East Chapel Hill High School
Encyclopedia
East Chapel Hill High School is a public high school in Chapel Hill, North Carolina
. It is the second high school of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools district which contains two other high schools, Chapel Hill High School and Carrboro High School
. The school's principal is Eileen Tully, and the mascot is the Wildcat
. East holds multiple 3A and 4A championships and is home to many award-winning extracurricular groups, particularly the two student-run a cappella groups, the Alley Cats and the Chiefs of Staff , and the East Chapel Hill Speech and Debate team. Many of its students take Advanced Placement (AP) courses.
Although East has previously ranked within the top 100 of American public high schools, it was taken off the list for the 2009–2010 school year due to achievement gaps.
, 5% is Hispanic
, and 14% is Asian
. 52% of the student body is male and 48％ is female. For this time period, out of a total of 1706 students 30% (513 students) were in the 9th grade, 24.6% (421 students) were in the 10th grade, 25% (426) were in the 11th grade and 20.3% (346 students) were in the 12th grade. There were a total of 69 teachers making for a 1:25 ratio of teachers to students.
, men's soccer, women's tennis
, field hockey
, volleyball
, cheerleading
, women's golf
, and men's and women's cross country
. Winter sports include: men's and women's swimming
and diving
, men's and women's basketball
, wrestling
, cheerleading, and Men's and Women's Indoor Track and Field. Spring sports include men's tennis, baseball
, softball
, men's and women's track & field, men's golf, women's soccer, and men's and women's lacrosse
. Since 1996, East teams have won many NC state, regional, conference, and individual championships. As of Fall 2004, East's women's tennis team had won 7 3A State Championships in a row. In the spring of 2008 the men's tennis team won the 4A state championships. In 2005, Sports Illustrated named East Chapel Hill the best sports high school in North Carolina. In the fall of 2010 the field hockey team won the State Championship for the third year in a row. The East men's lacrosse program has also won 2 state championships and was runner up three times in the past ten years.
For the first 13 years of East Chapel Hill High School's existence, Dave Thaden was the principal; he retired on June 30, 2009. He was replaced by Eileen Tully.
Also notable is the school's rivalry to nearby Chapel Hill High School.
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Chapel Hill is a town in Orange County, North Carolina, United States and the home of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and UNC Health Care...
. It is the second high school of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools district which contains two other high schools, Chapel Hill High School and Carrboro High School
Carrboro High School
Carrboro High School is a suburban non-charter high school located in Carrboro, North Carolina. It is located close to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Carrboro High school is part of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools district which contains two other high schools, Chapel Hill...
. The school's principal is Eileen Tully, and the mascot is the Wildcat
Wildcat
Wildcat is a small felid native to Europe, the western part of Asia, and Africa.-Animals:Wildcat may also refer to members of the genus Lynx:...
. East holds multiple 3A and 4A championships and is home to many award-winning extracurricular groups, particularly the two student-run a cappella groups, the Alley Cats and the Chiefs of Staff , and the East Chapel Hill Speech and Debate team. Many of its students take Advanced Placement (AP) courses.
Although East has previously ranked within the top 100 of American public high schools, it was taken off the list for the 2009–2010 school year due to achievement gaps.
Academics
This is a highly competitive school in which the students typically score above the national average on standardized tests. In the 2002 school year the median weighted GPA was 3.56, and the median SAT score was 1181 compared to the state average of 1001. Also, 313 students participated in Advanced Placement (AP) examinations with 53% of all scores above a 3. There are typically 15–25 National Merit Scholar Semi-Finalists in a graduating class at East. Negative effects of the intense academic atmosphere include considerable student stress.Demographics
According to 2002–2004 school statistics, 63% of the school's student body is white, 18% is African AmericanAfrican American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
, 5% is Hispanic
Hispanic
Hispanic is a term that originally denoted a relationship to Hispania, which is to say the Iberian Peninsula: Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain. During the Modern Era, Hispanic sometimes takes on a more limited meaning, particularly in the United States, where the term means a person of ...
, and 14% is Asian
Asian people
Asian people or Asiatic people is a term with multiple meanings that refers to people who descend from a portion of Asia's population.- Central Asia :...
