In Memoriam

This page serves as a remembrance of policies and programs that have since been eliminated or never had a chance to flourish at PHS since 2003

When Pioneer High School opened in 2003, there were several teachers who kicked around the idea of starting an on-campus radio station where students could broadcast the morning announcements, band concerts and live sport broadcasts of home games.  Realistically, it would have cost at least 100k to get the necessary broadcast equipment, federal and state licensing and the building and construction of the project.  We also looked at a low powered radio station option that wouldn't need the federal licensing to get approved, the signal would only broadcast in an area about two blocks from PHS.  At the time though, there were no houses directly across from campus, so there would be virtually nobody in Woodland who would benefit from the broadcast.  The other two factors that killed the idea was the Internet - high school students don't really listen to the radio anymore, and their everyday language would have quickly pulled the station off the air for offensive language. 

When the school opened in 2003, one of the legacy classes brought from WHS was "Advanced World History" - there was no difference in the textbook or the curriculum, the only difference was that it kept the parents of GATE identified students satisfied. Advanced World History gave no extra GPA bump to students grades, and it held no special weight on college transcripts. It was eliminated in 2009 with the introduction of AP European History

In 2008, CSUS gave a presentation to teachers regarding their Accelerated College Entrance program. It is a dual enrollment program run through CSUS. While there was initially some enthusiasm for the idea, not many teachers could qualify because teachers need to have a Masters degree or equivalent in their course subject to be a qualified ACE instructor. In 2013, CSUS changed their policy so 10th graders would not qualify for the program, so the AP European History class was not an option.  The school district never formally created an articulation agreement with CSUS, so student achievement data was never shared with the district office and the ACE program was officially dropped in 2020. 

In 2017, a former PHS teacher thought it was a good idea to create a course proposal for AP Macro Economics.  The powers that be thought that we did not have enough advanced Math students to fill a class, so the class was never put on the student sign up list. I also created an AP Micro Economics proposal as a mathematically less rigorous option. Like the Macro-Econ proposal it was not scheduled based on the impression of a lack of advanced Math students to fill a class. 

The PHS Travel Club was inspired by a silly idea that students might like an opportunity to travel somewhere other than Disneyland for a band tour, Washington D.C. in 8th grade, or for some families a random trip to Mexico or Hawaii. The tours were interesting, educational and fascinating for the students, and extremely exhausting and stressful for myself. Ultimately due to tours being delayed due to COVID, international conflicts and changes in district policy, it became far too complicated to navigate and negotiate to get tours approved.