Palmer High School

About Palmer High School

Category: Education

General William J. Palmer High School is a modest-sized secondary school located in downtown Colorado Springs, Colorado. The school has a student body of approximately 1800, and attracts enrollment from all over the city. The flagship high school of School District 11, Palmer has the oldest International Baccalaureate (IB) program in the area, founded in 1993. Palmer is located at 301 North Nevada Avenue in Colorado Springs. The present building was built by the Works Progress Administration under Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1940. Originally named Colorado Springs High School, Palmer High School was re-named in 1959 after the city's founder, General William Jackson Palmer.For the fourth year, Colorado Springs School District 11's Palmer High School has been named one of the top 1, 600 high schools in America by Newsweek. Winners are determined by taking the total number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, or Cambridge (AICE) tests given at a school each year and dividing by the number of seniors graduating in May or June. Schools achieving a ratio of at least 1.000, meaning they had as many tests in 2009 as they had graduates, were put on the list on the Newsweek website. Each list is based on the previous year's data, so the 2010 list has each school's numbers for 2009. This year, only 6 percent of the approximately 27, 000 U.S. public high schools managed to reach that standard and be placed on the Newsweek list.