![CHILLING OUT Speech and Debate students relax and enjoy snacks before practice after school in P6. Sophomore Kyle Greenberg said he routinely uses this space to connect with peers. “When school ends, we all go [to P6] on Mondays and Tuesdays and there are all these people from different events,” Greenberg said. “It's such a nice area to hang out with people in.”](https://anthromagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-03-23-at-12.25.37-PM.png)
Palo Alto High School administrators are planning to remove the campus portables over the summer.
Assistant principal Jerry Berkson said the portables will be relocated because they are no longer necessary.
”They [the portables] were put in as a temporary thing about 10 years ago,” Berkson said. “Now that all major construction is done, there is no reason to have them, so they will bring it back to a nicer-looking place.”
Berkson said the Speech and Debate program losing its portable is an unfortunate but necessary change.
“There are a lot of clubs on campus who would love to have a community space, and I would love to have something for them,” Berkson said. “I don’t think it’s realistic [to keep the Speech and Debate portable]. It would defeat the purpose of getting rid of the portables. They [the portables] are not beautiful.”
The Paly Speech and Debate program currently uses the space as a community hub that is open to members of the program all day, twice per week. Program Director & Head Coach Kyle Hietala said the space has been important for students beyond honing their skills.
“P6 is a place … where students feel like they belong, where they can receive mentorship and talk through really difficult situations, [and] where they can gather to mourn suicides or process tragedies that seem to happen at our school all too often,” Hietala said.
According to Hietala, P6 is different from other supportive spaces on campus because of its high degree of student involvement.
“It [P6] is largely student-created and ‘student-owned’ — it’s not something that the district or administration created,” Hietala said. “Students made it a space where they feel safe, and they made it a space where they belong. That makes a big difference for how it’s perceived and how it’s used.”
Hietala said that maintaining these kinds of spaces is important for promoting student well-being.
“One of the things that gets lost at Paly sometimes is the basic infrastructure that it takes to help students feel like … they belong,” Hietala said. “We really should be listening to students … and leaning into student momentum where we see it.”
Sophomore debater Kyle Greenberg said the space has been central to building community across the Speech and Debate program.
“Everyone is in a different space during the actual practice, so P6 ends up becoming this communal area,” Greenberg said. “We get to communicate with our coaches outside of practice and have that interpersonal connection that both increases the quality of our team and allows us to grow our communication skills outside of the formal setting of debate.”
Greenberg said losing P6 will mean a downgrade for the Speech and Debate program and makes him concerned about the choices made by Paly’s leaders.
“It’s really interesting when our administration advocates for mental health support [and] it advocates for quality of after-school extracurriculars, and then we end up seeing these spaces being taken away,” Greenberg said. “[They are] safe spaces for so many kids. It makes me wonder whether or not we are truly applying these ideals in the actions of our administration.”