- Chaska High School (CHS) is a public high school located in Chaska, Minnesota, a southwestern suburb of the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. CHS is a 9th-12 grade school; Nearly 2000 students attend CHS. The schools mascot is the "Hawk", with the school colors being purple, white, and gold.
- History
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Chaska High School first opened in the early 1900s with its first graduating class in 1906. Since then, Chaska High School has moved to newer facilities three times. Currently, Chaska High School resides at 545 Pioneer Trail. The present facility opened in 1996.
- The Mission
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"All Youth ready for post-secondary education, careers, and active civic participation"
- The core principles of the school are:
- Personalized Learning Environments
- Academic Engagement of All Students
- Accountable Leadership
- Affectionate pupil-educator relationships
- Empowered Educators
- Engaged Community and Youth
- Integrated System of High Standards, Curriculum, Instruction, Assessments, and Supports
- In Accordance with Our Mission and Philosophy, the Goals of Chaska High School are:
- To foster self-awareness, self-worth, and responsibility.
- To provide opportunities for development of social, ethical, emotional, intellectual, aesthetic, and physical elements that shape the total person.
- To design learning experiences that accommodate physical and intellectual differences, allowing development of each individual to fullest potential.
- To establish a system whereby each staff member and student regularly evaluate the educational program and individual performance.
- To maintain a diverse, comprehensive curriculum which meets the needs of a changing society.
- To facilitate open communication and cooperation among all participants in the educational process.
- To promote-flexibility, personal tolerance, and ability to cope with change.
- To develop competence in the triple C's (creativity, communication and computing).
- To stimulate growth in the life skills of problem solving.
- Current Facilities
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Chaska's Current facilities feature auditorium, several gymnasiums, a cafeteria, tech-ed labs, computer labs, a media center, a stadium, and several athletic fields. Originally designed for 1,600 students, the school received a substantial addition in 2004.
- Houses
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Chaska High School is organized into four main houses:
- Purple House
- Red house
- Green House
- Blue House
- Each has an individual title based upon a city within the district; Each house used to be named after a city in Carver County but after Chanhassen High School was built, the houses became named after a color. Each house has two stories and similar design. They are connected by one large hallway. This main hallway is a little less than one quarter mile long. There is also a South Wing of the high school, south of the main hallway, which holds the cafeteria and connects to the activities section of the school.
- Media Center
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The Chaska High School media center is the school's library and technology center. It has four separate labs; two of which use Dell PCs and two which use Apple computers. The first floor consists of the library proper, as well as all PCs. Second floor houses the Apple computer labs, as well as Jumpstart studios, the semi-weekly school news program. The media center area also holds the copy room, tech support and all other IT services for the school. During the 2007-2008 school year, the Media Center and 2 engineering labs received brand new computers to help enhance the student experience.
- The South Wing
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This takes up about half the school's area. It consists of the band room, choir room, cafeteria, the auditorium, the large gymnasium, small gymnasium, weight room, locker rooms, additional classrooms, the activities office, athletic locker rooms, and other athletic related areas. It is connected through the blue house and the media center. The cafeteria is one story with a high cone glass roof, but the athletic area is two stories.
- Curriculum
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Chaska High School employs 'block scheduling,' a method that allows for four classes per day of 90 minutes per block. For the 2009-2010 school year, the District's school board has decided to transition from the block schedule to the "modified block scheduling" currently employed at the nearby Pioneer Ridge Freshman Center.
- Chaska High School offers many tracks and plans for students of each and every learning situation. Post Secondary Education Option, Advanced Placement (AP) courses, Mankato State English, Spanish, and Psychology 101, English Language Learners, Special Education, and the basic core and advanced/honors classes.
- Activities
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Chaska High School has many extracurricular activities such as: Academic Teams (Knowledge Bowl and Quiz Bowl), Art Club, Athletics, DECA, Drama, FFA, General Assembly, Honors society, International Club, Intramurals, Jumpstart, Key Club, Music,, POWZA, Prom Committee, Speech, Student Council, Yearbook, the Young Democrats, the Young Republicans Club, MSHSL, CAP (Chemical Awareness and Prevention), and others.
- Drama
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From longtime director Mr. Jim Lund, every year the CHS Drama Department stages a fall musical, a spring play, and a collection of student-directed one act plays in the winter.Recent plays/musicals include: Godspell, The Twelfth Night, Seussical, Forrest Gump, Goldfinger: The Musical, The Matchmaker, Lord of the Rings, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, The Hollow, Halloween: The Musical, The Pajama Game, Laughing Stock, and West Side Story.
- CHS Drama has won numerous awards, including the recently formed Hennepin Theater Trust's Spotlight Awards. Recent recipients include:
- Pajama Game:
- Best Overall Production of a Musical
- Outstanding Performance in a Leading Role: Kate Hamilton
- Honorable Mention: Joel Peterson
- Outstanding Performance by an Orchestra
- Music
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Chaska High School students have many opportunities to be in music. Three choirs, three bands, and many extracurricular groups offer a wide range of music styles and levels. There are three in-school choirs: Varsity Choir, Treble Choir and Concert Choir, and three in-school bands: Concert Band, Symphonic Band and Wind Ensemble. The three choirs are directed by Mrs. Sarah Gilbertson, who became the choral director of Chaska High School after Mr. Chad Junker retired in 2003. Mrs. Miriam Junker, who retired in 2007, conducted the Concert Band and Wind Ensemble. Timothy F. Beckler now fills that role, while Mr. Paul L. Swanson conducts the Symphonic Band, as well as the two freshman bands at Pioneer Ridge.
- There are two extracurricular choral groups that meet outside of the school day. Bel Canto is an audition-only group for girls grades 10-12, and Chamber Singers is an audition-only group of mixed men and women grades 11 and 12. Students also have the opportunity to try out for a yearly musical, directed by Mr. Jim Lund.
- The band offers a somewhat more diversified range of extracurriculars. There are three high school level jazz bands: Jazz I, Jazz II and Jazz III. Jazz I is an audition-only group for 9-12, while Jazz II is open to grades 10-12, and Jazz III open to 9th graders. The Chaska High School Pep band plays at the school's hockey, basketball and volleyball games throughout the school year. There is also availability for students to be in the pit orchestra for the drama department's musicals. Jazz I, III and Pep band are led by Mr. Paul Leroy Swanson, while Jazz II is led by Mr. Timothy F. Beckler. The school, and district, is home also to a newly formed orchestral program, which ranges across many grades.
- Academic teams
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Chaska High School actively participates in several academic leagues, including Quiz Bowl, Knowledge Bowl, Science Bowl, Math League, and the American Mathematics Contest. In the 2005-2006 school year, Chaska Knowledge Bowl placed 2nd in the state competition, as well as in a series of televised Quiz Bowl matches titled Face Off Minnesota. Also, Chaska Quiz Bowl, led by captain Rob Carson with teammates Andrew Hart, Jon Martin and Andrew Guyton placed 2nd in national competition, defeating St. Thomas Academy to advance to the championship round.
- Chaska has won State Knowledge Bowl Championships in 1992, 1993, 1995, 1997, 2003, and 2009.
- Sports
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Chaska High School is part of the Lake Conference in the Minnesota State High School League. They along with their sister school Chanhassen High School will leave the Lake for the Missota Conference in the fall of 2011.
- Notable alumni
- Erik Paulsen, United States House of Representatives, businessman
- Tim Mattran, football player for the St. Louis Rams
- External links
- Chaska High School website
- Hawk Herald 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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