years ago.
The math program is based on catering to a handful of super bright kids that are groomed to win math tournaments. However for the other 2000 plus students, they must suffer a draconian approach. It is so bad that the Math Department cannot retain new and young vibrant teachers. Each year, it is a revolving door. Instead they hire failures from other schools who will tow the line at the expense of quality teaching; Talking heads who stand for an hour and give power-​point lectures rather than engaging the students to work out problems on the blackboard and give feedback.
This is just one example of a school so out of touch with its students that they either drop out, are constantly stoned at school, or are simply so disillusioned that they get depressed… «whatever» pretty much sums up the attitude.
There is an unreasonable and unrealistic burden put on going to Ivy league schools right from the start of freshman year, and in sad and extreme cases some kids end their lives. This tragic situation has become so out of control that it made national news and still the Gunn community and it’s clueless leadership have done nothing to remedy the culture.
Gunn is NOT a school about teaching our children but about desperately trying to manage 2000 kids, not enough teachers or counselors and an über-​competitive environment that is out of control and out of touch with its general student population.
Why are there so many unhappy kids at Gunn? It’s the teachers and leadership who emphasize Ivy league and grades over values and happiness. It’s time to clean house!

erm. yea. im going to have to knock this down a few notches to its rightful place. gunn was decent, but one of the most overrated schools around. i dont know what it is now, but it was #50 for nationwide public schools. this is attributed to a handful of genius asian and jewish kids. the rest of the attendees are you average mediocre people and underachievers. dont be fooled, we have our fair share of sluts and drug addicts (if not more) but its relatively underwraps. there are a few GREAT teachers, and then the rest of them are your everyday mildly incompetent bunch. the school facilities got better slowly, but unfortunately, i wasnt able to enjoy most of the renovations. instead, i got 4 years of construction and dust allergies. this school makes you think that its normal to drive fleets of bmws, mercedes, range rovers to school. most the kids here get by with a lot of afterschool private tutors and college prep center visits. but lets be fair. there are some great programs at this school and a lot of good memories. there IS something about this place that makes you proud to have gone here. maybe its other kids looking at you in awe because they think gunn is an intensely competitive school. all in all, id give this place a 3.5, but im marking 2 stars to KEEP IT REAAAL

I love that the category that my High School falls under is «cinema.» I guess that sort of makes sense, since there is a professional theater [with a movie screen that can be lowered] on school grounds… In the overall, surreal picture of being a student at Gunn, this is moderately logical.
Ah, Gunn!
Five stars for being one of the best public high schools in the country, and for giving me a chance to express my adolescent angst in creative and intellectual ways. Five stars the aforementioned theater with a 40′ stage, a great art department, fantastic EVERYTHING — all the tech giants around Silicon Valley show their community support by donating enormous amounts of tech equipment to our school. I guess besides altruism it is also due to the fact that many kids’ parents work very high in tech/​business in this area.
Gunn also has phenomenal professors who are still bright and hopeful that they will be able to CHANGE the lives of a few young people. It is sort of a joke that they start with Gunn — I think on average kids are not misled or traumatized — we were just VERY sheltered. Who has a garden hose fight inside a house, drinks half of the bar, and lets the live-​in maid bring towels?
I guess this is what makes Gunn so terrific — it makes you FEEL like you are in constant contact with the real world, but in all truth you grow up in one of the most supportive wealthy bubbles imaginable, and as a result you come out of high school believing [HONESTLY believing] that you can do whatever you want in your life. All barriers are defined by two things: How smart you are, and if you are not smart ENOUGH, then by how much money you have.
Five stars for having a car by the time you are 16, taking four AP classes your senior year and getting into the best universities in the country.
In retrospect, I like the fact that I grew up in Palo Alto.