. 52% of the student body is male and 48％ is female. For this time period, out of a total of 1706 students 30% (513 students) were in the 9th grade, 24.6% (421 students) were in the 10th grade, 25% (426) were in the 11th grade and 20.3% (346 students) were in the 12th grade. There were a total of 69 teachers making for a 1:25 ratio of teachers to students.
Athletics
Athletic programs make up a large part of student life at East, and East's teams have been highly competitive and successful every year since the school's inception in 1996. East fields teams in sports across the board. Fall sports include: footballAmerican football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
, men's soccer, women's tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
, field hockey
Field hockey
Field Hockey, or Hockey, is a team sport in which a team of players attempts to score goals by hitting, pushing or flicking a ball into an opposing team's goal using sticks...
, volleyball
Volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...
, cheerleading
Cheerleading
Cheerleading is a physical activity, sometimes a competitive sport, based on organized routines, usually ranging from one to three minutes, which contain the components of tumbling, dance, jumps, cheers, and stunting to direct spectators of events to cheer on sports teams at games or to participate...
, women's golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
, and men's and women's cross country
Cross country running
Cross country running is a sport in which people run a race on open-air courses over natural terrain. The course, typically long, may include surfaces of grass and earth, pass through woodlands and open country, and include hills, flat ground and sometimes gravel road...
. Winter sports include: men's and women's swimming
Swimming (sport)
Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native...
and diving
Diving
Diving is the sport of jumping or falling into water from a platform or springboard, sometimes while performing acrobatics. Diving is an internationally-recognized sport that is part of the Olympic Games. In addition, unstructured and non-competitive diving is a recreational pastime.Diving is one...
, men's and women's basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
, wrestling
Wrestling
Wrestling is a form of grappling type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. A wrestling bout is a physical competition, between two competitors or sparring partners, who attempt to gain and maintain a superior position...
, cheerleading, and Men's and Women's Indoor Track and Field. Spring sports include men's tennis, baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
, softball
Softball
Softball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of 10 to 14 players. It is a direct descendant of baseball although there are some key differences: softballs are larger than baseballs, and the pitches are thrown underhand rather than overhand...
, men's and women's track & field, men's golf, women's soccer, and men's and women's lacrosse
Lacrosse
Lacrosse is a team sport of Native American origin played using a small rubber ball and a long-handled stick called a crosse or lacrosse stick, mainly played in the United States and Canada. It is a contact sport which requires padding. The head of the lacrosse stick is strung with loose mesh...
. Since 1996, East teams have won many NC state, regional, conference, and individual championships. As of Fall 2004, East's women's tennis team had won 7 3A State Championships in a row. In the spring of 2008 the men's tennis team won the 4A state championships. In 2005, Sports Illustrated named East Chapel Hill the best sports high school in North Carolina. In the fall of 2010 the field hockey team won the State Championship for the third year in a row. The East men's lacrosse program has also won 2 state championships and was runner up three times in the past ten years.
For the first 13 years of East Chapel Hill High School's existence, Dave Thaden was the principal; he retired on June 30, 2009. He was replaced by Eileen Tully.
Also notable is the school's rivalry to nearby Chapel Hill High School.
Alumni Association
Proposals for the creation of an alumni association for East began in Fall of 2007. These efforts took off in 2009 with the drafting of organizational bylaws, the creation of a Board of Directors, and the launching of a new website. http://echalumni.org/Notable events
- On April 24, 2006, eighteen-year-old student W.B. Foster held both teacher Lisa Kukla, and a student hostage with a shotgun, a hunting knife, and a pistol. After more than an hour, Lisa Kukla was able to talk Foster out of harming her or the student. Instead, Foster fired a shot through the window and fled, but was later turned in to the police. It's unknown why Foster held those two hostage, since he was never taught by Kukla, and didn't seem to know the student. In June 2007, Foster was sentenced to five years of probation, because his attorneys claimed he had schizophreniaSchizophreniaSchizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...
.
