Centerville High School

Coordinates: 39°37′39″N 84°08′53″W / 39.627528°N 84.148074°W

Centerville High School
Motto Let Us Be Known By Our Spirit
Established 1885
Type Public secondary school
Principal John Wesney
Faculty 350>
Teaching staff 350>
Students 2,800-3,300
Grades 9–12
Location 500 East Franklin Street,
Centerville, Ohio, USA
District Centerville City Schools
Colors Black and gold
Mascot Elks
Yearbook Elkonian
Newspaper Pursuit
Website http://www.centerville.k12.oh.us

Centerville High School is a public school of secondary education for grades 9–12 located in Centerville, Ohio, situated ten miles south of Dayton. It is the only high school in the Centerville City School District, which also includes three middle schools, six elementary schools, and two K–1 schools, or "primary villages." The district serves all of the city of Centerville and Washington Township, as well as property parcels in the city of Kettering near the Moraine Country Club. Centerville High School has the third highest student population in Ohio.[1]

History

Washington Township first began offering formal education in 1803 with a school building housing grades 1–6. Nine one-room elementary schools were also erected. In 1848, the Old Stone Academy was constructed and the first high school courses were offered. Private schools over the blacksmith shop and in Old Township Hall also offered similar courses.

In 1885, the Washington Township High School was built at 101 West Franklin Street. The first class graduated in 1890. In 1924, the Magsig building was built as a centralized school (grades 1-12). Washington Township High School became a member of the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools in 1951. In April 1955, the Central Unit of what is now Cline Elementary School was opened and junior high and the three-year high school were moved there. Kindergarten was added at Magsig. The name of the high school officially became Centerville High School in 1963. In 1966, CHS became a four-year high school with classes split by department between Magsig and Cline (then known as the South building) and students walking back and forth between classes. Tower Heights Middle School and Hithergreen Middle School were built for grades 6–8 in 1966. Hadley Watts Middle School became the third middle school in 1969. In 1973, the first part of the present-day high school was completed, becoming the East Unit in addition to the Magsig and South Units.

In 1975–76, the entire high school was finally taught inside the current building with Central, East, and West units. Magsig was changed to a middle school, and the old South was changed to W.O. Cline Elementary School. The stadium and athletic fields were built behind the high school in 1979 and the auxiliary gym, as well as the new South Unit in 1980. In 1982, Hithergreen Middle School and Village South Elementary School were closed. Hithergreen became a community center for active seniors. [2] In 1991, Village South was reopened as Centerville Kindergarten Village. During the 1999–2000 school year, the Athletic Entrance, Athletic Office, and weight room were completed.

In May 2005, voters in Centerville/Washington Township supported a $4.4 million operating levy and a $2.5 million bond issue designed to compensate for a predicted district enrollment increase to 9000 students. Part of this levy includes a new addition to the front. The addition, completed during the summer of 2007, includes 9 new chemistry and physics classrooms and 3 new labs, a new main entrance, additional classroom space, and improved cafeteria commons areas. This addition is now finished and used daily by the students. The new cafeteria areas provide several booths to students and less space for the lunch line area.[3]

Curriculum and activities

Main entrance of Centerville High School, taken May 9, 2014

Centerville High School's curriculum offers 25 Advanced Placement tests in 18 courses in science, mathematics, history, government, language, economics, and psychology. The high school also offers more esoteric courses such as Creative Foods, Needle Arts, and formerly offered Chaos and Fractal Geometry (dealing with such topics as fractals, chaos theory, Julia and Mandelbrot sets, strange attractors and non-Euclidean geometry).[4] In the foreign language department, CHS offers traditional courses such as Spanish, French, and German. While this used to include Latin, American Sign Language, Arabic, and Mandarin Chinese, those classes were removed due to funding cuts.

Some courses are also offered online for students. These courses give the same credit as its normal counterpart. The school requires at least 15 hours of face-to-face meetings between the students and the instructors. The 2010-2011 web courses offer 2 English courses, Digital Art and Design (formerly Multimedia Design), Latin I/II/III, Geometry and Algebra, 2 types of biology, and 4 social studies classes.

Performing arts

Centerville High School's theatre program usually puts on four main-stage productions per year. (Before the 2008-2009 the Main Stage season usually consisted of 3 productions but a fall musical was added for this school year.) Part of the recent construction at Centerville included the addition of a new $7.5 million theatre which consists of a 1,200+ seat auditorium, as well as classrooms for new acting, technical theatre and dance classes. The theatre opened in December 2007. The new theatre addition is at the rear of the school with an entrance adjacent to the marching band's parking lot.

In addition to student musical and theatrical performances, the Performing Arts Center is also rented out to various groups. Some notable performers who have performed at the venue are Doyle Lawson, The Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, World Renowned Jon Petz, Udit & Aditya Naryan, and Indian Idol’s Aditi Paul.

