Phineas Banning High School

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Phineas Banning High School is a public high school in the Wilmington neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. It is part of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and sits at 1527 Lakme Avenue, Wilmington, CA 90744.

The school began as Wilmington High School and was renamed after General Phineas Banning when a newer campus opened in 1926 at Avalon Boulevard and Pacific Coast Highway. The original red brick building was a Wilmington landmark but was damaged in the 1971 Sylmar earthquake and torn down in 1973. For three years, classes were held in temporary bungalows while a new campus was built. The new Banning High School opened in 1975 on Lakme Avenue, adding a gym and a swimming pool. The school’s teams are called the Pilots, and the colors are red, black, and white.

Banning was part of the Los Angeles City High School District until 1961, when that district merged into LAUSD. In 2012, after efforts to improve performance, the school joined LAUSD’s Public School Choice reform process. The campus was planned to be divided into two schools: Banning High School and the Banning Academies of Creative and Innovative Sciences (BACIS). BACIS opened as a Small Learning Community in Fall 2013 and became a separate school in Fall 2014, with three academies: Manufacturing and Engineering, Computer Science and Digital Arts, and Business and Technology Magnet.

As of the 2022–23 school year, about 2,486 students attend Banning High School, which serves grades 9–12. The student-teacher ratio is around 20:1. The principal is Adela Retana. The school’s rivals include San Pedro High School and Carson High School.