Louis Harley, the department lead for PV High’s social science department, has been enjoying teaching at PV High since 2004, after previously spending nine years in the Torrance Unified School District. Although teaching is Mr. Harley's true passion, it is his third career. After completing a degree in business at Loyola Marymount, he went into the financial world, while earning a M.B.A. with emphasis in international finance at LMU. Not quite finished with graduate studies, Mr. Harley earned his Juris Doctorate degree at Whittier College and practiced law for four years. Taking what was originally a three year break from the law, Mr. Harley is now dedicated to finishing his career as a teacher at PV High.
Mr. Harley came to PV High with a vision to increase the academic opportunities for high-achieving students. He created the PVID program as well as new AP Comparative Government and AP Human Geography courses, all while increasing enrollment in AP Government from 4 students the year before he came to PVHS to over 200 enrolled today. Last year, he re-established an Academic Decathlon team that won best new program in Los Angeles County. In his free time, Mr. Harley likes to travel, coach his daughters’ soccer and T-ball softball teams and collect terrible jokes that he shares with his students.
The mission of PV High’s Social Science department is to provide quality learning experiences to all students that lead to understanding how each of us shapes, and is shaped by, our culture and society. PV High’s social science department has created one of the most unique and outstanding programs in the nation. Our outstanding social science faculty, which includes three attorneys, takes great pride in being one of just a handful of high schools nation-wide that offers a supplementary international studies diploma, (PVID), for students that successfully complete a rigorous list of Advanced Placement and honors social science courses. We are able to offer this opportunity because we are one the only high school in Los Angeles County that offers all seven of the Advanced Placement social science courses: AP Comparative Government, AP Economics, AP European History, AP Human Geography, AP Government and Politics, AP US History and AP World History. In addition, our outstanding, award-winning Model United Nations and Mock Trial teams offer students the chance to apply their learning experiences to an extra-curricular setting.
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