Chadwick School

Chadwick School
Chadwick School Logo
Location
Los Angeles County, CA, United States
Information
Type	Independent
Religious affiliation(s)	Nonsectarian
Established	1935
Headmaster	Frederick T. “Tedrick” Hill
Faculty	106
Enrollment	862 students Village School(K-6): 322 Middle School(7-8): 163 Upper School(9-12): 377
Campus	Suburban 45 acres
Athletics	24 CIF Varsity teams
Athletics conference	CIF Southern Section Prep League
Mascot	Pacific bottlenose dolphin
Endowment	$19841187.00
Website	www.chadwickschool.org

Chadwick School is a nonsectarian independent K-12 day school located on the Palos Verdes Peninsula in Los Angeles County, California. More specifically it is located in the area of Palos Verdes known as Academy Hill.

History

The school was founded in 1935 by Margaret Lee Chadwick and Commander Joseph Chadwick in San Pedro, CA. In 1938 the school moved to Palos Verdes, California. In the beginning Chadwick was an open air day and boarding school for 75 students.

Chadwick's 380 seat main theater

After the retirement of the Chadwick family in 1963, the school created a board of trustees and in 1968 discontinued its boarding program. In 1972, Chadwick joined the Cum Laude Society. Up until the 1980s the school owned all of the hill leading up to it which was sold off to establish the school's endowment. Since then the school has opened more buildings, a gymnasium, and a performing arts center. It is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. The movie adaptation of the book Mommie Dearest was filmed at Chadwick in 1981.

Student and faculty profile

Chadwick is divided into four sections: the Village School (K-grade 6), the Middle School (grades 7-8), the Upper School (grades 9-12) and the International School (currently K-8). "61 percent of the faculty members held advanced degrees in the 2009-2010 school year."

Chadwick International

Chadwick International's multi-story atrium

Main article: Chadwick International

On January 13, 2010 the school announced that it would be administrating and integrating a sister school in South Korea. Chadwick was the third school chosen to administrate the new school after a deal with Vancouver International Primary and Secondary School fell through. Prior to that, the International School Service had submitted plans to run the school but withdrew them. Ironically, later in the process the school's opening was delayed by Chadwick administrators when they failed to submit paperwork on time.

The school is located in the Songdo International City, a city renowned for its efforts to 'go green' and is administratively a near replica of Chadwick School in Palos Verdes. Headmaster Ted Hill has stated that the sister school will remain in contact with the originating school through the use of Telepresence equipment supplied by Cisco.

The school opened on September 6, 2010 and completed its first year in June 2011.

Study Abroad

In addition to sending students to Chadwick International, Chadwick frequently exchanges students with other schools that participate in the Round Square program. Chadwick also sends students to other schools through additional programs.

Extracurricular Activities

Athletics

Commander field in preparation for a game

Chadwick School Athletic Logo

Chadwick's two main rivals are Polytechnic School in Pasadena, California and Flintridge Preparatory School in La Cañada, California.

Chadwick participates in 24 Varsity CIF sports.

In 2007 Chadwick reevaluated it's image and decided that the color yellow had no reason to be a school color. It also realized that its athletics logo featured an Atlantic white-sided dolphin which are only found in the Atlantic Ocean. After these realizations the school designed a new blue, grey, and white logo featuring a Pacific bottlenose dolphin.

Outdoor Education

Chadwick has maintained an extensive outdoor education program for dozens of years. The program begins in middle school with two annual weeklong trips and then shifts to a schedule of one annual, usually weeklong trip in high school. The most notable trip is the backpacking trip taken by seniors which varies in length from 10 to 22 days. By the time the average Chadwick student graduates they will have spent over two months camping, much of it backpacking. To remove any disincentive for less well off students, as of the 2011-2012 school year, the entire cost of the outdoor education program was rolled in to the cost of tuition.

Community Service

Four times a month Chadwick students are required to participate in one of a selection of community service projects. The projects range from restoring the school's local canyon to helping mentally challenged children learn. Many students choose to participate in more than one project at a time and most have participated in multiple programs by graduation.

