Lowell High School (Lowell, Massachusetts)

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Lowell High School is an American public high school in the city of Lowell, Massachusetts. Located in the downtown area, the school has slightly over 3,900 enrolled as of 2005, giving it the second largest enrollment among public high schools in the state.

1 Location
2 Athletics
3 The Year of 2006
4 Notable alumni
5 External links

[edit] Location

The school is situated nearby Lowell's millyards, which are famous for their place in American textile history. Lowell High School is also famous for its diverse student body and the cultures they bring.

The school is spread over three buildings in downtown Lowell. The Old Building consists of the 1892 building and its 1922 addition, which houses a 1500 seat, recently refurbished auditorium. The New Building, built in 1980, houses the cafeteria and administrative offices on the first floor with classrooms and a television studio above, and is attached to the field house and swimming pool. Between these two buildings runs a canal and operating trolley tracks, so to facilitate movement of students there are 2 enclosed bridges referred to as the "tunnels" that connect the second floors of the buildings. The third building, the Annex, was formerly comprised of two schools. The Arts Magnet School was acquired by LHS in 2002 followed by the acquisition of the City Magnet School in 2005. The Annex is used primarily for grade 9 students. Grades 10 through 12 use the other two buildings.

LHS offers several small academies that operate within the framework of the larger community while providing specialized programs to select students. These include the Latin Lyceum, the Communications Academy, the Fine Arts Academy, the Bioscience Academy, the AFJROTC and several others. Because of the size of its facilities, LHS annually hosts the Senior and Junior Northeastern District Music Festivals, which showcase the most talented young musicians from across northeastern Massachusetts. The school also hosts the annual Mill City Show Choir Festival in January.

[edit] Athletics

The team name for Lowell High are the Lowell High Red Raiders. The school hosts both fall winter and spring sports during the year. LHS fields many teams within the Merrimack Valley Conference of the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association. Outdoor field sports are played at Cawley Memorial Stadium while fall sports are played either in and around Lowell High or in the Riddick Field House. During the '06 and '07 winter season the high school's wrestling team won states and New Englands.

[edit] The Year of 2006

Due to regional flooding from heavy rain, the school was shut down for two days while crews from the Lowell Public Works Department struggled to assess the damage and contain the flood waters. Although the school served the general public in assistance with the flood victims, no flood waters from the nearby Merrimack River or the canal that flows in between ever reached the school itself. However, the high school crew team's boat house was damaged. The sudden death of Housemaster J. Stephen Ronan in March of 2006 led to a solemn remembrance at many points in the schools activities, inside and outside. On June 7, 2006, the Class of 2006 graduated at the Paul E. Tsongas Arena near the Lowell High complex. It was a notable ceremony in which veterans were given diplomas that they never got to receive in the different time periods of World Wars I & II, The Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Another notable individual, Thomas Baldino, an engineering teacher at Lowell High, attended the event on two weeks leave from serving in Iraq.