The PCS Roar

Berenice Felipe and Tia Salika Memorial

Rina Rossi & Carina Raffaelli

January 17, 2020

“Charitable. Generous. Kind. Compassionate. Passionate. Full of joy and mirth. Energetic, often to the point of hyper. Opinionated. Mama Bear. Sincere. Authentic. Educator.” These were words spoken by Andrea Roth, and Itzel Gonzalez Camacho, and used to describe Berenice Felipe, at their memorial held at PCS on Friday, September 20. On September 20th, 2019, members of the PCS and Santa Cruz community gathered at Holy Cross Church for Berenice’s mass, celebrating the life and legacy of Berenice Felipe. A beautiful ceremony took place, inclusive of all parts of Berenice’s identity. Passages and gentle hymn...

Global Climate Week Walkout

November 19, 2019

On the morning of September 27, 169 students from PCS gathered in order to walk out for the global climate strike. At lunch, students walked out of school along with other protesters worldwide in order to amplify the world’s awareness about the impacts of global climate change. Students marched down Mission Street, making their way to Santa Cruz High School to meet with students from other schools. They proceeded to march downtown, stopping in front of Wells Fargo Bank, where they met with more students and other independent advocates, some of whom gave speeches. The march did not stop there. Protesters continued dow...

Dive Boat Victims Include PCS Students and Parents

Henry Madsen, Editor

October 22, 2019

On Monday, September 2nd, the diving boat “Conception” caught fire and sank in Platts Harbor off the coast of Santa Cruz Island. Among the lives lost on the ship were two students and two parents who were a part of the PCS community. Seniors Tia Salika and Berenice Felipe, were celebrating Tia’s 17th birthday with her parents, Steve Salika and Diana Adamic, at the time of the tragedy. Tia and Berenice had attended PCS since the 7th grade. Additionally, both Steve and Diana were very involved in student and faculty life here at PCS. Diana was a frequent parent volunteer, serving on school committees, and helped...

PCS Teachers’ Union and School Enter Mediation Phase of Bargaining

Kai Tao

October 1, 2019

Roughly one year ago on the 15 of August, the PCS faculty began the long process of unionization, believing such a union to be a step forward for school-teacher relations and beneficial for the school environment. In response to the comparatively low pay, high job turn-over rate, and rising cost of living heavily affecting teachers when working at PCS, a majority of its faculty decided to form a union for the sake of rectifying these issues and instituting worker protections. The process of unionization began with a formal petition, in conjunction with the California Teachers Association, and consisted in negot...

UNITED PCS: Teachers Decide to Unionize

Eric Spencer, Rina Rossi, Isabel Folger, Aneesh Medhekar, and Terry Cole

October 25, 2018

Although California public schools are generally unionized workplaces, some charter schools have unions while others do not. On August 15, 2018, a super-majority of teachers at Pacific Collegiate School voted and filed a formal petition to unionize with the California Teachers Association. Board President Tom Morell addressed the unionization of PCS teachers in a recent Thursday letter e-mailed to parents of Pacific Collegiate School students. Morell stated: “On August 15, 2018, the PCS Board and Administration received a notice that a majority of the PCS teaching staff had filed a petition to form a union, in aff...

Socks and Sandals

October 31, 2017

Every year, Halloween is a time when people can express their true creative interests through costumes. Peculiar fashion statements such as capes, wings, and even socks and sandals can be present in the Halloween scene. That is right, socks and sandals (*hurl*). For those who are unaware of what socks and sandals are, they can be characterized as the worst so-called fashion statement ever constructed,...

Girls Varsity Volleyball

October 16, 2017

While the PCS girls varsity volleyball season is well underway, there are plenty of more games to get excited about. To give you a preview of the rest of the season, we spoke to a number of players and coaches about this year’s team, season goals, and sports culture at PCS. This year’s girls varsity team has about fifteen players. The head coached by Chelsea Ching, who is assisted by current...

New Teachers

October 16, 2017

Mr. Pandey is a PCS alumnus and currently teaches AP English Language And Composition. He can be found in Room 127, dropping sick beats. What attracted you to the job here at PCS? I knew I wanted to teach high school and was looking at options in terms of where I wanted to be living. Since I grew up here, there was an obvious attraction to coming back to a place that I love. I wa...

41% of PCS Student Body Walked Out on J20

January 27, 2017

On J20, the day of the presidential inauguration, 227 PCS students--41 percent of the PCS student body--participated in the J20 school walkouts and political protests which occurred across the country in concert with the swearing in of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United State. The walkout began around 10:30 a.m. in coordination with students from UCSC, Harbor High School, ...

Principal Fletcher Response to Upcoming Protest

January 19, 2017

We are reprinting Mr. Fletcher's letters to PCS, along with a Q and A done by one of our reporters. Dear PCS, Our family gathered the other night, as I am sure many of you did, to watch President Obama's farewell speech to the nation. Beyond the reminder of how inspirational Barack Obama is as a speaker, his speech was also a clear reminder to me about why what we do at PCS is so import...