- Hamilton High School is the second public high school built in Chandler, Arizona. It was the first high school in Chandler to have a branch of the Chandler Public Library integrated into the school. The school was named after the Hamilton family, one of the pioneer, founding families of Chandler Arizona. The Hamilton's moved to Chandler Arizona from Texas around the turn of the century and farmed the land for generations where Hamilton High School now stands. John Augustus Hamilton, one of the Hamilton brothers who farmed the land the school is built on was a World War I combat veteran and Sheriff of the South East area of Phoenix. The corner of Arizona Ave and Ocotillo, where the football stadium now stands, was known for years as Hamilton's Corner. Here the Hamilton's ran a general store. The front of the store could often be seen with horses hitched to the hitching post and buckboard wagons coming into town for supplies.
- Academics
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Hamilton High received the Chandler Education Foundation 100% Awareness status from 1998-2001, and was the only Arizona A+ school in 2005. Hamilton's faculty includes more instructors with master's degrees than any other public school in Arizona, and is recognized as an academic powerhouse.
- Athletics
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Hamilton is well-known throughout the state for its superiority in sports. Students are involved in numerous athletic activities, such as football, soccer, basketball, golf, lacrosse, hockey, softball, wrestling, tennis, badminton, swimming, and volleyball. Its traditional rival in the Chandler School District is Chandler High School, but competition is increasing with the city's second newest high school, Basha High School. The city of Chandler and Chandler Unified School District's rapid growth has contributed to the construction of a fourth high school in the district, Perry High School, which opened in 2007.
- Hamilton High School's football teams are perennially dominant: they won Arizona Division 5A State Championship for the 2003-2004, 2004-2005, 2006-2007 and 2008-2009 school years, and also played in the title games in 2001 (vs Red Mountain) and 2005 (lost 15-14 vs Brophy). Hamilton has enjoyed some national attention through its superior players like Covaughn Deboskie, Gerrell Robinson and current NFL Baltimore Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs. The baseball team has won three state championships including 2007-2008, and appeared in two others. The freshman team was also titled Babe Ruth National Champions in 2007-2008. Hamilton's Coed Cheer Squad regularly competes and finishes in the top five at the national championships, as well as having won the state championship almost every year since Hamilton opened.
- In 2007, there were allegations that some local high school athletic programs, including Hamilton's, recruit athletes. This has drawn the attention of the Arizona Interscholastic Association, which governs high school sports in the state of Arizona. After refusing to cooperate in an investigation, the private investigator was forced to report the allegations as false.
- Activities
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Extracurricular activities include 27 interscholastic athletic teams, a chapter of the National Honor Society, Academic Decathlon, We the People, Speech and Debate, Student Government, and forty diverse clubs and organizations. Among these are the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Step Dancing Club, Invisible Children Club, Key Club, Young Republicans, Young Democrats, Muslim Students Association, Asian Club, and Dance Dance Revolution Club.
- Each year, Hamilton hosts the Hamilton Invitational Science and Engineering Fair (HISEF), in which high-school students from all schools in the Chandler School District compete in many different categories, including biology, physics, mathematics and computers, behavioral science, botany, and zoology. Elementary and middle-schoolers also compete in their own divisions. In addition, the SECME mousetrap car competitions are held the day of the fair.
- Design
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Initially built to hold 2,600 students, the 3,000+ students at Hamilton may find getting around school a bit difficult. Hamilton is, for the most part, a two story, completely enclosed campus (all main classrooms and main facilities are inside of the same building, with the exception of few mobile classrooms, in the back part of the school. This keeps students of out the scorching hot weather during the summer, and it also creates a safer environment and makes securing the school easier if a lock-down is necessary. Each class is located in one of Hamilton's eight main hallways. Each hallway has its own staircase so students don't have to go to a very crowded main hallway in order to get to a class upstairs. The main hallways are the only connection to the library, administrations office, cafeteria, gym, and auditorium located on the southern side of the school. Many electives such as P.E., theater, choir, band, and orchestra take place in these areas. The auditorium sits about 600, a cafeteria for 600, which nevertheless is very crowded during lunch, a gym that seats about 1,900, and the football stadium seats 7,500. Hamilton also has a track, a public swimming pool where the swim team practices, complete with special water features, multiple tennis courts, two soccer fields, and six fields used for baseball and practice. See Aerial View via Google Maps
- Notable alumni
- Terrell Suggs, Baltimore Ravens defensive end / linebacker
- External links
- Hamilton High School official website
- School report card from the Arizona Department of Education
- Hamilton High School Instrumental Music Program
- Hamilton Soccer Website
- Source: Wikipedia; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.
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