Palos Verdes Peninsula Schools History

Palos Verdes school students, prior to 1925, attended schools in Redondo Beach, which was then part of the Los Angeles City School District. A separate Palos Verdes school district was created in 1925, however it was only for grades K-8. The first school constructed, in 1926 in Malaga Cove, housed all school grades from elementary school through eighth grade,with high school students continuing to attend schools in Redondo Beach. During the construction of Malaga Cove School, students temporarily attended classes in the Gardiner Building in Malaga Cove Plaza.

Classes in the Gardner Building

– 1926 Malaga Cove School – 1926 (Pictures Courtesy of Palos Verdes Peninsula Library District)

Palos Verdes High School was originally planned and constructed as asix year school for grades 7 through 12by the Los Angeles School District in 1960, but when the Palos Verdes Unified School District was formed to include high schools as well as grade school students, the partially completed campus of Palos Verdes High was converted to a high school in 1961 as the first high school of the the Palos Verdes Unified School District. When the school opened, construction was not complete. Some classes had to be held in the lunch area and others met in the school busses. (PVPUSD owned a large fleet of yellow school busses at that time.)

Originally, the school had a print shop and an auto shop, but both were never used for those purposes.The architects idea was that students should look inward and study should be centered in the classroom. For that reason none of the rooms had windows other than a narrow set of louvers at the top.

Prior to the opening of Palos Verdes High School, high school students on the Peninsula attended such schools as Redondo Union High and Narbonne High. Rolling Hills High School opened in the fall of 1964 for grades nine through eleven. Seniors stayed at Palos Verdes High School. Miraleste High opened in 1968. In 1991, due to declining high school enrollment, the three high schools were consolidated on the campus of Rolling Hills High School, and renamed Palos Verdes Peninsula High School. “Peninsula High School” was the name that was supposed to have been given to the 4th high school that would have been built on the land across Crestridge Rd. from Ridgecrest Intermediate School. However, that school was never built, the land was sold for $6,000,000 to a developer (which caused quite a furor since many thought it was below market value) and so when the “consolidated” high school was named, it got the Peninsula High name.

At the time of consolidation, Palos Verdes High and Miraleste High were converted to intermediate schools, and the former intermediate schools at Malaga Cove and Margate were closed and temporarily leased to other preschools and prep schools. When Palos Verdes High school was reopened in 2002 (with just freshman and sophomores), the school at Margate was reopened as Palos Verdes Intermediate School, and Ridgecrest Intermediate School was converted from an elementary school site soon after. Palos Verdes High School and Peninsula High School are open enrollment schools, therefor any student in the district may attend either high school.

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