Centennial High School (Maryland)

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Centennial High School
Commitment to Excellence
School type	Public high school
Established	1977
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 1,469 students. Of those in attendance, 65.1% are White, 26.1% are Asian, 6.2% African American, 2.3% are Hispanic, 0.1% are Native American and 0.1% are unidentified. The high school dropout rate is 0.79%.

1 Credentials
2 Accomplishments
3 Notable alumni
4 Spirit Week and Color Day
5 Color Day Controversy
6 External links

[edit] Credentials

Ranked 187th by Newsweek Magazine.^[2]

[edit] Accomplishments

Staff:

Milken Outstanding Educator Award
Washington Post Educator Leadership Award
Intel Award for Excellence in Teaching in the Sciences
Instructional Assistant of the Year
Presidential Scholars (2)
Tandy Scholars (2)
Christa McAuliffe Award
Maryland Earth Science Teacher of the Year
Howard County Chamber of Commerce Educator of the Year
National Board for Professional Teaching Standards Certification

Athletics:

14 People Tree Awards
120 County Championships
101 Regional Championships
39 State Championships

Academics:

2006

First Place HC Math League
Intel Talent Search Semi-finalist

2005

Howard County Math League Champions
It’s Academic Baltimore Champions

2004

Lemenson-MIT InvenTeam Grant
AP State Scholar Award

2003

It’s Academic Finalists

[edit] Notable alumni

Suzanne Malveaux

[edit] Spirit Week and Color Day

"Spirit Week" is an annual tradition set to occur a week before homecoming, near the end of October. Each day during the week has a theme pre-determined by the Student Government; past themes have included Costume Day, Pajama Day, and Wacky Tacky Day. The fifth day of the week was traditionally reserved for Color Day, in which each class would dress up in their class colors, which correspond to the school's official colors. Freshman wore black as they technically have no color; sophomores are blue, juniors are white, and seniors are red. It was tradition for members of one class to "tag" a student of another class with paint that corresponded to their class color. While most students enjoyed the fun, there were some who complained of un-washable color on their clothes or vandalized cars. 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. The Centennial High School custodial staff openly stated that they did not mind cleaning up the paint one day a year, a fact that Principal Scott Pfeifer tried to hide. Unfortunately, this only exacerbated the situation as students found new delight in tagging. The Color Day tradition will never end.

[edit] Color Day Controversy

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. Not only did the students do damage to the bleachers (for instance, students were witnessed lobbing tennis balls of paint over the crowd), but certain Centennial sports teams also dirtied up the track and field. All Centennial sports teams were required to stay after school to help clean up the mess. There was no permanent damage. As a direct result of this incident, Principal Scott Pfeifer canceled Color Day for all future Spirit Weeks and also did away with other spirit-related activities for the next year. These activities include the Pep Rally and the Battle of the Classes, an event centered around class competition which has traditionally been plagued with the same problems common to Color Day. The ensuing reaction from the student body was extremely negative. Rumored student-run Battle of the Classes and Color Day have been scheduled by way of the popular social networking website Facebook.