With the new theatre, the school has been able to offer new classes in Acting, Technical Theatre, Dance, Technical Theatre Tech Prep, and Honors Advanced Acting and Directing. The advanced classes put on Extreme Theatre, a night of one act plays, a children's play, and by the end of the year, an entirely student produced show.

Music

Centerville High School's music program includes a nationally ranked marching band, the Centerville Jazz Band; a nationally ranked orchestra program; a choral program; and concert band programs.

Exterior of Centerville High School Performing Arts Center, taken May 9, 2014

The school's band program consists of the Centerville Jazz Band, the Winter Guard and Winter Percussion, the Jazz Ensembles (Jazz I, Jazz II, and Jazz III), the Basketball Pep Band (BBPB), Wind Symphony, Symphonic Band, and the Concert Band. The Centerville Jazz Band has competed in many Bands of America regional and national competitions since 1979. The CJB is a 66 time regional and national finalist band, and a 19 time regional champion, winning the Grand National competition in 1992. In 2008, the Jazz finished 9th in the BOA Grand Nationals held in Indianapolis at the new Lucas Oil Stadium. Also, in 2008, the CJB won the Bands of America Centerville Regional, for their first regional championship in three years. The Centerville Jazz Band also has the record for the longest streak of winning consecutive BOA Regional Championships, holding 8 wins from 2002 to 2006. They were Regional Champions at the Toledo, OH, Massilon, OH (twice), Pontiac, MI (3 times), Youngstown OH and Atlanta, GA Regionals. In Mid-States Band Asoc. the band has been named "Open Class Champions" twice, in 2008 and in 2013. The Winter Percussion Ensemble won the Scholastic World Gold Medal at the Winterguard International World Championships in 2004, finishing 2nd in 2005. In 2006, Centerville was the only high school to produce two finalist lines, the World Line (5th, Scholastic World) and the A-Line (10th, Scholastic A). The Jazz is the subject of a film documentary From the 50 Yard Line.

The orchestra program at CHS consists of its Symphonic Orchestra, as well as the Concert Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra (Quartet), and an Alternative Strings program (which plays bluegrass, jazz, and electronic music). The prestigious Centerville High School Symphonic Orchestra ranks as one of the best nationwide. In 2002, the Symphonic Orchestra competed at the American String Teachers Association National Competition and placed fourth, and four years later, in 2006, tied for second in its division at the same competition. In addition, the Symphonic Orchestra has received the highest rating of Superior in all areas at the Ohio Music Education Association String Orchestra Adjudication for ten consecutive years, starting in 2001.

Centerville High School also has four choirs, known as Concert choir, Women's Choir, Symphonic Choir, and Forte, as well as two extracurricular groups, To the Maxx and Toxyc, added in the 2011/2012 school year. Forte the a cappella group was added in the 2007/2008 school year. The choirs have sung at a variety of venues, and are now under the direction of Ben Spalding.

College-career preparatory programs

Vocational courses at the high school (commonly known as block classes, because they span multiple periods) include Technical Theatre (new to the 2008/2009 school year), Biotechnology, Engineering Technology, Information Technology, Exercise Science, International Business Management, Marketing, Environmental Management, Broadcast Management, Mass Communications and Publication Journalism. The Broadcast Management class hosts a fully functional radio station, 107.3 FM WCWT (a.k.a. "The Voice of the Elks"). The Mass Communications students publish the school's monthly newspaper, Pursuit, as well as put on the television news show, Centerville News Network. "CNN" started doing the morning announcements in 2008 instead of occasional broadcasts. Students in Publication Journalism are responsible for the school's yearbook, the Elkonian.

School of Possibilities

School Of Possibilities (SoP) is an alternative educational pathway offered at Centerville High School. The mission at SoP is to get students back on track who have been having schooling issues. The object of SoP is to let students have the opportunity to learn academics by techniques other than those used in a traditional classroom.[5]

Extracurricular activities

Centerville High School hosts over 30 clubs, ranging in topic from foreign language to community service, as well as competitive teams that consistently place at the national and global level. Clubs include Key Club, Science Olympiad, Science Bowl, Destination Imagination, Speech and Debate, Model United Nations, Academic Team, and Mock Trial.

Centerville's Science Olympiad team has made it to the state tournament every year since its creation in 1985, and has qualified for the National Science Olympiad for 19 out of its 22 years. The team has been state champion every year from 2003 to 2009 and its most recent state championship was in 2011. At the 2005 state competition, the team set a state record for best team score, placing first with only 78 points (tied by Solon High School in 2010). The team has consistently performed well at the national tournament as well. In 2009 the team placed 1st at the national tournament at Augusta State University in Augusta, Georgia. Then, in 2010, they repeated this performance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The 2010 team set the all-time record for best score at the national tournament (165 points), and biggest margin of victory (47 points). Other high finishes include second in the nation in 2007 and 2011, and third in 2008.

