Malden High School
Encyclopedia
Malden High School is a public high school
located in Malden
, Massachusetts
. Accredited by New England Association of Schools and Colleges
(NEASC), it awards high school diploma
s.
The school was founded in 1857.
until 1937 where the land was used for an addition to the high school that opened in 1940. In the following years of the 1950s and 1960s, the Malden High School reached its zenith as the school grew to become one of the preeminent schools in the state with wide praise and strong reputation sending many to the Ivy league
. In 1958, the school saw 54% (13% higher than the state average) of its graduating class to continue on to college to 45 schools. This was especially impressive for a working class
town in the late fifties.
. The school's College Board
scores declined steadily over the decade becoming well-below the national average in 1979. With the declining scores, the percentage of college-bound graduates dropped to only 42% for the class of 1975 (while college-bound graduates rose nationally). Even some students recognize the problem and asked the school committee to be allowed to take a heavier workload by taking more than five courses to able to compete for college admission better. In addition, the school building began to show its age and marred the school with disruptive and behind-schedule repairs that even forced an early dismissal for a day. Construction for a new addition in the mid to late seventies was riffled with delays and cost overruns from unexpected problems including discovering undetected peat and mysterious tunnels that needed to be excavated and filled with gravel. One of the new addition buildings was nearly torn down to start after the contractor ignored an error that one of the foundation footings were misaligned nine inches the correct line . Even after it reached completion, the school in 1980, problems continues to persist well after construction including leaking roofs and even falling concrete. Adding to the decline, school vandalism
reached unprecedented levels in the late seventies with trashed bathrooms, ransacked classrooms, damage to the new school pool, and even fires during the early eighties
. Teachers and the city began openly talking about the decline of the student body and disciple with rampant truancy, drugs, and alcohol with intimidation to more studious students. Finally cutbacks from funding (many blamed on the controversial proposition 2½
) forced layoffs and cutbacks to many of the school offerings.
courses. A comprehensive $77 million renovation to school buildings is now underway and is planned to be completed in 2012.
level courses with options for honors and advanced placement level courses if met required recommendations and requirements. Graduation requirements requires to pass the MCAS test with taking a minimum of 2 years of History, Foreign Language (single language), and Electives as with 3 years of Mathematics and Sciences, and 4 years of English.
For its foreign language requirement or as an elective, students can chose to take French
, Spanish
, Italian
, or Latin
. A half year Mandarin Chinese
elective have been recently created with plans for future expansion is offered in recognition to the robust Asian American
population in the school.
Students have the option, permitting meeting academic requirements, a choice of 15 advanced placement courses.
In addition, Malden High School Students also have the option to participate in Virtual High School
program.
(MIAA). The school maintains a number of varsity team
s including a swimming
team, as well as baseball
, golf
, volleyball
, soccer
, basketball
, gymnastics
, lacrosse, softball wrestling
, tennis
, track
/cross country
, and football
teams. In addition, the school have a few upstart club sports teams looking to gain official recognition, the most recent sport to gain this was the girl's volleyball team. The Malden High School once featured a rifle team who competed against college teams and enjoyed several long running championship dynasties
until it was shut down. The school's team name is the Golden Tornadoes with its mascot a lion named Nedlam. Malden High School, in conjunction with Medford
High School, has the 2nd oldest continuous high school football rivalry in the United States, with the first Thanksgiving Day Game dating back to 1889.
and Interact Club), ethnic cultural clubs, activism clubs, interests clubs, and a number of others both fully recognized by the school and unofficial (clubs have to reach some notability and apply before full recognition and have to wait until contract negotiations before stipends are added).
awards, New England Scholastic Press Association
(NESPA), and Suffolk University
. The most recent award was received in 2010 for Best in News Writing from Suffolk University.
Historically there been numerous publications that have risen and fallen including the literary society “The Lion”, a Jewish run school newspaper “The Optimist,” and “the Usonian.” In 2005 Malden High School joined the Massachusetts Forensics League and now competes with a comparatively small team.
