Palm Harbor University High School, also known as PHUHS, is a

Pinellas County Pinellas County (, ) is located on the west central coast of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 959,107, making it the seventh-most populous county in the state. It is also the most d ...

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...

high school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...

in Palm Harbor,

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

for grades 9–12. The school's

mascot A mascot is any human, animal, or object thought to bring luck, or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, sports team, university society, society, military unit, or brand, brand name. Mascots are als ...

is the Hurricane and the school's colors are navy and maroon. The campus was built in 1996 and was originally to be known as the University High School at Palm Harbor. The word ''University'' emphasized the intended cooperation with the

University of South Florida The University of South Florida (USF) is a Public university, public research university with its main campus located in Tampa, Florida, Tampa, Florida, United States, and other campuses in St. Petersburg, Florida, St. Petersburg and Sarasota, ...

, but this did not materialize. In the 2014–2015 school year, the school added a biomedical focus to the existing CWMP program. Students at PHUHS belong to either the traditional program, which is called the University Program, or one of two magnet programs: *

International Baccalaureate The International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO), more commonly known as the International Baccalaureate (IB), is a nonprofit foundation headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and founded in 1968. It offers four educational programmes: the I ...

(IB) *Center for Wellness and Medical Professions (CWMP)
*Career Academy of Business Administration and Management (C.A.B.A.M.)

Academics and Stats

In the past several years, PHUHS has ranked highly, with over 80% of the graduating class qualifying for Florida Bright Futures Scholarships and students consistently performing in the top 1% of scores for the statewide FCAT

standardized test A standardized test is a Test (assessment), test that is administered and scored in a consistent or standard manner. Standardized tests are designed in such a way that the questions and interpretations are consistent and are administered and scored ...

. The school has the highest graduation rate of all high schools in Pinellas County. Palm Harbor University High also received a 10 out of 10 and an A grade from greatschools.net] was named in the USA TODAY Academic All-Star Honorable Mention 2004, and won 35 athletic championships at the local, regional and state level. The high school was mentioned in the

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly news magazine based in New York City. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely distributed during the 20th century and has had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned by Dev P ...

listing of the best High Schools in the U.S. and was awarded a Silver Medal ranking in the 2008 U.S. News & World Report Best High Schools. Its

program has led over 700 students to the IB diploma, and has maintained the second highest percentage of diplomas in North America within the ''60 (or more) students per graduating class'' category. PHUHS is a recipient of Florida's Five Star Award for outstanding community involvement, and boasts a total of 47 National Merit finalists. In 2005 and 2006, Palm Harbor University was ranked the 83rd best high school in America.

Athletics

Palm Harbor competes in

lacrosse Lacrosse is a contact team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game w ...

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

(boys),

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

cheerleading Cheerleading is an activity in which the participants (called cheerleaders) cheer for their team as a form of encouragement. It can range from chanting slogans to intense Physical exercise, physical activity. It can be performed to motivate s ...

, cross country,

flag football Flag football is a variant of gridiron football (American football or Canadian football depending on location) where, instead of Tackle (football move)#Gridiron football, tackling players to the ground, the defensive team must remove a flag or ...

(girls),

American football American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular American football field, field with goalposts at e ...

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various Golf club, clubs to hit a Golf ball, ball into a series of holes on a golf course, course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standa ...

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

softball Softball is a Variations of baseball, variation of baseball, the difference being that it is played with a larger ball, on a smaller field, and with only underhand pitches (where the ball is released while the hand is primarily below the ball) ...

(girls),

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, such as saltwater or freshwater environments, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Swimmers achieve locomotion by coordinating limb and body movements to achieve hydrody ...

tennis Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...

, track,

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

(girls),

wrestling Wrestling is a martial art, combat sport, and form of entertainment that involves grappling with an opponent and striving to obtain a position of advantage through different throws or techniques, within a given ruleset. Wrestling involves di ...

and as of the 2023-2024 school year,

bowling Bowling is a Throwing sports#Target sports, target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a bowling ball, ball toward Bowling pin, pins (in pin bowling) or another target (in target bowling). Most references to ''bowling'' are ...

State championships

* Girls Soccer: 6× (1999, 2000, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2019) * Girls Softball: 3× (1999, 2004, 2005) * Boys Soccer: 3× (2002, 2006, 2009) * Boys Swimming and Diving: 3× (2008, 2011, 2013)

Rivalries

In recent years, the school's football matchup with rival

East Lake High School East Lake High School is a public high school serving students from grades 9–12 located in Tarpon Springs, Florida, and is part of the Pinellas County Schools. It has a 99% graduation rate which ranks it among the most graduating schools in th ...

has been described by the ''

Tampa Bay Times The ''Tampa Bay Times'', called the ''St. Petersburg Times'' until 2011, is an American newspaper published in St. Petersburg, Florida, United States. It is published by the Times Publishing Company, which is owned by The Poynter Institute ...

