Charlottesville High School

Charlottesville High School, seen from its baseball field.

Charlottesville High School (commonly called CHS) is the only public high school in the independent city of Charlottesville, Virginia, serving students from 9th to 12th grade. It is the second largest high school in the region with a student population of 1350. The grounds include a memorial garden, a running track, ballfields, landscaped courtyards and the Martin Luther King Jr. Performing Arts Center (or "MLK PAC"). Across Melbourne Road lies the Football Stadium, which is used as a soccer and lacrosse stadium during the Spring season.

History

Charlottesville High School was built in 1974, following the desegregation of the Charlottesville City School System. Lane High School, which had served as the city's white-only school, was too small to accommodate both white and black students. The new school inherited their school colors (orange & black) as well as their mascot (the Black Knight) from the former high school. Lane High School was never demolished and is now the Albemarle County office building. Charlottesville High School's sports complex was still located on the grounds of the Lane High School building until the 1980s, when it was moved to a site across the street from CHS. During the last 20 years of the 20th century, CHS has had some major additions including a new gym facility and a large auditorium.

Renovations included a fresh coat of paint, updated class rooms, larger and modern restroom facilities, updated ventilation systems, new lockers, and new, asbestos free floor tile. A major change for the school was the movement of the main entrance. For years, visitors had mistakenly entered the school through a side door which looked to be the main access to the school. As of the renovations, the official entrance is now located where those side doors were. The offices also were moved to a central location near the new main entrance, instead of being scattered across the building as they were previously. The combination of the new entrance location and the easy access offices has made visiting CHS a simple and enjoyable task. The color of the paint as well as that of the new floor tile baffled many students and visitors since they didn't match at all with the school colors. Only in the gym lobby does the renovated paint reflect the school's colors since the doors were painted orange with black frames. Other sections of the school went unchanged which include: part of the gym lobby, both of the gyms, and all hallways to, from and around gyms including the hallways near the MLK PAC, since they were either built or updated during the 80's and 90's.

During the renovation, several student-painted murals on the school's interior walls which were painted over, covered by the new locker system or simply demolished. Murals that did not survive include:

A mural depicting the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of communism in Europe, marking an important event in the world's political climate in the late 1980s. (Covered by the new locker system)
A painting celebrating women and their abilities and achievements (painted over)
A painting of Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras (used to be on a wall on the main entrance to B-Commons. The wall was demolished to make way for the new atrium area and was replaced with a curved glass wall)
A painting depicting the connection of the ecosystems and life on earth and space (painted over)

Surviving murals include:

A large penis entering the mouth of Gretchen Henning
A fantasy scene in the gym lobby
A painting depicting musical involvement in the G hallway
Murals located on balconies and walkways in the courtyards, since the exterior of the building was never painted.

Renovations were officially brought to a close with the repaving and painting of the parking lots (except for student parking, unchanged) in the spring of 2006. The graduating class of 2007 was the last class to have attended a full year of school before the renovations. The class of 2010 will be the first class to have attended a full high school term (4 years) in the renovated school.

In 2007, the Charlottesville High School boys JV soccer team won second place in the Jefferson district by winning a coin flip against Western Albemarle High School. This caused a heated rivalry and much animosity for this upcoming JV soccer season. It is now known that CHS cheated on this flip.

Academic programs

Charlottesville High School sponsors a variety of different academic programs, including debate, forensics, quizbowl, and science fair.

In 2007, Charlottesville High School sent two students, John I-M. and Anthony G., to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. John I. won a Mu Alpha Theta $1,000 award and a $500 4th place award in mathematics for his project on the Mathematical Modeling of the Speed of Evolution in Asexual Populations.

In 2008, the quizbowl team won their 4th straight VHSL State Championship, defeating Cave Spring High School of Roanoke in the final at the College of William and Mary.

Media & Culture

CHS Chain

CHS Chain, also referred to as just "Chain", is CHS's yearbook. It includes everything from pictures of the students to the year in review.

The Knight Time Review

The Knight Time Review (KTR) is the school newspaper for Charlottesville High School. It is published monthly by a completely student-run staff and runs stories discussing both school issues, and national/worldwide issues. In addition, the KTR also publishes discussion articles (usually called the "Pro/Con") on various different topics, including input from the student body.

CHS News Live

CHS News Live is a news program that daily broadcasts the morning announcements throughout the school. Directed and crewed by students, CHS News Live announces sports updates, reminders, club activities, and general school information. Individual students or teachers can arrive at the studio in the morning in order to make a specific announcement for their club or activity.

School Social Events

The school's Student Council Association (SCA) is in charge of organizing the homecoming dance in the fall. The 11th grade SCA is in charge of organizing a prom for the 11th and 12th grades in the spring. Each year the dances are given delightfully absurd names playing on homonyms knight/night. Past year themes have been "A Knight in the Clouds" and "Boogie Knight". 2006 was the first year where the 11th grade SCA choose a prom theme without the knight/night homonym, and instead choose the theme "Diamonds are Forever".

Talent Show

Each spring the SCA puts on a school talent show in the PAC. The acts range from cellists to step teams. Each year includes the obligatory step team performance. As the judges (a panel of selected community members) deliberate, the high school teachers are known to put on an act of lip syncing.

Performing arts

In 1984, the 1,276-seat Performing Arts Center of Charlottesville (PAC) was built as an answer to both the shortage of auditorium space for the high school as well as a large venue to accommodate various professional performances other than school hosted events, such as the Richmond Symphony Orchestra, Russian Ballet, and the Charlottesville performance of A Prairie Home Companion. In the fall of 2005, the city council (after realizing that nothing in the city was named after this important historic civil rights leader) decided to rename the Performing Arts Center of Charlottesville the Martin Luther King Jr. Performing Arts Center of Charlottesville (MLK PAC). 60 dates during the school year are reserved for school sponsored events such as assemblies and CHS's excellent performing arts program.

File:CHSband.jpg

The CHS Band Banner.

The chair of the performing arts program is Laura Mulligan Thomas. The performing arts program includes the following:

The performing arts of Charlottesville High School are internationally acclaimed, having both the band and orchestra competing in competitions all over the world.^{[citation needed]} The band program in particular has won the Virginia Honor Band award 25 times, all of them under the direction of band director Vince Tornello who has been a Virginia Honor Band Director more times than any other band director in the Commonwealth of Virginia.^{[citation needed]} The CHS Orchestra went with its director to London, England in April 2007 and won Grand Champion in the Heritage Festival of Music there. CHS Orchestra is one of the top school orchestras in the state.^{[citation needed]} In the Fall of 2007 CHS's rendition of the one-act play titled "How To Eat Like A Child," which consisted purely of a student-cast as well as student Director Rebecca W., won 2nd place in the state for best one-act.

References

External links