Bay High School is a public secondary school in downtown Panama City, Florida, U.S.. As one of the oldest continuously accredited publichigh schools in Florida, the school serves around 1,500 students in grades 9 to 12 in the Bay District Schools. Bay High School has a faculty of 80. 55% of the faculty has earned advanced degrees and many are currently or have previously taught at the community college, college, and/or university level. The majority of the faculty are alumni of the school. Bay High School graduates have distinguished themselves in science, medicine, law, business, politics, education, religion, athletics, and many other endeavours.
History
Bay High School was established in 1924 in Panama City, Florida. It opened doors in September 13, 1926 as Bay County High School. Its building contained one office, twelve classrooms, and an auditorium during its opening. Their yearbook theme has been The Pelican since its inception. In 1945, they established the Tommy Oliver Memorial Stadium, in honor of the namesake of a football player. The stadium was renovated in March 2018 and the school constructed the Joe and Jeanette Chapman Field, named after the namesake of the philanthropists. In 1976, demolition was underway on the original Bay High building, allowing for more updated facilities while being able to accommodate more students. By 1977, this new building houses the school's offices, as well as two hallways of classrooms. More renovations would occur in 2000, with the construction of a new library building and cafeteria. After the new cafeteria was opened to students in 2001, the original building was used for storage, and on occasion, wrestling practise, until its demolition in early 2018. Additional buildings deemed outdated that had had plans drawn up for their replacement were also razed in early 2018. In 2016, the Washington Post named Bay High School as among of the challenging high schools in the United States.
Bay High School suffered extensive damage from the landfall of Category 5 Hurricane Michael on October 10, 2018. Since then more than 60% students and faculty are in temporary modular classrooms. Renovations are being made to the school in 2019, which will feature a brand new library, a state of the art STEM facility, and a new Fine Arts center. While temporarily residing in their neighboring Jinks Middle School, whose building was also severely damaged, they partnered with the middle school to host a Thanksgiving community feast, which was featured in ABC's Good Morning America in November 21, 2018. In April 2019, the school's students participated at a rally at the Florida State Capitol in Tallahassee to demand the legislative for relief funding of the school and its district. Like its high schools such as Rutherford, the school has received unfavorable criticism for its unclean bathroom on September 2019 when a video of such was circulated on Facebook, which depicts unflushed toilets, stalls with no toilet papers and broken sinks. The principal issued a statement that while he did not know there were many bathrooms that were unclean until a parent notified him, he stresses that he does not excuse it and is working to rectify the situation while pointing out that part-time jobs at Panama City Beach are paid more than full-time school jobs, which he reported, are mostly vacant.
School uniforms
Students at the school are required to wear school uniforms. They must wear solid red, white, or black shirts or a school approved spirit T-shirt, as well as closed-toe shoes and a belt. They may wear blue jeans, khakis, and skirts. Exceptions are made on fundraiser days. After Hurricane Michael, however, the remainder of the 2018–19 school year continued without a dress code policy.
Their marching band, nicknamed "Million Dollar Band" consists of around 50 students. The origin of the Million Dollar Band name came from when, in the 1960s, band involvement soared and the band's production costs totaled over a million dollars. In November 2018, after Hurricane Michael struck Panama City, the Million Dollar Band received a hurricane relief fund from Bands of 30A with a check worth US$10,000 to compensate their losses of instruments The current band director is Adam Brown. Nicholas Efstathiou was the band director for 13 years until 2019.