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
located in Malden
Malden, Massachusetts
Malden is a suburban city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 59,450 at the 2010 census. In 2009 Malden was ranked as the "Best Place to Raise Your Kids" in Massachusetts by Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine.-History:...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
. Accredited by New England Association of Schools and Colleges
New England Association of Schools and Colleges
The New England Association of Schools and Colleges, Inc. is the U.S. regional accreditation association providing educational accreditation for all levels of education, from pre-kindergarten to the doctoral level, in the six-state New England region. It also provides accreditation for some...
(NEASC), it awards high school diploma
High school diploma
A high school diploma is a diploma awarded for the completion of high school. In the United States and Canada, it is considered the minimum education required for government jobs and higher education. An equivalent is the GED.-Past diploma styles:...
s.
The school was founded in 1857.
Centre St.
The Malden High School was established in 1857 by the school committee after a vote in favor for the establishment. The school first started in the Centre Grammar School Building of Pleasant Street with Joseph H. Noyes as Principal, Annie L. Woodford as his assistant and 38 students, which would later grow to 57 over the year. The school grew quickly taking the lower story of the townhouse two years later, started library on 1863, and faced increasing overcrowding until 1872 where a new building was erected on Salem Street at the cost of $100,000.Salem St.
However, the first Salem Street building, after only a few years already became as overcrowded as the old school. The school was not designed for the future rapid enrollment as the school grew well into the hundreds. By 1892, three rooms of the Centre School Building were reopened to help serve the students as the Salem building became too overcrowded. After some debate, to accommodate the school's growing size, another new building was built and opened on 1896. The 1872 building continued as a manual training schoolVocational education
Vocational education or vocational education and training is an education that prepares trainees for jobs that are based on manual or practical activities, traditionally non-academic, and totally related to a specific trade, occupation, or vocation...
until 1937 where the land was used for an addition to the high school that opened in 1940. In the following years of the 1950s and 1960s, the Malden High School reached its zenith as the school grew to become one of the preeminent schools in the state with wide praise and strong reputation sending many to the Ivy league
Ivy League
The Ivy League is an athletic conference comprising eight private institutions of higher education in the Northeastern United States. The conference name is also commonly used to refer to those eight schools as a group...
. In 1958, the school saw 54% (13% higher than the state average) of its graduating class to continue on to college to 45 schools. This was especially impressive for a working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
town in the late fifties.
Decline
The Malden High School entered into a slow decline in the subsequent years during the seventies1970s
File:1970s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: US President Richard Nixon doing the V for Victory sign after his resignation from office after the Watergate scandal in 1974; Refugees aboard a US naval boat after the Fall of Saigon, leading to the end of the Vietnam War in 1975; The 1973 oil...
. The school's College Board
College Board
The College Board is a membership association in the United States that was formed in 1900 as the College Entrance Examination Board . It is composed of more than 5,900 schools, colleges, universities and other educational organizations. It sells standardized tests used by academically oriented...
scores declined steadily over the decade becoming well-below the national average in 1979. With the declining scores, the percentage of college-bound graduates dropped to only 42% for the class of 1975 (while college-bound graduates rose nationally). Even some students recognize the problem and asked the school committee to be allowed to take a heavier workload by taking more than five courses to able to compete for college admission better. In addition, the school building began to show its age and marred the school with disruptive and behind-schedule repairs that even forced an early dismissal for a day. Construction for a new addition in the mid to late seventies was riffled with delays and cost overruns from unexpected problems including discovering undetected peat and mysterious tunnels that needed to be excavated and filled with gravel. One of the new addition buildings was nearly torn down to start after the contractor ignored an error that one of the foundation footings were misaligned nine inches the correct line . Even after it reached completion, the school in 1980, problems continues to persist well after construction including leaking roofs and even falling concrete. Adding to the decline, school vandalism
Vandalism
Vandalism is the behaviour attributed originally to the Vandals, by the Romans, in respect of culture: ruthless destruction or spoiling of anything beautiful or venerable...
reached unprecedented levels in the late seventies with trashed bathrooms, ransacked classrooms, damage to the new school pool, and even fires during the early eighties
1980s
File:1980s decade montage.png|thumb|400px|From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, Columbia, lifted off in 1981; American President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev eased tensions between the two superpowers, leading to the end of the Cold War; The Fall of the Berlin Wall in...
