Centennial High School (Maryland)

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**Centennial High School**
Established	1977
School type	Public high school
Principal	Robert Scott Pfeifer
Faculty	71
Students	1502[1]
Colors	Red, White, and Blue
Mascot	Eagle
Location	Ellicott City, MD, 21042
Information	410 313 6600
Website	http://www.centennialonline.org

Centennial High School is a secondary school located in Ellicott City, Maryland which was established in 1977. The school is based in Howard County and is part of the Howard County Public Schools system. As of 2006, the school principal is Scott Pfeifer. In 1984-85, the school was recognized as one of the top 100 high schools in the country through the USDE Secondary School Recognition Program. In 1996, Centennial High School was the first high school within the state of Maryland to achieve the excellence standard in all categories of the MSPP's report card. It attained these standards again in 2000 and 2001.

The school has a maximum capacity of 1,332 students, but through the addition of four portable classrooms currently (as of 2005) enrolls over 1,600 students. Of those in attendance, 66.7% are White, 25.2% are Asian, 6.3% African American, and 1.6% are Hispanic. The high school dropout rate is 0.35%.

1 Credentials
2 Notable alumni
3 Color Day Controversy
4 External links

[edit] Credentials

Ranked 220th on Newsweek magazine's list of America's Best High Schools[2] in 2006.

[edit] Notable alumni

Suzanne Malveaux

[edit] Color Day Controversy

Each year, "Spirit Week," a series of costume days of specified themes, has been celebrated the week before Homecoming. Traditionally, the Friday was themed, "Class Color Day." On this day, each class dresses in their specific class color, black for freshmen, blue for sophomore, white for juniors, and red for seniors. It has become tradition for members of one class to "tag" a student of another class, meaning to color the target a specific color, usually using washable paint. As of 2002, this practice was made against the rules to avoid possible clothing damage if staining substances were used as well as property damage to the school. Unfortunately, this appeared to only inspire greater popularity of "tagging." During the 2006 Color Day, tagging reached critical mass when the brand new Centennial Track was tagged with house paint during the outdoors Pep Rally. After school, the Centennial soccer team was require to stay after school to clean the track and stands. Due to this, Principal Scott Pfeifer canceled Color Day for all future Spirit Weeks as well as, for one year, the Pep Rally and Battle of the Classes, an event centered around class competition traditionally plagued by similar acts as Color Day. The ensuing reaction from the Student Body was massively negative. Rumored student-run Battle of the Classes and Color Day have been scheduled by way of the popular social networking website Facebook.