Little Rock Central High School is a comprehensive public high school in Little Rock, Arkansas, United States. Central High School was the site of forced school desegregation during the American Civil Rights Movement. Central is located at the intersection of Daisy L. Gatson Bates Drive (named for the civil rights leader and formerly known as 14th Street) and Park Street.
Central can trace its origins back to 1869 when the Sherman School operated in a wooden structure at 8th and Sherman streets, which produced its first graduating class on June 13, 1873. In 1885 the Sherman School was moved to 14th and Scott streets and was aptly named Scott Street School but was more commonly called City High School. Five years later in 1890, the Peabody School was constructed at West Capitol and Gaines streets. It was named in honor of philanthropist George Peabody from US$200,000 received via the Peabody Education Fund. In 1905, the city founded Little Rock High School at the intersection of 14th and Cumberland streets, and shuttered the Peabody and Scott Street schools to serve as the city's sole public high school. In 1927 at a cost of US$1.5 million, the city completed construction on the nation's largest and most expensive high school facility that remains in use today. In 1955 with the construction of Hall High School, the school was renamed to its present-day name of Little Rock Central High School and has since been listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places and named as a U.S. National Historic Landmark.
Central High School, which covers grades 9 through 12, has an enrollment of 2,456 (2010-11). It is in the Little Rock School District. The current principal is Nancy Rousseau, who became principal in 2002.
Read more about Little Rock Central High School: Academics, Extracurricular Activities, Feeder Patterns, Notable Alumni, Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site
Famous quotes containing the words rock, central, high and/or school:
“Never before has a generation of parents faced such awesome competition with the mass media for their children’s attention. While parents tout the virtues of premarital virginity, drug-free living, nonviolent resolution of social conflict, or character over physical appearance, their values are daily challenged by television soaps, rock music lyrics, tabloid headlines, and movie scenes extolling the importance of physical appearance and conformity.”
—Marianne E. Neifert (20th century)
“But when the self speaks to the self, who is speaking?—the entombed soul, the spirit driven in, in, in to the central catacomb; the self that took the veil and left the world—a coward perhaps, yet somehow beautiful, as it flits with its lantern restlessly up and down the dark corridors.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“Oh high is the price of parenthood,
And daughters may cost you double.
You dare not forget, as you thought you could,
That youth is a plague and a trouble.”
—Phyllis McGinley (20th century)
“A man of sense and energy, the late head of the Farm School in Boston Harbor, said to me, “I want none of your good boys,Mgive me the bad ones.” And this is the reason, I suppose, why, as soon as the children are good, the mothers are scared, and think they are going to die.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)