Conestoga High School, Tredyffrin, Pennsylvania
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| Conestoga High School |
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| Established | 1955 |
| Type | Public |
| Principal | Timothy Donovan |
| Students | approx. 1,900 |
| Grades | 9-12 |
| Location | 200 Irish Road Berwyn, Pennsylvania, USA |
| Colors | Maroon and Gray |
| Mascot | The Pioneer |
| Yearbook | The Pioneer |
| Newspaper | The Spoke |
| Website | www.tesd.k12.pa.us/stoga/ |
Conestoga High School, located in Devon-Berwyn, a community in Tredyffrin Township, Pennsylvania, is the only high school in the Tredyffrin/Easttown School District.
Conestoga (also known as "Stoga" or less popularly as "The Big C") is located 24 miles northwest of Philadelphia in a series of affluent suburbs known as the Main Line. Stoga currently has about 2,000 students, almost evenly divided among grades nine through twelve. Frequently ranked one of the best schools in Pennsylvania, Conestoga offers more Advanced Placement (AP) classes and boasts more National Merit Semifinalists than any other school in the state, public or private. Last year, students took 1,148 AP tests in total, of which 93% were passed with a 3 or higher. The average SAT score for the Class of 2005 was 1180. [1]
Because of its performance on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessments, Conestoga received extra funding from the state.
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[edit] Administration
Timothy Donovan, the current principal, is aided by four assistant principals: Nancy Adams, Kevin Fagan, Richard Gusick, and Amy Meisenger. Donovan and Gusick both taught in Conestoga's Social Studies department before becoming administrators, while Adams previously taught in the Math department. Donovan was also the coach of the varsity football team before becoming principal. He was named Coach of the Year in several publications[citation needed] after his team posted a 10-2 record and won the Central League for the first time in 17 years in 1996.
[edit] College matriculation
95% of Conestoga graduates go on to college; 92% of them to four-year ones. The graduating Class of 2006 sent one or more students to Loyola College in Maryland , American University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Pennsylvania, Cornell University, Brown University, Georgetown University, Syracuse University, Rutgers University, Elon University, Dartmouth College, Duke University, New York University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Chicago, University of Notre Dame du Lac, Stanford University, and Princeton University. The most popular college choice for Conestoga students, however, is Pennsylvania State University. 55% of Conestoga students leave Pennsylvania for college and 57% attend private institutions after graduation.[2]
For the since graduated Class of 2006, at least two Conestoga students were admitted to each of the top 10 universities on the US News & World Reports list, except for Columbia, which only admitted one student. Ten or more students were admitted to Penn and Duke, respectively ranked the fourth and fifth best universities in the country.
[edit] Departments
Conestoga has eight academic departments: Business/Technology, English, World Languages, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, Visual and Performing Arts, and Wellness/Fitness/Family & Consumer Science. To graduate, students must earn 24 credits. 1 credit is equivalent to a year-long class which meets every day for 43 minutes, which is the length of the eight periods at Conestoga (though 8th period is actually 44 minutes, so that Conestoga's school day can be precisely 7 hours long, from 7:20 a.m. to 2:20 p.m.). Students must earn 4 credits in English, 2 in Languages, 3 in Math, 3.5 in Social Studies, and 3 in Science.
[edit] Distinctions and honors
Newsweek magazine has consistently rated Conestoga highly in its annual ranking of public high schools. Conestoga has been ranked 167th (1st in Pennsylvania) in 2006 [3], 195th in 2005 [4], and 197th in 2003 [5].
US Department of Education has acknowledged Conestoga as a Recognized School of Excellence. [6]
In the October, 2006 issue of Philadelphia Magazine, Tredyffrin and Easttown townships were voted one of the best places to live in the Philadelphia area because of Conestoga, voted the area's best high school. [7]
[edit] Student Council
The Conestoga Student Council has six components: four class councils serving each grade, an executive council presiding over those four class councils, and pseudo-assembly of elected homeroom representatives. The student council organizes class trips, dances (including Proms and Homecoming), and flower sales. The faculty sponsor of the student council is Mr. Seth Shore, a calculus teacher.
[edit] Trivia
- The school's colors are garnet and gray and its mascot is the Pioneer and/or Conestoga Wagon.
- Richard Nixon's last public appearance was at a Conestoga High School performance of Into the Woods. His granddaughter Jennie Eisenhower, great-granddaughter of Dwight D. Eisenhower, starred in the play as Little Red Riding Hood.[8]
- As a senior prank in the late '90s, the Pioneer was stolen from the school lobby and taken on a road trip across the eastern seaboard. The perpetrators sent the administration pictures as postcards from the Pioneer. Upon return to the lobby, the Pioneer was chained to the wall.
- The school is lovingly referred to as "The Big C" by the school's current principal, Tim Donovan. So far, Tim Donovan is the only person to refer to the school as such, but he is still trying to 'make it happen'.
[edit] Notable former students
- Craig Lucas - CHS '69. Tony-award nominated American playwright, has written a number of plays, including Reckless which Conestoga performed in 2006.[9]
- Grant Shaud - CHS' 79 actor best known for his role as Miles Silverberg on the hit NBC show Murphy Brown
- David Bush - CHS '98. Starting Pitcher for the Millwaukee Brewers.[10]
- Marquis Weeks - CHS '00. Running Back for the Seatle Seahawks, has gone back and forth from their practice squad to active roster, played in college for the University of Virginia.
[edit] Controversies
- In June 2005, school administrators discovered that a music teacher, Christopher Genovese, had had an illicit affair with one of his students. Genovese is no longer working for the school and has completed a prison sentence for corrupting a minor. [11]
- According to 2003 PA Youth Survey conducted by The Coad Group, which measures the Tredyffrin/Easttown community against Chester County and Pennsylvania figures in drug and alcohol use, Conestoga's student body had a greater percentage of alcohol, binge drinking ("five or more drinks in a row"), marijuana, inhalant, hallucinogen and ecstasy use than the county, state and national average among 10th- and 12th-graders. Of 12th-graders, 57.1 percent admitted to using alcohol in the past month; 33.3 percent admitted to using marijuana in the past month; 27.1 percent admitted to being drunk at school in the past year, and 16.4 percent admitted to selling drugs in the past year. T/E's report compared 2003 survey numbers to results from 2001 and 1998. Marijuana levels dropped around 6 percent among 12th-graders and around 4 percent among 10th-graders from 2001 to 2003. [12]
