Paso Robles Joint Unified School District History

The first one-room schoolhouse was built in Paso Robles in 1877. The school district itself was not founded until 1887 when a tax election funded the construction of the first main schoolhouse on 17th Street, which was completed in 1888. The first school was too small, so a second school soon followed, also built on 17th Street. 

Because of the growing population of children in the Paso Robles area, these school sites quickly became outgrown, so a new "Paso Robles School" was built.  This three-story masonry building was the first high school in San Luis Obispo County and served Paso Robles students until it was damaged in the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.

Plans were then made to build two new schools.  The grammar school (which burned in 1953 and was replaced by the "Primary School" now called Marie Bauer Elementary) and a new Paso Robles High School (pictured), which was built in 1924 on the corner of 24th and Spring.  A middle school (now Glen Speck Elementary) and two other elementary schools (36th Street, formally known as Georgia Brown and Winifred Pifer) were built in the 1940s.

The community continued to grow and soon outgrew these older facilities.  Thus, in 1981, a new high school campus was built at the current site, 801 Niblick Road, and the old high school became a middle school and was named George Flamson Middle School.  As the district continued to grow, Bauer and Speck were combined into a single elementary site, and in 1995, Winifred Pifer was moved into a more modern campus. Other new schools were built. These include Virginia Peterson Elementary, Pat Butler Elementary, and, in 2000, Kermit King Elementary.  Flamson Middle School was joined by another middle school, Daniel Lewis Middle School, in 1996, which was built on the old Winifred Pifer Elementary site.  On December 22, 2003, the San Simeon Earthquake damaged Flamson Middle School to the point that it was unusable and was replaced by the current new main building.

During the 2023-2024 school year, the community consolidated the two middle schools into one junior high school, placing all 7th and 8th grade students at the Flamson campus, and renamed the site to Lewis Flamson Junior High School. Additionally, the Georgia Brown Dual Immersion program was relocated to the formerly known Lewis Middle School campus, maintaining the name of the Georgia Brown Dual Immersion Program.

Upon promotion, the Paso Robles junior high school students are joined by students from the San Miguel and Pleasant Valley School Districts in attending Paso Robles High School. 

The high school has produced numerous higher academic scholars, military academy appointees, college graduates, business owners, politicians, and teachers.  Paso Robles High School has a proud tradition and is strongly supported by the community, many of them Paso grads.  The school's mascot is, and always will be, the Bearcat.