Paradise Valley High School

I graduated from PVHS in 1976, the Bicentennial year! Moved to Phoenix (and into PVHS) near the end of my sophomore year, 1974. By comparison, the high school I left (in Wisconsin) and the school I came to (PV) were opposite ends of a coin.
1. There aren’t any cowboys in Wisconsin. In contrast, I got to describing PV as «6,000 cowboys and the Drama Club.» And I wasn’t far off.
2. None of the required reading in my high school in Wisconsin (Slaughterhouse 5 by Vonnegut and Siddhartha by Hesse, for example) we even AVAILABLE in the PV library. I remember asking about those titles and the librarian called them «smut» and seemed offended that I would ask. (If found out that if you wanted to read those books you had to take classes from Mrs. Alderman, who was the best English teacher EVER. She just passed in 2011 at age 97.)
3. The quality of education in Wisconsin, on a scale of 1 – 10, was 12. Here, they were happy to teach at a level of about 6.
4. Smoking at both high schools was not allowed but people did it anyway. Smokeless tobacco though? In Wisconsin nobody’d even HEARD of it. Out here, it was Cowboy Candy! Guys were spittin’ that shit all over campus.
5. You could bring a knife to school and wear it on your belt and nobody cared. In Wisconsin, nobody even thought about doing that.
6. By coming to PV I managed to get through high school without ever writing a «term paper,» because none of my teachers ever asked for them. In Wisconsin I couldn’t have avoided it.
7. The study hall was a great advancement out here, compared to the cafeteria used in Wisconsin. PV’s study hall was a separate building with a very small room you could actually study in. The rest of the building was filled with air hockey machines, pool tables, a snack bar and a stereo playing whatever albums kids brought in to play.
8. I will say that the English department down here had it all over my Wisconsin HS, because you could take classes based on types of literature. I took Science Fiction, Humor in Literature and other interesting classes.
9. In Wisconsin, the drinking age was 18, which means seniors and teachers frequently socialized at the same bars. This led to odd situations, to be sure, but nobody went to jail for it. In AZ at that time drinking age was 19. That didn’t keep the occasional teacher and student from commingling, but nobody cared. It was a different time.

Mornings are terrible trying to get in and out of the parking lots!

I attended PV from 97 – 02 and what really made my high school experience outstanding was the band program. However, this is all dependent on who is in charge, and there has been a bit of turnover. If you are a parent doing some research, it is worth looking into the fine arts at the school; if managed well it can provide an excellent source of self esteem and friendship in an otherwise disconnected environment.

«Fuck you all, we hope you die.
That’s the Trojan Battle Cry!»
Wow, I can not believe someone Unilocal’ed PV.
My freshman year, my science teacher was arrested from embezzling from the strip joint she owned. We then had a different teacher every couple of weeks for the first half of the year. When we finally got a permanent teacher, the damage was done. The kids had no connection or respect for any teacher who walked in the door anymore.
The year I graduated, there were 3000 students and over 1000 in my graduating class. We often had 40+ kids in one classroom.
Man, I hated this school. When I first started on the Bell Rd Campus, we referred to it as PV Prison because of the tall, iron, spiked gates and security in golf carts patrolling the campus for potential escapees. I remember, before they briefly closed the campus for renovations, a girl falling through the auditorium wall, and pieces of the ceiling falling on peoples heads before they condemned it. After 2 years at this location, they suddenly closed the campus and opened the new campus on Union Hills, the campus that was to become North Canyon.
They built the new campus with the intention of having both schools open, but as more and more buildings kept falling apart, they decided to shut down PV and re-​open it under the same name on the new campus.
They spent a shit-​ton fuck load of money on a super high-​tech theater, in return for letting it be used for official Gov’t events, that no one new how to use. This was one of the best things about it. I was one of the few people who could run the sound and lights and got out of class frequently because of it.
I remember making a video with Casey about an art show the school was having and not being allowed to air it on the morning video announcements because we used the phrase «come out of the closet» and they thought the phrase might be offensive. Then, that same week, the football team had a video where they all pretended to be gay, talking with lisps and flailing limp wrists. When I went to the office to ask what the fuck, they told me that football players didn’t need approval for anything they did. I remember my friend being expelled for missing too much school due to chicken pox and a mother not well enough to call her in. I, of course, seemed invisible to the system. I ditched class often, and it never showed on my record at all. I remember when Miss Lee dressed as a hard rocker with tattoo’s for halloween and the administrators making her change it because the costume was a bad influence. I remember my friends boyfriend being suspended because they searched his car for drugs (on an anonymous tip) and found a box cutter in his trunk he used for work which he kept in his trunk because he went to work straight from school. I remember testing out of highschool classes before freshman year, yet being subjected to 4 years of bullshit. I am pretty sure it was PVUSD that was the inspiration for the movie «Pump Up the Volume», which was filmed in the general area.
When I quit the softball team, the coach/​school councilor kept sending people to pull me out of class to try to talk me into playing again. When we took pictures for the badminton team, we didn’t have enough uniforms for the entire team.
I felt like I was in some prison or some high security mental facility. In fact, when my mom visited the new campus, she was horrified there were no windows and they used the drab, grey/​blue colors they use in mental hospitals she had worked in to keep the patients calm. I never had a chemistry class. My two history classes consisted of a teacher who spent one entire year talking about Shakespear, and another who said that «The slaves did not have it so bad». My Biology book was so old, it had my friends mothers name in it from 20 years earlier, AND same friends mother warned me against my Biology teacher, Mr. H_​_​. «If he ever tells you to stay after class by yourself. DON’T.»
The Good Things I Remember —
Mrs. Toal [sp?], a very good, and supportive, English teacher. Miss Lee, the best photography/​video teacher ever and always had the best Halloween costumes. Hanging out at lunch under a tree with the boy we called Rico Suave who said he lived in a box and would tell stories about the Horny Lady. Sneaking off campus to go to Barrows Pizza. My friends wearing cut out Trojan condom boxes pinned to their shirt at the forced «spirit assemblies» and chanting our own spirit chant of «Fuck you all we hope you die, that’s the Trojan battle cry».
Time has a way of blurring the past, and making it less icky. Yet, my sister is a teacher at North Canyon, and a few years back I went and visited her on campus. The second I stepped into the main building, I felt sick to my stomach. Literally.
I hear they have made improvements since I graduated, and I hope so. I don’t want my niece and nephew forced to survive another drone factory.