- In July 2006, a junior at East Chapel Hill High School, Arnav Tripathy, won a gold medal at the International Mathematical OlympiadInternational Mathematical OlympiadThe International Mathematical Olympiad is an annual six-problem, 42-point mathematical olympiad for pre-collegiate students and is the oldest of the International Science Olympiads. The first IMO was held in Romania in 1959. It has since been held annually, except in 1980...
in SloveniaSloveniaSlovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
. He was one of the two members on the U.S. squad that won gold medals. Competing in a field of 498 students from 90 countries, Tripathy helped the U.S. team finish fifth overall. Tripathy also has been enrolled in undergraduate level math courses at UNCUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel HillThe University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States...
since 9th grade, and has been enrolled in graduateGraduate schoolA graduate school is a school that awards advanced academic degrees with the general requirement that students must have earned a previous undergraduate degree...
level math courses at UNC since 11th grade. During the qualification for the IMO, Arnav Tripathy scored 150/150 on the AMC 12American Mathematics CompetitionsThe American Mathematics Competitions are the first of a series of competitions in high school mathematics that determine the United States team for the International Mathematical Olympiad . This team, consisting of six high school students, competes in the IMO and has traditionally performed well...
. He then scored a 14/15 on the AIMEAmerican Invitational Mathematics ExaminationThe American Invitational Mathematics Examination is a 15-question 3-hour test given since 1983 to those who rank in the top 5% on the AMC 12 high school mathematics contest , and starting in 2010, those who rank in the top 2.5% on the AMC 10.The AIME is the second of two tests used to determine...
examination. He then won the USAMOUnited States of America Mathematical OlympiadThe United States of America Mathematical Olympiad is a high school mathematics competition held annually in the United States. Since its debut in 1972, it has served as the final round of the AMC series of contests...
, qualifying for the IMO. He then returned to the IMO in 2007, where he won a silver medal, one of three Americans to do so.
- In February 2009, assistant principal, Gloria Woods-Weeks was named the 2009 North Carolina Assistant Principal of the Year by the N.C. Principals and Assistant Principals Association. Ms. Woods-Weeks left at the end of the 2008–2009 school year to become the principal of the Holton Career Center in Durham Public SchoolsDurham Public SchoolsDurham Public Schools was formed in 1992 with the merger of Durham's previous two school districts and is currently the 8th largest school system in North Carolina. There are currently 46 public schools in the system, consisting of 28 elementary , 8 middle , 2 secondary , 7 high , and 1 hospital...
.
Notable alumni
- Anoop DesaiAnoop DesaiAnoop Desai is an American singer-songwriter best known for his time as a contestant on the eighth season of American Idol. Motivated by the death of his friend Eve Carson, Desai auditioned for American Idol. Desai made American Idol history by being the first ever 13th finalist on American Idol...
– American IdolAmerican IdolAmerican Idol, titled American Idol: The Search for a Superstar for the first season, is a reality television singing competition created by Simon Fuller and produced by FremantleMedia North America and 19 Entertainment...
top 6 finalist. (Class of 2004) - Chris Hobbs – American basketball player for Clemson UniversityClemson TigersThe Clemson Tigers are any team that represents Clemson University as a member of the NCAA's Division I or in the Atlantic Division of the Atlantic Coast Conference....
. (Class of 2000) - Antonio Sales – Sprinter for the University of South CarolinaSouth Carolina GamecocksThe University of South Carolina's 19 varsity sports teams are known as the "Gamecocks". The unique moniker is held in honor of Thomas Sumter, a South Carolina war hero who was given the name "The Carolina Gamecock" during the American Revolution for his fierce fighting tactics, regardless of his...
track team. - Arnav Tripathy – Three Time William Lowell Putnam Fellow (2007, 2008, 2009)
- Tony Mendes – Two time Lacrosse All-American, U-19 All Star, former player for DI University of Maryland and Syracuse. Now plays for DIII Sailsbury.
- Neil Lebeck – United States Biology Olympiad Finalist
- Aaron Law – American basketball player for Iowa State UniversityIowa State UniversityIowa State University of Science and Technology, more commonly known as Iowa State University , is a public land-grant and space-grant research university located in Ames, Iowa, United States. Iowa State has produced astronauts, scientists, and Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners, along with a host of...
. (Class of 2015) - Ryan Watts - Actor - Tyler Perry Studios "Georgia Sky" (contracted through 2015) - ECHHS Class of 2008