Ellwood P. Cubberley High School (1956–1979) known locally as "Cubberley", was one of three public high schools in Palo Alto, California. The site of the closed school is now named Cubberley Community Center and used as a community center and used for many diverse activities.HistoryOpened in 1956, Cubberley High was located at 4000 Middlefield Road. The high school was named after Ellwood Patterson Cubberley, the Dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Education and pioneer of educational administration.The school was finally closed in 1979 as a reaction to declining enrollment and decreased revenues following Proposition 13. The other local high schools Gunn High School and Palo Alto High School had been created on friendly land transfers from Stanford University and if educational use was to be terminated, the land would revert to the university for the value at the time of transfer. The Palo Alto Unified School District board, requiring an infusion of cash, determined Cubberley could be sold at more contemporary rates. Later it was discovered that it could only be sold to a non-profit organization. That has resulted in part of the campus being converted into the Cubberley Community Center, on an annual lease from the school district to the City of Palo Alto. The larger remainder of the site has been leased since 2002 to the Foothill-De Anza College District for the Middlefield Campus of Foothill College.