Centerville also has varsity and junior varsity teams which compete in the National Science Bowl (NSB) and National Ocean Sciences Bowl (NOSB). Centerville has competed in their Science Bowl Regional Competition since the organization's founding in 1991, but only started attending the Oceans Bowl Regional ("Penguin Bowl") in early 2007, where they placed second. They also placed second in 2008 and 2009, and won Penguin Bowl 2010 to advance to the national level. Since 1991 Centerville has won the Cincinnati Regional Science Bowl and advanced to the National Science Bowl in Washington, D.C. three times (most recently 2009), including a second place finish in 2003.

The Centerville Speech and Debate team has had multiple successes over the years. Competing against high schools across the state, their policy debate team has won the Ohio High School Speech League State Championship multiple times, most recently in 2010 and 2011.

Other teams that compete against local schools include Academic Team, Mock Trial, and the National Forensic League. The largest club at Centerville High School is Octagon Club, a service-based organization. Other clubs of this type include Key Club and Environmental Club.

Beginning in the 2007–2008 school year, Centerville High School initiated a chapter of the National Art Honor Society. The mission of the National Art Honor Society is to recognize the academically and artistically successful student through service, leadership and extracurricular opportunities within the community.

The school's Latin Club functions as a local chapter of both the Ohio Junior Classical League (OJCL)[6] and National Junior Classical League (NJCL).[7]

Athletics

Centerville is a member of the Greater Western Ohio Conference. 14 sports are offered for boys and 12 sports and support groups are offered for girls.

State championships

This is a list of championships in the Ohio High School Athletic Association

Other titles not sponsored by OHSAA

The boys' volleyball team has won 3 state championships (1994, 2001, 2002)[10] as members of the Ohio High School Boys Volleyball Association.[11]

National Championships

Awards

In 2006, Newsweek/The Washington Post ranked Centerville High School as 2nd in the greater Dayton area, 18th in the state of Ohio, and 955th in the nation.[12] The Centerville City School District is one of only 17 districts to have received the Ohio Education Department's highest rating of Excellent every year since the rating system's inception in 2000. Also, Centerville High School was awarded the United States Department of Education's highest honor by becoming a Blue Ribbon School in 1984 and again in 1993. Centerville High School is one of only 7 high schools in Ohio to have been recognized more than once, as of 2002.[13] In November 1991, Centerville High School became the first high school in the United States to communicate directly via satellite with Russian students from Moscow School #23 in a television broadcast entitled "Sharing Freedom."[14] In the spring of 1991, CHS was nominated by the Ohio Department of Education as one of Reebok's America's Best Schools under the category of "Overall Excellence."[14] In 1988, CHS was one of 23 school nationwide to be awarded the Excellence in Education Award in the Drug-Free Schools Program by the U.S. Department of Education.[14]

Notable alumni

Notable alumni of Centerville High School include:

References

  1. ↑ Smiga, Gary (June 2006). "Building for Our Future". Accent 34 (2): 4.
  2. ↑ http://www.hithergreen.org/
  3. ↑ Centerville City School District. "CHS Front Addition". Construction Zone. Retrieved 2006-07-15.
  4. ↑ Centerville High School Course of Studies. (2006-2007).
  5. ↑ Centerville City Schools, School of Possibilities
  6. ↑ "Executive Board Pre-File Application". OhioJCL.org - June 2007. Internet Archive: Wayback Machine. 2010. Archived from the original on June 17, 2007. Retrieved August 16, 2010.
  7. ↑ "OJCL Constitution". OhioJCL.org - July 2002. Internet Archive: Wayback Machine. 2010. Archived from the original on July 21, 2002. Retrieved August 16, 2010. ... by paying both OJCL annual chapter dues and any annual chapter membership dues required by NJCL.
  8. ↑ Yappi. "Yappi Sports Baseball". Retrieved 2007-02-12.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 OHSAA. "Ohio High School Athletic Association Web site". Retrieved 2006-12-31.
  10. ↑ "Elks Volleyball". Centerville High School. Retrieved 2007-01-08.
  11. ↑ "Ohio High School Boys Volleyball Association". Retrieved 2007-01-08.
  12. ↑ Elliott, Scott (2006-04-02). "Oakwood, Centerville nationally ranked". Dayton Daily News. Retrieved 2006-07-15.
  13. ↑ U.S. Department of Education (2002). "Blue Ribbon Schools Program" (PDF). Retrieved 2006-07-15.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Centerville High School Student Handbook. (2005-2006).
  15. ↑ http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/michael_bennett_758504.html

External links