| Pacific Christian on the Hill | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Location | |
 | |
| , | |
| Information | |
| Type | Private, college-prep |
| Motto | In Christo Vera Educatio |
| Opened | 1904 |
| Closed | 2004 |
| Grades | 7–12 |
| Gender | Coeducational |
| Color(s) | Red and black |
| Mascot | Black panther |
Pacific Christian on the Hill was a small private college preparatory school located in the Hermon area of Los Angeles.
Pacific Christian on the Hill (PCH), originally Pacific Christian High School, was founded in 1965, but its roots went back to 1904 with the formation of Los Angeles Free Methodist Seminary (later Los Angeles Pacific College) by the Free Methodist Church. When the college was torn down, a new high school was built on the lot on the hill under the guidance of an independent, interdenominational board of directors. A private college preparatory high school was created for grades 9–12. Later it added a junior high school, grades 7 and 8.
The school provided a liberal arts education with a strong foundation in the Christian faith. There were no religious affiliation requirements for entry and the students came from many different Protestant denominations. However, true to its origins, chapel services for the students were held every Wednesday at the local Free Methodist church (Hermon Community Church) located close by.
PCH was fully accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), a member of the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI), California Scholarship Federation (CSF) and the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) for athletics. [1]
The school mascot was the panther. This was reflected in the name of the school yearbook, Pardalis, Greek for panther.
Structures on campus (1970s–2000s):
Lingren Hall: the main building housed the class rooms, library, lab, darkroom, book storage, and lockers.
The Panther Den: housed yearbook and journalism classes, restrooms, and lunch sales.
The Office: used to be a two-story building. Housed administration offices, teachers' lounge, computer lab, and girls' locker room.
Boy's Locker room: housed the locker room, weight room, athletic equipment storage, and general grounds storage.
The amphitheater: pictured on this page.
Observatory: as of the 1990s this was the oldest building remaining on campus.
In addition to supporting Hermon area children, PCHS reached out to enroll students from other towns in the northeastern suburbs of Los Angeles. The school was attractive to Christian parents who preferred to have their children schooled in a Christian environment. Hence, PCH was able to attract students from towns such as neighboring Highland Park, California, South Pasadena as well as towns further afield in the San Gabriel Valley such as Pasadena, San Gabriel, San Marino, Rosemead, Temple City, Alhambra and Eagle Rock, California. Many of the students were graduates of Christian middle schools based in Pasadena and San Gabriel. A rival Christian high school, Maranatha High School, originally based in Arcadia and now in Pasadena, provided healthy competition for the enrollment of these students. Coincidentally, the two schools were founded in the same year, 1965.
A junior high (middle school, grades 7–8) was added in 1975.
Student population generally hovered around 150, from the late 1970s until a few years before the school closed. By 2003, student enrollment had declined to less than 100 overall, hastening the school's eventual financial demise. The graduating class of 1986 was the largest in many years at 28 students.
The school closed in the summer 2004 just before celebrating its 100th anniversary; the school simply had no money to continue operating. While the school grounds remained shuttered, the school board and the Hermon community discussed the future of the school and its properties. [2] Hermon Community Church retained the right of first-refusal. The school board and the church prepared to enter the courts to settle the matter. [3] However, an appropriate buyer, agreeable to both sides appeared and on December 7, 2006, the school board agreed to the sale of the 7-acre (28,000 m2) site to Bethesda Christian University. [4]
Since 1965 the school had only four principals:
The campus site is now occupied by Los Angeles College Prep Academy.
Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbreviated as L.A. County, is the most populous county in the United States, with 9,861,224 residents estimated in 2022. Its population is greater than that of 40 individual U.S. states. Comprising 88 incorporated cities and many unincorporated areas within a total area of 4,083 square miles (10,570 km2), it is home to more than a quarter of Californians and is one of the most ethnically diverse U.S. counties. The county's seat, Los Angeles, is the second most populous city in the United States, with about 3.9 million residents. Being the home of the U.S. motion-picture industry, since its inception in the early 20th century, has given the county global prominence.
Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, 11 miles (18 km) northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district.
Monrovia is a city in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains in the San Gabriel Valley of Los Angeles County, California, United States. The population was 37,931 at the 2020 census. Monrovia has been used for filming TV shows, movies and commercials.
The San Gabriel Valley, often referred to by its initials as SGV, is one of the principal valleys of Southern California, lying immediately to the east of the eastern limits of the city of Los Angeles and occupying the vast majority of the southeastern part of Los Angeles County. Surrounding landforms and other features include the following:
Azusa Pacific University (APU) is a private, evangelical Christian university in Azusa, California. The university was founded in 1899, with classes opening on March 3, 1900, in Whittier, California, and began offering degrees in 1939. The university's seminary, the Graduate School of Theology, holds to a Wesleyan-Arminian doctrinal theology. APU offers more than 100 associate, bachelor's, master's, and doctoral programs on campus, online, and at seven regional locations across Southern California.
Pasadena City College (PCC) is a public community college in Pasadena, California.
The Los Angeles Westside is an urban region in western Los Angeles County, California, United States. It has no official definition, but sources like LA Weekly and the Mapping L.A. survey of the Los Angeles Times place the region on the western side of the Los Angeles Basin south of the Santa Monica Mountains.
Hastings Ranch is a neighborhood of Pasadena, California which lies in northeast Pasadena. It is principally accessed by Sierra Madre Boulevard, Michillinda Avenue, Hastings Ranch Blvd., and Riviera Drive. Hastings Ranch is also identified by large shopping areas at its southernmost end and by a shopping center at the corner of Sierra Madre and Michillinda. Hastings Ranch is divided by Sierra Madre Blvd, north of the blvd is Upper Hastings Ranch and south is Lower Hastings Ranch. To the north of the Ranch is the San Gabriel Mountains and Mount Wilson.
Point Loma Nazarene University (PLNU) is a private Christian liberal arts college with its main campus on the Point Loma oceanfront in San Diego, California, United States. It was founded in 1902 as a Bible college by the Church of the Nazarene.
Providence Christian College is a private Christian liberal arts college in Pasadena, California. Founded in 2002, it is an independent, confessionally Reformed college with no formal denominational ties. The college offers one degree program, a bachelor's degree in Liberal Studies.
Maranatha High School is a private, college preparatory Christian school in Pasadena, California.
Hermon is a neighborhood in the northeast area of Los Angeles. It was established in 1903 and became part of Los Angeles in 1912.
Bishop Amat Memorial High School is a co-ed Catholic high school serving the San Gabriel Valley in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, and was founded in 1957. The campus is located in La Puente, California, approximately 20 miles (32 km) east of downtown Los Angeles in Los Angeles County. The coeducational student body comprises approximately 1,520 students in grades 9 through 12, making Bishop Amat the largest private high school in Los Angeles County.
The Sequoyah School is a non-profit, co-ed, independent K-12 school in Pasadena, California, United States.
Los Angeles Pacific College was a four-year, liberal-arts college in the Hermon neighborhood of Hispanic East Los Angeles, California.
Myron Hubbard Hunt was an American architect whose numerous projects include many noted landmarks in Southern California and Evanston, Illinois. Hunt was elected a Fellow in the American Institute of Architects in 1908.
Lamanda Park is a neighborhood in Pasadena, California. It is bordered roughly by Foothill Boulevard to the north, Del Mar Boulevard to the south, the Eaton Wash to the east, and Allen Avenue to the west, with a panhandle extending south along the western bank of the Eaton Wash. Like Annandale, it was originally a small township that was gradually enveloped by Pasadena. It was annexed in 1920. Even today, many commercial enterprises and newspapers still identify the area as a separate community.