. Teachers and the city began openly talking about the decline of the student body and disciple with rampant truancy, drugs, and alcohol with intimidation to more studious students. Finally cutbacks from funding (many blamed on the controversial proposition 2½
Proposition 2½
Proposition 2½ is a Massachusetts statute which limits property tax increases by Massachusetts municipalities. It was passed by ballot initiative, specifically called an initiative petition within Massachusetts state law, in 1980 and went into effect in 1982...
) forced layoffs and cutbacks to many of the school offerings.
Latest Developments
Since the mid-1980s, the school has become highly diverse with the minority now the majority. Its large diversity has grown to become a prominent feature of the school and was recognized during a speech in the 2007 graduation ceremony. The school since then has begun to recover and now beginning to receive new lockers, desks, computers, and other new equipment. The courses continue to expand breadth of its offerings with new courses including Chinese Mandarin and new APAdvanced Placement Program
The Advanced Placement program is a curriculum in the United States and Canada sponsored by the College Board which offers standardized courses to high school students that are generally recognized to be equivalent to undergraduate courses in college...
courses. A comprehensive $77 million renovation to school buildings is now underway and is planned to be completed in 2012.
Academics
The school normally operates from 7:45 AM to 2:15 PM with a schedule of 7 classes with 6 classes a day on a daily rotation. Monday's classes end earlier at 1:45 PM with shorten classes with exception to late entry days where a special schedule is used. Students take college preparatoryUniversity-preparatory school
A university-preparatory school or college-preparatory school is a secondary school, usually private, designed to prepare students for a college or university education...
level courses with options for honors and advanced placement level courses if met required recommendations and requirements. Graduation requirements requires to pass the MCAS test with taking a minimum of 2 years of History, Foreign Language (single language), and Electives as with 3 years of Mathematics and Sciences, and 4 years of English.
For its foreign language requirement or as an elective, students can chose to take French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, or Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
. A half year Mandarin Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
elective have been recently created with plans for future expansion is offered in recognition to the robust Asian American
Asian American
Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau definition of Asians as "Asian” refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan,...
population in the school.
Students have the option, permitting meeting academic requirements, a choice of 15 advanced placement courses.
In addition, Malden High School Students also have the option to participate in Virtual High School
Virtual school
A virtual school or cyberschool describes an institution that teaches courses entirely or primarily through online methods. Though there are tens of thousands of commercial and non-accredited courses available online, the term "virtual school" is generally reserved for accredited schools that teach...
program.
Sports
The school is a member of Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic AssociationMassachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association
The Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association , comprising 365 high schools in the U.S. state of Massachusetts, is an organization that sponsors activities in more than thirty sports. The MIAA is a member of the National Federation of State High School Associations , which writes the rules...
(MIAA). The school maintains a number of varsity team
Varsity team
In the United States and Canada, varsity sports teams are the principal athletic teams representing a college, university, high school or other secondary school. Such teams compete against the principal athletic teams at other colleges/universities, or in the case of secondary schools, against...
s including a 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...
team, as well as 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...
, 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....
, 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...
, soccer
Football (soccer)
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...
, 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...
, gymnastics
Gymnastics
Gymnastics is a sport involving performance of exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, and balance. Internationally, all of the gymnastic sports are governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique with each country having its own national governing body...
