| George Washington High School | |
|---|---|
| Address | |
| 1522 Tennis Club Road Charleston, West Virginia 25314 |
|
| Information | |
| Type | Free public |
| Established | 1965 |
| School district | Kanawha County Schools |
| Principal | George Aulenbacher |
| Staff | 68 |
| Grades | 9–12 |
| Enrollment | 1117 |
| Campus size | 23 acres (93,000 m2) |
| Campus type | Suburban |
| Athletics conference | Mountain State Athletic Conference |
| Nickname | Patriots |
| Website | http://gwhs.kana.k12.wv.us/ |
George Washington High School is a public high school in Charleston, West Virginia, USA. GWHS opened in 1965 to accommodate students in South Hills and Loudendale ostensibly because Charleston High School was overcrowded. Prior to this time students in Charleston were divided between Charleston and Stonewall Jackson high schools. With the advent of desegregation, the wealthy South Hills neighborhood carved out a new, virtually all-white, school district from the Charleston district. Within 15 years of this school being built due to "overcrowding" the school board closed Charleston and Stonewall Jackson, now ostensibly due to low enrollments, creating Capital High School, and consolidated the racially mixed Dunbar High into South Charleston High School. The race and wealth divide between GWHS and its rivals Capital and South Charleston is no longer apparent.
The school was nicknamed "The Hill", as it is located in the South Hills neighborhood, but in more recent years students have began referring to it as "GeeDub" for short. Traditionally, Charleston residents referred to Charleston High as "The High" and Stonewall Jackson High as "The Wall".
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The school serves the South Hills neighborhood of the city and several incorporated areas nearby. It is one of eight public high schools in Kanawha County.
The school opened in 1965 with the idea of creating a college-like atmosphere and putting more responsibility on the students. The plan for the school was developed by local educators, members of the West Virginia Department of Education, and faculty from Ohio State University. The school's ideals of "self-direction", flexible scheduling and independent study, are intended to provide students with opportunities to direct themselves.
George Washington High School made national headlines in 1992, when, during an illegal off-campus Senior Skip Day party with other students from South Charleston High School, two students were shot and killed over an argument about payment for a keg of beer.[1]
The school consistently wins awards as a National School of Excellence. It is currently ranked as the 363rd best school out of Newsweek's America's top 1300 public high schools. In 2005 it was the only high school in West Virginia to win a blue ribbon for excelling in No Child Left Behind requirements. Additionally, the school offers a wide array of Advanced Placement courses to students such as English Literature and Composition, English Language and Composition, Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Calculus, Statistics, Computer Science, US History, US Government and Politics, Art History, World History, Human Geography, and Spanish. In 2003, the schools's average SAT scores for Math and Verbal were 570 and 566, exceeding the United States' average.
This school in 2010 was recognized by President Barack Obama.
George Washington H.S. has many opportunities for students to participate in extra curricular and co-curricular activities. George Washington currently has baseball, softball, football, volleyball, swimming, soccer, cross-country, golf, basketball, tennis, wrestling, lacrosse, and track teams. Music programs are also important at GW. The award winning band is the 2004 West Virginia Music Educators Association State Honor Band, an award held by the band every other year since 1992. The GW marching band has won the Daily Mail Kanawha County Majorette and Band Festival Festival Grand Championship eight times (1986, 1991-92, 1994, 1996, 1998-2000) and they have had two girls named Miss Kanawha Majorette (Jill Pazerski in 1989 and Alexandra Ameli in 2010).
The school's noted alumni include: