Chattanooga High School

Chattanooga High School was founded in the fall of 1874 in Chattanooga, Hamilton County, Tennessee.[1]

The school, sometimes called City High School, has evolved into two high schools: the Chattanooga High School Center for Creative Arts and the Chattanooga School for the Arts & Sciences.

History

City High on 3rd street ceased to exist in the 1963-64 school, when the school moved to its present site. That building became Riverside High School that same year and remained so until 1983. The Erlanger School of Nursing occupied the building for two years, 1983-1985. After some major renovation, CSAS opened in the fall of 1986 as a middle school. Grades were added each year until its first graduating class in 1991. Since that time, it has been a K-12 school.

As for the building in North Chattanooga, it is still Chattanooga High School. In the late 1970s and early 1980s the enrollment dropped steadily until it reached a low of less than 200 students. Through the 1980s and early 1990s, the city school system made several attempts at revitalizing the student body, using the concept of the Phoenix rising from the ashes, and the school became known as Chattanooga High School – Phoenix 3 (Normal Park and Northside were Phoenix 1 and 2). Around 1990, a “school within a school” was formed by creating a magnet program for music, theater, dance, and musical theater. After a few years of being a zoned magnet, and the student population rising a little, CHS became a true magnet around 1999 and programs expanded to include the “creative” arts, rather than just the “performing” arts. The school now houses around 550 students in grades 6-12. The official name is, and has been since the creative arts inception, Chattanooga High School – Center for Creative Arts.

City High School never “ceased to exist.” The school took on several side ventures over the years, and had some low moments, but Chattanooga High School is still the “oldest and best secondary school in the South” and is a school for the entire area. The student body comes from all areas of Hamilton County, as well as North Georgia, Marion County, and Bradley County, just like in the “old days.”"[2]

References

  1. ↑ http://www.hctgs.org/Schools/ChattanoogaHigh/chattanooga_high_school.htm
  2. ↑ Thomas Eislestein, Assistant Principal, Chattanooga High School Center for Creative Arts, August 9, 2010.

External links