I too was a Trojan, and as Kristin C. noted, many a high school student had fun with that mascot. In fact, we all thought it was hilarious that our mascot was a trojan and our school district was 69. Oh the jokes that inspired.
I was in Stugo (Student Government) and we were in charge of designing our senior shirts. We had a guy draw up a trojan-​looking guy holding a trojan condom in his hand with our graduation date on it. We truly thought we had a chance at getting this by our principal without him seeing it. «Nice try» is all he said.
But when I went here– I graduated in ’97– it was a good school. I had some really great teachers, great office staff and a great principal. I can’t really speak for how it is now, but I’ve heard it’s turned a little rough. Not sure if that’s true or not, but every school is going to have its problems.
It is a huge campus, and I think they’ve even expanded it further. Lots of extracurricular activities are available too. All in all– this was a great school and I have only fond memories of it!
P. S. We’re having our ten-​year reunion in September! Go Trojans!

Ah, my old Alma Mater. When I went there, there were students who’s parents had graduated from here. Some of them had the same teachers. It was nice to find a place in North Phoenix with some history to it. While in no way was my time there idealic, it was pretty great if you wanted it to be. Lots of activities. Huge campus. But it was not only big enough that you could find good stuff — but you could find the bad stuff too.
One brother went 7 yrs after me. He found it to be similar, but with a much larger «rough» crowd. Then again, it’s the crowd he went for so who’s to say for sure? He did say that he felt like there less «cliques» and more «groups» of people — grouped generally socio-​economically of course. Though that’s often what cliques were but he swore it was different.
My next brother went there 8 years after him — just stopped going a year ago. His experience and mine were shockingly different. The campus was so huge he felt a bit lost in it all — not lost going to classes but lost to the teachers. Teachers here, like in many schools, were struggling with kids who didn’t speak the language well. Class sizes had gotten a bit out of control in the core classes. They went from shoving 8 different periods into a day to transitioning to 6 period Blocks which was definately an improvment, but may have come too late for some kids. From my side, it felt like they were just fumbling desperately to find solutions to their many issues.
During this whole time though, one of their consistently great things they offered was their pre-​school program. Students in their 1^st semester learned all about child development, then in their 2^nd semester they actually run a ½ day pre-​school class. This is both a low cost alternative for parents in the area, it’s also been really inspiring for many of the students. I know folks who participated in that that went on to open their own child care facility — and others who swear it was what made them stick to «Protection» their whole lives. Neither one bad solutions. They also have a pretty good Fine Arts program. Though they have fewer plays now than when I went there, I hear they are still pretty good.
But they have one of the worst ever mascots. The PV Trojans. Made all those classic school pride lines kinda dirty. «Just can’t hide that Trojan pride.» — always inspired some giggles. Oh well. Go Trojans!