Framingham High School

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**Framingham High School**

Principal	Michael Welch
School type	Public
Religious affiliation	None
Founded	1792/1852
Merged	1991
Location	Framingham, Massachusetts
Enrollment	2000
Faculty
Campus surroundings	Suburban
Sports teams	Flyers
School color(s)	Blue & white

Framingham High School, or FHS, is a public high school in the town of Framingham, Massachusetts, United States. Like most high schools, it enrolls 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th graders from the town. The school has a typical enrollment of 2,000 students, over three times the district average (600).

1 History
2 Academics
3 Extracurricular activities
4 Notable alumni
5 External links
6 References

[edit] History

The Framingham Academy was established in 1798, replacing the organization known as the Proprietors of the Brick School House which had formed in 1792. The town of Framingham gave the academy $1000, but some time later this was found to be illegal, and the academy was dissolved.

In 1852 the high school was formed, and later became the legal successor to the Academy. Thus the high school can be considered to be founded in either 1792 or 1852. [1]

In 1991 the town's two high schools Framingham North Senior High School and Framingham South High School merged to create a unified school under the name Framingham High School. The school's colors were to be blue and white and the mascot to be the Framingham Flyer. Framingham North High School had used green and yellow as its colors, and played sports under the mascot of the Spartans.

On a visit on October 20, 1994, President Bill Clinton signed the Improving America's Schools Act (IASA) in the school's John F. Kennedy gymnasium. [2]

[edit] Academics

In 2004, Framingham High School launched a "homeroom advisor" program, hoping to reduce the high rate of freshman students being forced to repeat their first year, a problem for many schools in the state. The advisers have around 25 students each, and watch the students' grades and attendance, meet with them individually, and may also consult with parents or teachers. It is hoped that the program will catch struggling students early and encourage them to feel more accountable for their studies.

[edit] Extracurricular activities

The school offers a very successful theatre program for all levels of young actors. The Framingham High School Drama Company, a three-time state finalist and 2006 winner of the Massachusetts High School Drama Guild Festival, produces several plays each year under the direction of Donna Wresinski. The Drama Company was a representative of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts at the 2006 New England Drama Festival along with Wellesley High School and was honored by the State Legislature at the Massachusetts State House.
The "Flyer News" television station began broadcasting a live newscast at 7:15 a.m. every day to the high school in 1999, and then to the entire town in 2005. [3] Flyer News, run by television production teacher Dan Devlen and his students, has won 7 high school Emmy Awards as of the end of the 2006 school year. A Flyer News episode may consist of student-produced segments such as Sez-You, which interviews the student body on various topics; Webcrawler, a technology segment; Word of the Week, asking students to define a different word each week and broadcasting the more entertaining responses; and a daily segment, Homeroom Headlines, giving morning announcements, among other things. Flyer News episodes are rebroadcast to the town every day during the school year, at 5:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. The station also airs numerous sports games, as well as student-produced movies, music videos, and Public Service Announcements. The FHS-TV webpage, [4] was also created in March of 2006.

In 2003, Framingham began to experiment with teaching the percussionists how to play in a drumline. Since then, the FHS Drumline has played at a Boston Celtics professional basketball game at TD Banknorth Garden in Boston, MA.

The Framingham Flyers men's football team won the state Super Bowl in the year 2000, defeating Acton-Boxborough Regional High School at Boston University's Nickerson Field.

The school offers and competes competitively in a number of sports, including basketball, field hockey, golf, lacrosse, tennis, wrestling, and volleyball.

The school has, in the past, participated in a sister-city exchange program with Lomonosov, Russia, a suburb of St. Petersburg. George Perrone, now-retired Music Director, brought a contingent of musicians to perform at several venues in Lomonosov. In return, Lomonosov residents visited Framingham and Framingham High. This exchange has not taken place in the last three years.