'' as "perhaps the biggest high school football game in

Clubs and Programs

The medical program allows students to get an overview of the medical field and learn about the human body and diseases along the way. By junior year, each student is enrolled into Allied Health where students study and shadow three different medical professions throughout the year. By senior year, each student chooses to enroll into a certification class of either: a Nursing Assistant Class (CNA), an Electrocardiogram (EKG)/Telemetry Aide Class, an Emergency Medical Responders Class, or an Entry Level Biotechnology certification. Students also become CPR certified their sophomore year and get re-certified their senior years. See PHUHS's website for a complete list of clubs. The school has over 60 different clubs to partake in. Phuhs

The International Baccalaureate program has graduated thousands of students, many who have gone on to prestigious universities. The program gives students an advanced course load with a schedule similar to that of a 4-year university. Students take Advanced Placement classes their junior year instead of senior year to allow time to prepare for exams for the IB diploma. The Career Academy of Business Administration and Management (or C.A.B.A.M.) is a career/college preparatory program which provides students with the opportunity to learn practical business skills and earn industry certifications. The program offers a sequence of courses that provides rigorous content aligned with challenging academic standards and relevant technical knowledge and skills needed to prepare for further education and careers Business. The program provides technical skill proficiency, and includes competency-based applied learning that contributes to the academic knowledge, higher-order reasoning and problem-solving skills, work attitudes, general employment skills, technical skills, occupation-specific skills, and knowledge of all aspects of the Business, Management, and Administration career cluster. In Short: CABAM will give you a head start on college & careers in high skill, high wage, and high demand areas. PHUHS has six robotics teams which compete in the

FIRST Tech Challenge FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC), formerly known as FIRST Vex Challenge, is a robotics competition for students in grades 7–12 to compete head to head, by designing, building, and programming a robot to compete in an alliance format against other te ...

, all but one of whom have earned several awards since their respective establishments in 2008, 2009, 2019, and 2023, including the title of "Winning Alliance Captain" at the 2019 Houston World Championship. PHUHS Robotics has consistently had one or more teams qualify for the FTC Florida State Championship and the Houston World Championship for the past 5 years. For the past 15 years, the club has taught the students the basics of engineering,

Java programming Java is a high-level, general-purpose, memory-safe, object-oriented programming language. It is intended to let programmers ''write once, run anywhere'' ( WORA), meaning that compiled Java code can run on all platforms that support Java w ...

, and

Computer Aided Design Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve c ...

(CAD). The school's Mathematics Honor Society,

Mu Alpha Theta Mu Alpha Theta () is an International mathematics honor society for high school and two-year college students. As of June 2015, it served over 108,000 student members in over 2,200 chapters in the United States and 20 foreign countries. Its main ...

, focuses on developing interest in mathematics and encourages students to pursue paths in engineering, computer science, math education, and other mathematical careers. The club attracted more than 200 members each year. Bolstered by Palm Harbor's math

Program, Mu Alpha Theta members compete both at the national and state level in divisions ranging from Geometry to Calculus, and winning many awards and recognition throughout. One of the school's many clubs is H.O.S.A. (Health Occupation Students of America).HOSA Website
/ref> PHUHS has a very active chapter of FBLA and has had dozens of students place in district and state competitions, and routinely sends students to the FBLA National Convention. Palm Harbor University High School's yearbook is the ''Aftermath'', earning awards from the

National Scholastic Press Association The National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1921 for high school and secondary school publications in the United States. The association is membership-based and annually hosts high school journalism con ...

, the

Columbia Scholastic Press Association The Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA) is a student journalist program of the School of Professional Studies at Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a ...

, and the Florida Scholastic Press Association. Palm Harbor's newspaper, ''The EYE'', has received the Florida Scholastic Press Association's All-American Award, and the National Scholastic Press Association's Gold Medal, placing the publication in the top 10% of all high school newspapers in the country. Other activities include a debate team, started in the 2007-2008 school year and a chapter of the Science National Honor Society, founded in 2012. Also National Technical Honor Society (2018) and Girls Who Code (2020)

External links

Palm Harbor University High School Website

Palm Harbor University High School IB Program
*Palm Harbor University High School Robotics Website
Palm Harbor University High School Mu Alpha Theta

Palm Harbor University High School Athletics

References

{{authority control High schools in Pinellas County, Florida Public high schools in Florida 1996 establishments in Florida Educational institutions established in 1996