Holyoke High School

Holyoke High School
Address
500 Beech Street Holyoke, Massachusetts 01040 USA
Coordinates	42°12′00″N 72°37′27″W / 42.20000°N 72.62417°W / 42.20000; -72.62417Coordinates: 42°12′00″N 72°37′27″W / 42.20000°N 72.62417°W / 42.20000; -72.62417
Information
Type	Public Open enrollment[1]
Established	1852[2]
School district	Holyoke Public Schools
Principal	Dana Brown
Receiver	Steven Zrike
Faculty	102
Number of students	1,300
Color(s)	Purple & White
Mascot	Knights
Average SAT scores	520 verbal 507 math 1027 total (2016-2017)[3]
Website	www.hps.holyoke.ma.us/holyoke-high-school/
Holyoke High School, north campus

Holyoke High School is a public high school in western Massachusetts, that serves the City of Holyoke. Since 2015, the school, along with the district, has been in state receivership and through a series of changes in practices, such as innovative restorative justice disciplinary programs, has seen marked improvement in student retention and graduation rates.^[4] In the 2016-2017 school year Holyoke High and Dean Technical High School, which have since merged, received higher combined SAT scores than the average for schools in Boston, Worcester, and Springfield.^[3]

Overview

Holyoke High School is located in Holyoke just off of Interstate 391. Currently, there are approximately 1300 students enrolled in the school in both divisions. The school colors are purple and white. The school song is "Hail, Holyoke", which was written by the high school's first band director Fred Grady in 1937 and dedicated to Dr. Howard Conant, a longtime principal who served the school for 35 years.^[5][6]

Following two years of development, beginning in the 2018-2019 school year, the high school offers a redeveloped curriculum focused on four academies that upperclassmen will choose to participate in, these include academies in:

• Community and Global Studies
• Technology, Engineering and Design
• Performing and Media Arts
• Medical and Life Sciences

Academy coursework will build upon the general education curriculum of math, science, and language studies with additional unique course offerings as well as internships and job shadowing opportunities in the field of a student’s choice.^[7]

Juniors and seniors may also complete coursework at area colleges through the Dual College Enrollment program, including but not limited to Holyoke Community College, Springfield Technical Community College, Westfield State University, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.^[8]

History

Established in 1852 by the city, the school's first principal was Stephen Holman, a polymath engineer, lawyer, linguist, and educator who went on to found the Holyoke Machine Company and Deane Steam Pump Works, purchased the Holyoke Paper Company, and was credited as the first to introduce modern cost accounting into the paper industry.^[2][9][10]

Between 1872 to 1881, Holyoke High School was one of about a dozen New England schools which received students from the Chinese Educational Mission.^[11] Upon returning overseas some of these students would go on to serve important roles in Qing dynasty China including, but not limited to, Shung Kih Ting,^{[lower-alpha 1]} class of 1880, who would eventually serve as acting deputy commissioner of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service,^[12] and Chow Wan Tang^{[lower-alpha 1]} who graduated in 1881 and revisited to Holyoke in 1908 as general manager of the Imperial Chinese Telegraph Administration.^[13]

Athletics

The high school's mascot, the Holyoke Knights

The Holyoke High School has sports open to students for every season.^[14]

Clubs and activities

Media

There is currently one school newspaper at Holyoke High School, The Holyoke Herald, which is produced by its students in the school's journalism classes. Students also air a weekly program on the local Public-access television cable TV channel titled HPS 12. Published once a year is the literary and creative arts magazine, "The Knight Writer." In addition to these publications is the yearbook which also publishes a blog on its website.

Notable alumni

• William Chadwick (1879 – 1962), class of 1898, late 19th and early 20th-century American impressionist painter who went on to study at the Art Students League of New York, and subsequently became a resident of the Old Lyme art colony^[17]
• Montgomery Knight (1901 – 1943), class of 1918, pioneer in rotorcraft design, first director of the Guggenheim School of Aeronautics at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a founder of and long-time researcher at the Georgia Tech Research Institute.^[18][19]
• Homer E. Newell Jr. (1915 – 1983), class of 1932, mathematician and NASA administrator, the principal organizer of the American space program in its early years, who managed virtually all non-military unmanned space missions for the free world from the early 1960s until his retirement in 1974.^[20]

Notes

References

External Links

• Holyoke High School, official school website
• The Herald, the student-run school newspaper, est. 1898
• Holyoke High School Report Card, Massachusetts Dept. of Education

(in Spanish) (in French)