Carlmont High School is a public high school in Belmont, CA serving grades 9–12, that’s part of the Sequoia Union High School District. Carlmont is a California Distinguished School. Carlmont has students from Belmont, San Carlos, East Palo Alto, Redwood City, and San Mateo. It’s located on the Peninsula in a hilly area referred to as “the highlands”, the school team was named “The Scots”, and the mascot is a kilted Scottish highland warrior (affectionately known as Monty). Gay Buckland-Murray has been the principal at Carlmont since 2021 and our school’s athletic director is Patrick Smith.
Carlmont is a member of the Peninsula Athletic League (also known as PAL), which is an 18-member school league for football. Schools in PAL are geographically located from Sunnyvale to Daly City. The 18-member schools are divided into “divisions” by sport according to the strength of each school’s program in that particular sport. For football, there are three divisions. The order of divisions follows from strongest to weakest: Bay, Ocean, and Lake. The league is governed by a Board of Managers consisting of the Principal of each school. The Athletic Directors from each of our schools meet and make recommendations on many issues to our Board of Managers. The League employs a Commissioner and an Administrative Assistant to oversee the daily operation of the league.
*In 2022, the PAL and SCVAL (Santa Clara Valley Athletic League) merged to create five Divisions part of CCS (Central Coast Section). The three PAL divisions (Bay, Ocean, Lake) and the two SCVAL Divisions (De Anza, El Camino) have joined. Teams across these two leagues are eligible for either of the five divisions under certain circumstances*