Albany High School (New York)

Albany High School (AHS) in Albany, New York, United States, is a public high school with an enrollment of about 2,670 students for the 2023-2024 school year. The school is part of the City School District of Albany. It opened on September 7, 1868, as the Albany Free Academy. Albany High has been located at 700 Washington Avenue since 1974. The school is an International Baccalaureate school with an Advanced Placement program. The school newspaper is The Nest (published online, it replaced the longtime print newspaper The Patroon, in 2012), the literary magazine is Inkblot, and the yearbook is Prisms.

Albany High School
Address
700 Washington Avenue Albany , New York 12203 United States
Information
Type	Urban public high school
Motto	Assiduity
Established	September 7, 1868
School district	City School District of Albany
Principal	Jodi M. Commerford
Faculty	199.19
Grades	9–12
Enrollment	2,676 (2022–23)
Student to teacher ratio	13.44
Color(s)	Blue and Gray
Mascot	Falcon
Accreditation	Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools International Baccalaureate World Schools
Nicknames	Albany High, AHS
Website	https://www.albanyschools.org/schools/albanyhigh/index

History

On September 7, 1868, when the Albany Free Academy opened its doors to the public, there were 141 students enrolled. For a time, the school was located in Van Vechten Hall at 119 State Street until it was relocated to Eagle Street on May 4, 1876 (where the Albany County Courthouse now can be found). In 1913, the school was relocated to a new location that was more centrally located on North Lake Avenue between Washington Avenue and Western Avenue so that it would be more accessible for students. This location served as Albany High School until the 1974-75 school year, when the school relocated once again to its current campus at 700 Washington Ave. The 1973-74 Albany High building served as Philip Schuyler Elementary School until 2005, and then as temporary swing space for several City School District of Albany schools during a sweeping district-wide facilities project during the 2000s. The district sold the building to the University at Albany in 2010.

Prior to 1974, Albany had two high schools, Albany High and the former Philip Schuyler High School in the South End. The schools merged for the 1974-75 school year to become the "new" Albany High at the 700 Washington Ave. location.

Until 2011, Albany High was divided into two large administrative divisions known as the "North House" and the "South House." Each house had its own cafeteria and administrative offices.

In 2011, the school created four themed learning communities referred to as academies (Citizenship Academy, Discovery Academy, Innovation Academy and Leadership Academy). As a result of the establishment of these four academies, students have access to additional support staff and have the opportunity to experience a themed academic environment while still in high school. It is important to note that all of Albany High's students are assigned to one of the four academies. The Citizenship and Innovation academies share the former South House cafeteria, while the Discovery and Leadership Academies share the former North House cafeteria. All elective courses within the school are grouped according to the theme of a particular academy; however, regardless of the academy a student is enrolled in, he or she may take any of the wide variety of elective courses within the school.

In November 2015, city voters narrowly defeated a $196 million plan to renovate and expand Albany High by a close vote of 5,794 to 5,897.

Voters approved a revised $179.9 million proposal in February 2016. Construction began in 2018, to be completed in four phases. The full Rebuilding Albany High School project is on schedule for completion in 2025.

Albany High School is the only comprehensive public high school in the city.

In 2021, Onovu Otitigbe-Dangerfield became the first African-American valedictorian in the school's 152-year history.

Academics

Albany High has a wide variety of academic programs, including a longstanding Advanced Placement program offering 19 courses. In 2005, AHS was accredited as an International Baccalaureate World School and introduced an IB Diploma Program, which consists of a series of college-level courses for juniors and seniors leading to an alternative diploma. Every year, several IB or AP students typically attend some of the nation's top-ranked universities, including those in the Ivy League. Albany High has made Newsweek's list of America's Top Public High Schools on multiple occasions, most recently in 2010 (when it ranked 976). The ranking is based on the Challenge Index, which calculates the number of AP and IB exams taken at a school divided by the number of graduating seniors.

Most academic courses are taught at Core, Regents, and Honors levels. Three foreign languages (Spanish, French, Chinese), are available. Within New York State, AHS was one of the first public schools outside of New York City to offer any form of Chinese as a foreign language. The school also has Senior Career Explorations (internships) in six areas and a Project Lead the Way engineering program. An annex, the Abrookin Vocation-Technical Center, offers many career and technical courses

School receivership

In 2015 the New York State Education Department classified Albany High School as a "Struggling School" and placed it under the school receivership of the Superintendent of the City School District of Albany. If the school does not demonstrate improvement in student performance within two years an Independent Receiver will be appointed by the district to serve under contract to the State Education Commissioner, and the district will have no control over decisions affecting the school.

