Plymouth High School (Michigan)

The original Plymouth High School was built in the early 20th century on the northwest corner of Main Street and Church Street, opposite from present-day City Hall in present-day downtown Plymouth, Michigan. The district deemed the facility to be outdated by the 1960s for high school use. The facility was closed after the 1969-1970 school year. While the facility was officially closed as a high school, it remained open for high school football, basketball and swimming for the 1971 school year. The new sports facilities at PCEP were completed in time for the 1972 school year. The last official high school event at the old high school was the Class of '72 homecoming football game in October 1971. It was also the last year the homecoming parade was held in downtown Plymouth. The Senior Class of 1972 insisted on continuing the old tradition of the downtown parade leading to the old high school for the final homecoming game. In addition, the Senior Class of 1972 was the last official graduating class of the original Plymouth High. The school then became Plymouth-Salem and Plymouth-Canton in 1973. The new Plymouth High at PCEP opened in 2002.

When the first new high school opened in the present-day Plymouth-Canton Educational Park, the original Plymouth High School was converted into a middle school, dubbed Central Middle School (in conjunction with the more recently constructed East and West Middle Schools). Central Middle School remains a landmark in downtown and closed as a middle school after the 2014-2015 school year. When Plymouth opened it only let in Freshmen, and the next year Freshmen and Sophomores, etc.

Originally planned to simply remain Plymouth High School, the school's name was changed to Plymouth-Salem High School after Canton opened. Although the school district serves much of rural Salem Township, Salem residents were not necessarily exclusive to Plymouth-Salem.

Plymouth High's colors of blue and white, were retained by Plymouth Salem, and the eventual Canton High School teams taking the red with white. Opened in August 2002, and constructed southwest of Salem High School, the new Plymouth High School was designed by the architecture firm French Associates.^[5] The students selected to be Plymouth High's first senior class, the Class of 2006, were polled to come up with a new nickname for the school. Their selection, the Predators (after the Nashville Predators of the National Hockey League), was met with opposition from some parents who associated it with sexual predators. As a result, the school decided to use the generic "Wildcats" nickname, while still using the saber-toothed tiger logo of the Nashville Predators. Plymouth's school colors were to be purple and white (a combo of the red and blue of Salem and Canton), but were changed to black and silver. In addition to the formal online school resources, the school's parents, coaches and boosters proudly and voluntarily contribute content related to their group and team activities .

Plymouth-Salem retained their "Rocks" mascot; supposedly named in conjunction with the school's original identity (The Plymouth "Rocks"), or because of the large unmovable boulder that sits outside the school. It is tradition for students to spray paint this rock for school events and to celebrate important sports victories. The rock was moved during the renovations in 2008.

The campus is 305 acres (1.2 km²), although much of this is athletic fields. Students may have classes in all three academic buildings, even though each student is assigned to one "home school" from which he or she is to graduate from and play sports. Students are permitted 10 minutes passing time to walk among their classes. State Law, however, does require that passage between buildings be halted in the event of lightning. There is one soccer and football field at Plymouth, as well as a band complex.