, lacrosse, softball wrestling
Scholastic wrestling
Scholastic wrestling, sometimes known in the United States as Folkstyle wrestling, is a style of amateur wrestling practised at the high school and middle school levels in the United States. This wrestling style is essentially Collegiate wrestling with some slight modifications. It is currently...
, 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...
, track
Track and field
Track and field is a sport comprising various competitive athletic contests based around the activities of running, jumping and throwing. The name of the sport derives from the venue for the competitions: a stadium which features an oval running track surrounding a grassy area...
/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...
, and football
American 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...
teams. In addition, the school have a few upstart club sports teams looking to gain official recognition, the most recent sport to gain this was the girl's volleyball team. The Malden High School once featured a rifle team who competed against college teams and enjoyed several long running championship dynasties
Dynasty (sports)
A sports dynasty is a team that dominates their sport or league for multiple seasons or years. Such dominance is often only realized in retrospect...
until it was shut down. The school's team name is the Golden Tornadoes with its mascot a lion named Nedlam. Malden High School, in conjunction with Medford
Medford, Massachusetts
Medford is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States, on the Mystic River, five miles northwest of downtown Boston. In the 2010 U.S. Census, Medford's population was 56,173...
High School, has the 2nd oldest continuous high school football rivalry in the United States, with the first Thanksgiving Day Game dating back to 1889.
Clubs, Organizations, Publications
Outside of sports, Malden High School offers a wide variety of extracurricular activities. These includes service clubs (including Key ClubKey Club
Key Club International is the oldest and largest service program for high school students. It is a student-led organization whose goal is to teach leadership through serving others. Key Club International is a part of the Kiwanis International family of service-leadership programs...
and Interact Club), ethnic cultural clubs, activism clubs, interests clubs, and a number of others both fully recognized by the school and unofficial (clubs have to reach some notability and apply before full recognition and have to wait until contract negotiations before stipends are added).
The Blue and Gold
The school's official newspaper had followed a long and proud tradition publishing for over 90 years making it the second-oldest running public high school newspaper. Over the years, it had won over many awards including 40 Columbia Scholastic Press AssociationColumbia Scholastic Press Association
The Columbia Scholastic Press Association is an international student press association, founded in 1925, whose goal is to unite student journalists and faculty advisers at schools and colleges through educational conferences, idea exchanges, textbooks, critiques and award programs...
awards, New England Scholastic Press Association
New England Scholastic Press Association
The New England Scholastic Press Association is an association based in Boston University's College of Communication. Its goal is to promote all forms of student journalism, such as student newspapers, broadcast programs, yearbooks, and magazines...
(NESPA), and Suffolk University
Suffolk University
Suffolk University is a private, non-sectarian, university located in Boston, Massachusetts and with over 16,000 students it is the third largest university in Boston...
. The most recent award was received in 2010 for Best in News Writing from Suffolk University.
Oracle
The Oracle is the second-oldest literary society in the country. Recently, the society was given the ranking of “Superior,” the highest possible rating, with only one other school literary society in the state.Junior Varieties
Junior Varieties is the oldest high school variety show in the country. The variety feature yearly themes with a mix of comedy, vocal talent, instrumental performances, dance performances, and other skits. The show is largely led by the year’s junior classmen, but students of all grade levels participate including their own part in the show.Other Activities, Organizations, and Clubs
Fine Arts Club, Key Club, and Interact Club maintains as three largest school clubs. In more recent years, Malden High School's marching and concert bands, along with the color guard, have continually operated with increasing success. Many other clubs operates in the school as well. Recently, Malden High's drama program, Play Production, was recognized as one of the best in the state. In 2011, the class's original play "American Land" made it to the State Finals, the first time in over 40 years.Historically there been numerous publications that have risen and fallen including the literary society “The Lion”, a Jewish run school newspaper “The Optimist,” and “the Usonian.” In 2005 Malden High School joined the Massachusetts Forensics League and now competes with a comparatively small team.
External links
- Malden High School
- NEASC's Website
- http://www.maldenhighschoolalumniassociationinc.com