Welcome to Chatham High School!
Ronald Davis, Co-principal
John Thorsen, Co-principal
The
measure of any academic community is the value and service that it extends
to its young people. Chatham High School can truly be measured by this yardstick.
We have a very caring and dedicated faculty who provide a very comprehensive program including sequences in almost every possible area. Our faculty has done an excellent job in assisting our students to meet the demands of the New York State Learning Standards. We were an all Regents High School long before these mandates were introduced. Learning is and continues to be our number one priority!
Over the last five years the number of students achieving Regents diplomas has dramatically increased as well as the number attending two- and four-year colleges. Needless to say we are very proud of these accomplishments.
We have a full range of athletic and extracurricular activities. The same excellence demonstrated in the classroom spills over to these areas as well. Our students and teams have excelled in basketball, golf, track, soccer, tennis, and volleyball - just to name a few.
In closing, we are supported and enriched by a very caring community. We are grateful for all that you do to assist us in preparing our students to be part of a globally diverse community.
Students Hear About Overcoming Handicaps
The High School Assembly Friday, Dec. 4 featured an unusual speaker. John Robinson was born without forearms, hands or thighs, but has not let that hold him back in life: He has a family and a successful career at WMHT in Albany. See the ABC News report.
It's Time to Order Yearbooks
And the order forms are here.
Underclassmen-and-women, click here.
High School Faculty Name 'Students of the Quarter'
The High School Faculty have released their list of the 100 "Students of the Quarter," the top students in each of the high school's 89 subjects. See who made the list.
CHS Senior is All-State Vocalist
For the first time in nearly two decades, Chatham sent a vocalist to the All State Choir. Soprano Brittney Gerber sang with about 100 other students from around the state in the All-State Mixed Choir, Dec. 3 – 6 at the Eastman Theater in Rochester.
The New York State School Music Association held its local competition at Mary E. Dardess Elementary School in Chatham this year. Brittney competed at Level 6, the hardest there is. She sang an Italian aria from “La Boheme,” by Puccini, which she said was very high in her vocal range. Things didn’t go entirely smoothly: Her accompanist used an electric piano, which turned out to be not a piano, but an organ, but Brittney forged ahead just the same. “The judge was really impressed,” she said. She also had to sight-read, something she was never taught to do, and she was nervous about how she did with that. Judging, she said, is on tone quality, pronunciation of words, interpretation and accuracy. She must have done something right, because when she got her score back, it was 100. Then came the nail-biting – two months. In the beginning of September, a letter came in the mail: She had been accepted into All-State, the first one from Chatham since the early 1990s.
Brittney said she’s been singing since she was in the fourth grade, when she was a canary at Mary E. Dardess. Since then, she’s been in choir every year, has been in every musical production the school offered, and has been in every all-county recital since she was in fifth grade. “I sing whenever I can,” she said. She said she’d love to sing opera. She’d also love to teach and to direct a high school play, but, she said, “I don’t want to let the music part of life go away.”
Meanwhile, she said, the concert material for the All-State concert is “crazy difficult,” with works by Haydn, Brahms, Randall Thompson and Moses Hogan among others.
Three CHS Vocalists in 'Melodies of Christmas'
Three students from Chatham High School sang with the Empire State Youth Orchestra in its “Melodies of Christmas” concert Dec. 3 through 6, senior Erin Lanphear, an alto, and sophomores Diana Jones, a soprano, and Geena Eglin, an alto. The choir is composed of about 40 vocalists out of 150 who auditioned from around the state.
FROM LEFT: Erin Lanphear, Geena Eglin and Diana Jones practice "Silent Night."
The concert included 12 traditional Christmas carols, and was performed at Proctor’s Theater in Schenectady as a benefit for terminally ill cancer patients at Albany Medical Center’s Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Disorders. It’s unusual for a school to have more than one singer chosen – Chatham can be proud that three of its singers were part of the Melodies of Christmas.
Bob Holmes Wins 3 out of 4 at CHS
Motivational speaker Bob Holmes was able to defeat the faculty, the girls and the loudmouths. Only the boys' volleyball team was able to defeat the one-man volleyball whiz, just his 366th defeat. Next, the boys should be taking on the Minnesota Vikings, the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Miami Dolphins, the Washington Redskins, the Toronto Blue Jays, the Buffalo Bills and the Baltimore Orioles with Cal Ripkin. See photos and read the full story here.
Students Wear Pink To Fight Breast Cancer
On Wednesday, October 14th, Chatham High School had a “Pretty in Pink Day.”
See photos and read all about it.
Top Spitzer Aide, Anti-Trust Lawyer Talks Careers
Lloyd Constantine, one of Eliot Spitzer's most trusted advisors during his short stint as governor, and the lead counsel on the anti-trust case that brought down the Visa/MasterCard bank cartel, spoke to CHS seniors about career opportunities November 2. He was the guest of history teacher Stephanie Campbell. "I do not hold out my career as a model, except my career has been all about what I wanted to be," he told them. "I recommend your career be all about you. I'm 62 years old, and I'm still changing. If you have a career like that, you're going to have a lot of fun. A career about who you are, and what you like to do."
LEFT: Lloyd Constantine responds to a question from CHS student John Tenace, as history teacher Stephanie Campbell and PE teacher Dan Kohler listen.
Spitzer worked for Constantine at the U.S. Attorney General's Office in the early 1980s; later they became law partners. Then, when Spitzer became a successful politician, Constantine headed up his transition teams as New York attorney general and governor. Then he joined Spitzer's gubernatorial administration. "I thought I'd have some fun," he said. "It was a pretty rough year." After Spitzer resigned from office, Constantine found himself out of work and wondering what he was going to do. It was then he decided to fulfill his lifelong ambition of being a writer. His first book is called Priceless, and it's the story of the 14-year case by retailers against a cartel of credit card companies, on which Constantine was the lead counsel, and that resulted in a record $3.5 billion payment. His second book, in manuscript, is on the Spitzer administration.
Shakespeareans Hold Open Rehearsals
Thursday, Nov. 5, gave curious high school students a chance to see what a few of their peers have been up to for the past five weeks, and some of them even got to try it out for themselves. About 50 students from Chatham worked with professional directors, actors and technicians from Shakespeare and Co. of Lenox, Mass., on a production of Shakespeare's Pericles, Prince of Tyre, which was part of the 21st Annual Fall Festival of Shakespeare, Nov. 19-22 at Founders Theater in Lenox, where 10 high schools each presented a different play.
LEFT: Isabelle Curran, as Thaisa, approaches the man she loves, Pericles, played by Kai Pisila. But between them stands Thaisa's father, King Simonides, portrayed by Adam Harrison. In the background are Brandon Howard and Heather Monroe (obscured) as guards.
RIGHT: Pericles learns that if he draws his sword on a king, there will be other blades to deal with. Playing the guards, Brandon Harrison and Heather Monroe, who came to watch, found themselves drawn to the stage and then having to defend their king.
This activity was funded in part by a grant from the Chatham Education Foundation.
High School Students Work for Habitat
CHS senior Max Streeter and junior Ryan Behrens pitched in to help Habitat for Humanity build a new home for a low-income familyn in Hudson this summer. Max also delivered Meals On Wheels on Tuesdays in July and August.
ABOVE: Habitat for Humanity work crew. Max Streeter is in the window, and Ryan Behrens is third from the right. BELOW: Behrens and Streeter get some pointers as the work proceeds.
To download a map of the new high school parking lot and who can park where,click here
