Academic organization
Charlestown High School serves students in grades nine through twelve. The school is organized into five small learning communities and pathways, which were created in 1998 and 1999.
These groups are divided between a lower school and an upper school. Each community offers a college-preparatory program and focuses on a main area of study, such as web design, law and justice, pre-engineering, business and technology, or preparation for the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) exams. [2]
Each community or pathway is supported by about ten teachers and one instructional leader, with teachers assigned to a specific theme.
Demographics
The School Report Card reflects that 70.6% of the students enrolled in 2003-2004 were in regular education, and 7.1% in bilingual education, with a further 22.2% in special education.
The racial and ethnic composition of the student population in the school was 46% African-American, 26% Hispanic, 20% Asian, and 8% White. [3]
Busing and desegregation
Charlestown High School received considerable national attention in the 1975–1976 school year when court-mandated forced busing brought African-American children to what was at that time a predominantly white high school in an Irish neighborhood of Boston. Forced busing initially brought great discord and resulted in fights and arrests, however there were also enduring images, such as the famous photograph of a black and a white student holding hands out the window of their school bus (see the NPR article in the external links below).
Contributing to the discord was the September 28, 1979 school shooting of Darryl K. Williams, an African-American football player for Jamaica Plain High School, who was at Charlestown playing football. Three Irish Americans, at least one of whom had dropped out of Charlestown High School, shot Williams while he was on the field during halftime, while his team was huddled for a pep talk. [4] Williams was permanently paralyzed from below the neck. The shooting was initially considered racially motivated, and a race riot was barely averted. Despite this, a large rally was held at Boston's City Hall Plaza in support of Williams. As a result of this incident, Charlestown did not play home football games for nine years after this incident for security reasons. [5]
Sports success
The Charlestown High School boys basketball team takes part in the Boston City League, and won the state championship for four straight years, from 1999 to 2003, [6] and in 2005, the team won the Division 2 State Championship. [6] During these years, the head coach was Jack O'Brien and his assistant coaches were Zach Zegarowski, Steve Cassidy and Hugh Coleman.
University of Connecticut and NBA Orlando Magic [7] guard Shabazz Napier is a former player of the Charlestown basketball team, and his jersey was retired by the high school in January 2014. [8]
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