Andover High School (Massachusetts)

Andover High School
Andover High School
Address
80 Shawsheen Road Andover, Massachusetts, 01810 United States
Coordinates	42.6571°N 71.1551°W / 42.6571; -71.1551
Information
School district	Andover Public Schools
Superintendent	Dr. Marinel D. McGrath, Ed.D
Principal	Dr. Chris Lord
Grades	9-12
Gender	Coeducational
Number of students	1,734
Student to teacher ratio	13:1
Hours in school day	6.41 hours
Athletics conference	Merrimack Valley Conference (MVC)
Mascot	Golden Warriors
Rival	Central Catholic High School
Average SAT scores	561 verbal 584 math 555 writing (2010)
Newspaper	Warrior Weekly
Website	http://www.aps1.net/AHS/index.htm

Andover High School (formerly Punchard High School) is a high school in the town of Andover, Massachusetts. As of October 2010, Andover High's Principal is Dr. Chris Lord; its Assistant Principals are Marilyn Jordan, Mark Seide, and Luz Valverde. The school is located at 80 Shawsheen Road, Andover, Massachusetts.

The school building

The school has a Media Center/Library located in the center of the school and a cafeteria located toward the north-west side of the school. AHS also has a "Field House" and a "Dunn Gymnasium." The former is a large room that is used for indoor track, and it is used for other Physical Education classes and for voting as well. It was added on to the school after its initial construction. The latter is a normal, wood-floored, gymnasium that also holds Phys-Ed classes, but it has a separated weight-room/physical exercise room toward the far end.

The Collins Center (named after J. Everett Collins, a local choir conductor who worked at AHS for many years) serves as the school's theatre. Built in 1983, the Collins Center is separated from the rest of the school, annexed to one end of the high school opposite the field house. The AHS Band, Choral, Drama, and Orchestra Departments are housed here. The Collins Center is home to the marching band, concert band, all-town orchestra, concert choir, chamber choir, show choir, and drama guild. Some of the many productions that have taken place at the Collins Center by the highly talented AHS Drama Guild include Rent: School Edition (2010), The Farnsworth Invention (2010), Sound of Music (2009), Brighton Beach Memoirs (2009), A Chorus Line (2008), and Titanic: The Musical (2007).

Student life

Andover High School offers a variety of activities for students. There are over 60 clubs that meet after school ranging from dance to UNICEF, Amigos Unidos to academic clubs. It is also easy to start a new club as long as there are people who want to join it and a faculty advisor to oversee it.

Sports are also offered at AHS for both men and women. Offered year round, the sports vary from Track and Field to Swimming and Diving as well as Volleyball and much more. The teams compete in the Merrimack Valley Conference. The teams are styled as the Golden Warriors, and the mascot is a golden eagle. Andover school colors are navy blue and gold. The Girls Basketball team just won their third State Championship in a row, "three-peat". The Andover boys basketball team was involved in a sexually explicit hazing scandal in November 2011.

Demographics

Andover High School, as of the 2010–2011 school year, has a population of about 1,802 students in grades 9 through 12.

As a reflection of the town of Andover, the racial distribution of the school is:

• White – 82.3%
• Asian – 10.1%
• Hispanic – 3.4%
• African American – 1.9%
• American Indian/Alaskan Native - 0.1%
• Pacific Islander - 0.1%
• Multi-Racial - 2.2%

(Data from Massachusetts state department of education) There are a total of 132 full-time teachers on staff, creating a student-teacher ratio of 13 to 1.^{[citation needed]}

Notable alumni

• Michael Chiklis, actor
• Jay Leno, comedian
• Rob Oppenheim, professional golfer
• Martin Johnson (musician), lead singer of Boys Like Girls
• Ryan Hanigan, professional baseball player
• Buddy Farnham, former Patriots practice squad receiver