Located 35 miles northeast of metropolitan San Diego, Poway High School serves a quickly growing and changing area. When the school was built 50 years ago, it faced fields and groves. Now luxury homes surround us, and our neighborhood includes custom homes, a mobile home park, tract homes, apartments, a country club, and some backyards that still corral horses. Poway High School aims to prepare students for life after graduation.
We are proud of our strong academic record. Our 2013 API score of 868 reflects our commitment to academic excellence. While we are heavily oriented towards college and future success with 23 AP courses and six honors courses offered, we give students myriad ways to find interest-based links to school. Our varied course offerings include computer animation, architectural design, digital media, floral design, and agriculture.
We take pride in the breadth and depth of our extra-curricular and co-curricular programs. We have a phenomenal visual and performing arts program, including a marching band that achieves top ratings against other schools in the state, a choir that has performed to rave reviews in national competitions, a Titan Theatre program that has received national awards for the professional direction of its teachers and the outstanding performances of its students, and a photography program that helped students to earn top honors, including Best of Show at a recent county fair. Our digital media classes have fostered multiple winners at San Diego's Best Fest for video and film, and our automotive technology and engineering students have received top honors in Chrysler's Build Your Own Dream Car competition as well as other state and national level contests.
Part of our campus culture is the wide variety of support programs and ways to connect kids outside of class. These include ASB, over 50 clubs, Peer Counseling, and Link Crew (upperclassmen who put on activities to acclimate and support freshmen). Our Student Services office offers support groups, conflict mediation and drug, alcohol and tobacco cessation classes.
Because of our academic program, realtors routinely use our District's reputation as a selling point for people moving into the area. We are also known in the county as an athletics powerhouse with hundreds of Palomar League, CIF, and State championship titles over the years. We field Varsity, JV and freshman teams in 26 CIF-sanctioned sports and four club sports, with JV and freshman levels in most.
Meet Our Principal
Mr. Richard Nash is an experienced high school administrator who rose to the challenge at his former high school, James Madison High, where he started as a teacher in 2004, then became Vice Principal, then served as Principal for the last nine years. During his time there, he was honored for increasing access to Advanced Placement courses and providing support for underrepresented students; raising API scores by 97 points over the last three years it was measured; overseeing an award-winning CTE program, with a culinary arts pathway ranked 1st in the state and 6th in the nation; starting a marching band program where there previously was none; improving school climate; and establishing a focus on cultural diversity. What he has been able accomplish at a school with many challenges is remarkable. His school population included 68% of the students who were considered socioeconomically disadvantaged, yet the quality of his leadership shines through the progress he was able to make with the limited resources available to him. We know you will get to know him better as you meet and interact with him personally in the months to come, with his highly visible presence in classrooms and all school events.
PHS Mission Statement
The Poway High School Community will ensure a safe, respectful, challenging learning environment that requires all students to meet high expectations and pursue their goals.
PHS Vision Statement
- Staff, students, and parents of the learning community will support, and have a personal connection to, the Poway High School Mission and Vision.
- Communication among staff, students and parents will be coordinated and clear, and will strengthen the connection between home and school.
- The school community will partner with the greater Poway Community and its businesses to promote interaction, and community members will have a supporting role on and off our campus.
- All members of the learning community will maintain a clean, safe and secure environment that requires respectful speech and behavior and instills pride in our school.
- All members of the learning community will give and receive common courtesy, inside and outside of classrooms, and for and among members of diverse groups.
- Staff will exemplify professionalism and model the speech and behavior expected of students.
- Students at all grade levels will meet or exceed academic standards and will demonstrate personal, social and career skills expected of all Poway High School graduates.
- Students will make connections between subject areas and the real world -- with staff assisting, and community partners providing opportunities for real-life experience.
- Staff will provide rigorous and relevant curriculum and daily lessons driven by academic standards and student performance.
- Teachers in all subject areas will support the basic skills of reading, speaking, writing, using technology and problem-solving in their curriculum.
- Staff will participate in professional development activities that result in measurable improvement in student learning.
- All students will graduate prepared for many options after high school.
- Students at all grade levels will set, and make progress towards, academic, personal, and future goals.
- Staff will assist students in goal-setting and achievement and help them to follow a plan for their future.