| Central High School | |
|---|---|
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| Address | |
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1700 West Olney Avenue , 19141 | |
| Information | |
| Type | Public high school |
| Established | 1836 |
| School district | School District of Philadelphia |
| President | Katharine Davis |
| Teaching staff | 116.10 (FTE)[1] |
| Grades | 9–12 |
| Enrollment | 2,364 (2022–2023)[1] |
| Student to teacher ratio | 20.36[1] |
| Color(s) | |
| Athletics conference | Philadelphia Public League |
| Nickname | Lancers |
| Newspaper | The Centralizer |
| Television network | Central Broadcast News (CBN) |
| Website | centralhigh |
Central High School[2] | |
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| Location | 1700 West Olney Avenue, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Coordinates | 40°2′15″N 75°9′00″W / 40.03750°N 75.15000°W |
| Area | 5 acres (2.0 ha) |
| Built | 1937 |
| Architect | Catharine, Irwin T. |
| Architectural style | Moderne |
| MPS | Philadelphia Public Schools TR |
| NRHP reference No. | 86003267 |
| Added to NRHP | December 4, 1986 |
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Central High School is a public high school in the Logan[3] section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1836, it is a four-year university preparatory magnet school.
About 2,400 students attend grades 9 through 12. Central High School is the only high school in the United States with authority, granted by an 1849 Act of Assembly of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, to confer academic degrees upon its graduates.[4] This authority to grant academic degrees led Central to refer to the principal of the school as the “President” of Central High School. The current and fifteenth president of Central High School is Katharine S. Davis.[5]
Central, rather than using a general class year to identify its classes (as in "class of 2021"), uses the class graduating number system (as in "280th graduating class" or "280"). This tradition started shortly after the school's founding when it was common to have two graduating classes per year – one in January and one in June. In June 1965, semiannual graduations were replaced by annual graduations. As of the 2024–2025 school year, the current senior class is 284.[6]
- ^ a b c "Central HS". National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved September 28, 2024.
- ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
- ^ "Logan Redevelopment Area Plan[usurped]." Philadelphia City Planning Commission. May 2002. 1 (document page 3). Retrieved on August 2, 2011. "The neighborhood is generally defined as including the area from Wingohocking Street north to Olney Avenue and from Broad Street east to the railroad right-of-way east of Marshall Street. Logan extends west to 16th Street north of Lindley Avenue, where Wakefield Park forms the boundary."
- ^ Nitzsche, George Erazmus (1918). University of Pennsylvania: Its History, Traditions, Buildings and Memorials; Also a Brief Guide to Philadelphia (Seventh ed.). Philadelphia: International Printing Company. p. 290. Retrieved 3 June 2015.
Pennsylvania Act of Assembly April 9, 1849.
- ^ "About Central – Central High School". Retrieved 2023-09-30.
- ^ Edmonds, Franklin Spencer (1902). History of the Central High School of Philadelphia. Philadelphia: Lippincott.