Campus

Albany High's current location at 700 Washington Avenue, which opened in 1974. The school consists of three brick buildings connected by indoor pedestrian bridges. The largest of these, the academic building, contains the classrooms, cafeterias, and media center. Across from the academic structure are the physical education building (housing the gymnasiums, locker rooms, and HVAC equipment) and another building containing the main office, auditorium, and music classrooms. Three bridges on the second floor connect the buildings.

Academic building

A rear view of Albany High's academic building showing Towers One, Two, and Three.

The academic building is the largest edifice on the Albany High School campus and the only one with three stories. The ground floor contains the two cafeterias (Citizenship/Innovation and Discovery/Leadership), kitchen, special education classrooms, technology classrooms, art studios, a recently opened school store known as "Falcons Rock", a Model U.N. room, a mock courtroom, various other classrooms, and even a credit union room known as the "Falcon Branch". The second floor is the main hub of the school because it is connected to the other two buildings by the pedestrian bridges. It contains the media center (the large school library housing over 26,000 books as well as PC desktop computers). The library was fully renovated in 2012. The second floor also contains the college center (a relatively new room with computers intended to be used by students to research colleges), and many classrooms. The third floor is entirely occupied by classrooms. All the science labs are located on this floor.

The dominant architectural feature of the rectangular building is its six towers, numbered one through six. Towers One, Two, and Three are on the west side, and Towers Four, Five, and Six are on the east side. The towers contain stairwells, restrooms, and assorted offices (Tower Two contains the school's elevator). They also have skylights above each stairwell. Students in Citizenship and Innovation Academies enter the school through Tower Six while students in Discovery and Leadership Academies enter through Tower Four.

The bulk of the Innovation Academy classrooms are located in the southern half of the first and second floors. The bulk of the Discovery Academy classrooms are located in the northern half of the second floor. The third floor of the academic building contains the bulk of the Leadership Academy and Citizenship Academy classrooms. The bulk of the Citizenship Academy classrooms are located in the southern half of the building and the bulk of the Leadership Academy are located in the northern half of the building. The four academies form academy wings painted their own distinct color (green for Citizenship Academy, gold for Discovery Academy, red for Innovation Academy, and blue for Leadership Academy) and has its own academy office and health office. The large guidance suite located in the Discovery Academy wing on the second floor provides all four academies with a set number of guidance counselors.

Room numbers in the academic building have three digits, with the first digit indicating the floor number. The other two digits depend on the side of the building, with the rooms of the northern half having odd numbers and the rooms of the Southern Half having even numbers. Rooms numbers increase as one goes towards the center of the building.

Physical education building

The physical education building contains the indoor athletic facilities. These include the main gymnasium (which can be divided into three smaller gyms using motorized curtains), "Rubber Gym" (a smaller gym named for its floor material), wrestling gym, dance studio, and six-lane swimming pool. The building also houses the male and female locker rooms, the athletic health office, the athletic director's office, and the Falcon Fitness Center, a recently renovated weight room. On the first floor of the two story building is the boiler room housing the school's heating equipment. The two air conditioning units are located on the roof.

Auditorium building

The third building on the Albany High campus houses the auditorium, main offices, and music classrooms. The diamond shaped auditorium has red cushioned seats, a triangular stage, and a catwalk area which is accessible by ladder. Located on the ground floor, the music facilities include a rehearsal rooms, choir room, office, and several practice rooms. The auditorium building contains the main lobby and serves as an entrance for school visitors.

Courtyard

The courtyard

The courtyard is located between the three buildings. A brick and concrete space with small trees and many benches, it serves as an entrance place for students during the morning. Senior year students have the privilege of eating lunch here. The school's three walkway bridges pass over the courtyard. Its concrete pavement was resurfaced in 2011.

Athletic fields

The Albany High campus contains athletic fields for soccer, baseball, American football, and softball. The school's running track was resurfaced in 2003. Albany High's varsity football, soccer and baseball teams play their games at nearby Bleecker Stadium.