Intracurricular Activities

Robotics

In 2006 members of the high school community Wicked Wobotics, team 2150, a FIRST robotics team. The team won the Judges Choice award at the 2008 FIRST Robotics competition in Las Vegas Nevada and was ranked sixth after the qualifying rounds. The FRC team was discontinued in 2010 due to a lack of community support. The remaining team is focused on the simpler Vex Robotics Competition.

In 2011 the school added a Robotics Class to its Science Curriculum increasing interest in the Robotics Club. Chadwick Robotics now has eight operating Vex Robots and is active throughout the Southern California Region.

Controversial Actions

Financial Aid

In 2010 Chadwick ceased issuing financial aid for new students in order to pay for extra financial aid for continuing students'. The unfortunate result of this was that all incoming classes in that year were entirely composed of students in upper middle class or wealthy families.

Teachers

After 5-8% annual raises from 2004–2008, Chadwick ceased giving teachers raises for the 2009-2010 year and issued smaller raises of 2.5% for the 2010-2011 school year. At the same time Chadwick also decided to change its policy of replacing teacher's computers every 3 years to every 5 years. These along with other changes have led to many teachers leaving the school.

School Newspaper

Chadwick's school newspaper, The Mainsheet, is published in print and was published on a blog. Online publication was discontinued in May 2011.

Notable alumni

Business

• Danese Cooper - programmer, wikipedia
• Jann Wenner - owner of Rolling Stone magazine

Alumna Aida Mollenkamp demonstrates cooking techniques at the Chadwick Carnival

Entertainment

• Erik Bergquist - screenwriter, The Fast and the Furious
• Christina Crawford - actor and author of Mommie Dearest
• Peter Davis - winner of an Academy Award for documentary
• Jessica Gottlieb - author
• Brandon Lee - actor and martial artist, son of Bruce Lee
• Shannon Lee - daughter of Bruce Lee, sister of Brandon Lee
• Mike Lookinland - actor, The Brady Bunch
• Liza Minnelli - winner of the Emmy, Grammy, Academy and Tony Awards
• Aida Mollenkamp - television chef and food writer, Ask Aida and FoodCrafters
• Rick Moses - actor/singer/songwriter^{[citation needed]}
• Eric Puchner - novelist & short story writer
• Maureen Reagan - actor, child of Ronald Reagan
• George Starbuck - poet, winner of the 1983 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize
• Robert Towne - screenwriter/director, winner of an academy award for the screenplay of Chinatown
• Michael Viner - record and audiobook producer
• Peter Zuckerman - Journalist, The Oregonian

Alumna Christen Press plays in a Chadwick alumni soccer game

Athletics

• Nicole Chillingworth - Rhythmic Gymnast
• Lindsay Davenport - № 1 ranked female tennis player
• Christen Press - soccer player, recipient of the 2010 Hermann Trophy.
• Rebecca Smith - soccer player
• John Thorrington - soccer player

Children of Celebrities

Since its conversion to a day school the school has seen the children of celebrities all but disappear from its campus. However, when it was a boarding school, "Among others, Jack Benny, Dean Martin, Edward G. Robinson, Jascha Heifetz, Sterling Hayden, George Burns and Joan Crawford sent their children to Chadwick."

A photograph by Adams of students visiting the beach

Notable employees

• Ansel Adams - Photographed school and school events; Set up dark room
• Latario Rachal - Athletics coach
• Cedric Wright - Photography teacher

In literature

Nonfiction

• Hedy Lamarr: The Most Beautiful Woman in Film by Ruth Barton
• Indigenous: growing up Californian by Cris Mazza
• Mommie Dearest by Christina Crawford
• The Milk of Almonds: Italian American Women Writers on Food and Culture by Edvige Giunta

Fictional Chadwick School novels

• Surviving Chadwick: A Novel by Phillip Wilhite
• THE TRUST: A Secret Society Novel by Tom Dolby
• Mandie by Lois Gladys Leppard

A number of authors have written fictional books based on escapades at private schools named Chadwick School. The schools portrayed in these novels share some similarities with Chadwick but don't seem to be based on it. Oddly the authors of these novels chose to use the name of a real private school rather than create one.

Filmography

Film

Year	Film	Notes
1981	Mommie Dearest	Shot in main parking lot

External links

• Chadwick School Official Site