Abrookin Career and Technical Center

The Abrookin Career and Technical Center (formerly known as Abrookin Vocational-Technical Center) is a disconnected building of Albany High School located three blocks north of the main campus at 99 Kent Street. The building offers many career and technical courses in fields such as construction, cooking, electricity, engineering, cosmetology, computers (including a Cisco networking academy), and even an emergency medical technician course. It also houses family and consumer sciences courses. Students can walk to Abrookin from the main campus for a 1 to 3 period-long class. It takes about eight minutes to walk from the main campus to Abrookin. The building opened in 1974 as the Albany Occupational Center. The building was later renamed after the late school board member Manny Abrookin (1922–1994).

Demographics

Of Albany High School's approximately 2,600 students, about 54% are African-American, 21% are White (non-Hispanic), 13% are Hispanic, 11% are Asian, and 1% are Native American or multiracial. The school has about 159 teachers and 49 other professional staff, with a student-to-teacher ratio of approximately 14:1. Albany High enrolls students from more than 40 foreign nations.

Athletics

Albany High School's interscholastic athletics program is affiliated with the New York State Public High School Athletic Association (Section II). Albany High's student-athletes competed in the Big Ten Conference for many years until the conference disbanded following the 2013–14 school year. Many sports are played at both varsity and junior varsity levels. Albany High School soccer team made it through to the sectional semi-final in 2007, losing to Niskayuna High School. In 2013 Albany made it to the finals in sectionals, eventually losing to 2nd seed Guilderland. Recently, their varsity basketball teams have found success, as the girls’ team won the 2022 and 2023 Section II Championship, and the boys’ team made it to the 2022 Section II Semifinals. The boys’ season was very monumental, as it was the school’s first trip to the Class AA Final Four since 2011, the most wins (16) in more than two decades, and the first Suburban Council Gray Division championship. Isaiah Austin also became the first member of the boys’ team to score 1,000 career points in 19 years.

Notable alumni

• Glen Barker – Houston Astros outfielder
• Alex Gordon (rugby union) Rugby flanker for Allegheny Rugby Union
• Tracy Baskin – Former Olympiac track and field athlete in the 800 meters, former 4 by 4 co-world record holder, #3 rank 1988 US men 800m
• Carolee Carmello – Broadway actress who made her Broadway debut in City of Angels; she starred in Lestat, Parade and Mamma Mia!.
• Lionel Chalmers – Basketball player who went to Xavier University and the NBA. He was drafted by the L.A. Clippers and traded to the Minnesota Timberwolves for the 2005–2006 NBA season.
• Gene Cretz – Class of 1968 – former U.S. Ambassador to Libya, and U.S. Ambassador to Ghana; taught English at Albany High from 1977 to 1979.
• William Devane – Film and television actor
• Alfred Freedman, M.D. – Class of 1933 – Psychiatrist who headed the American Psychiatric Association when it declared homosexuality was not a mental disorder in 1973.
• Stefon Harris – Class of 1991 – Jazz musician, vibraphonist
• Charlie Leigh – NFL player for the 17–0 1972 Miami Dolphins Super Bowl Champions, primarily as a kick returner
• James Hilton Manning, mayor of Albany
• Catherine McCabe – Class of 1969 – Acting Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency in 2017
• Michael Premo – Class of 1999 – Award-winning artist, activist, and organizer. He is a central figure in the Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Sandy movements, co-director of the participatory documentary, Sandy Storyline and creator of the documentary project Housing is a Human Right.
• Carrie Turner – Popular New York actress in the 1880s and 1890s.
• Charlayne Woodard – Award-winning American film, stage and television actor and playwright

Principals

• 1868 – 1886: Arianna M Gauthier
• 1886 – 1911: Oscar D. Robinson
• 1911 – 1916: Frank A. Gallup
• 1916 – 1951: Harry E. Pratt
• 1951 – 1959: Stanley Heason
• 1959 – 1967: Douglas W. Lincoln
• 1968 – 1986: Armand Rodriguez
• 1987 – 1995: David McGuire
• 1995 – 1998: Willard Washburn
• 1998 – 2001: John Metallo
• 2001 – 2002: John Pellitier
• 2002 – 2006: Michael T. Cioffi
• 2006 – 2009: F. Maxine Fantroy-Ford
• 2009 – 2012: David C. McCalla
• 2012 – 2015: Cecily L. Wilson-Turner
• 2015 – 2018: Dale Getto
• 2018 – : Jodi M. Commerford

See also

• Albany City School District
• List of high schools in New York (state)

References

• Albany High School History

External links

• Albany High School website
• Albany City School District website