Cranford High School | Special Announcements

Newsweek just released their annual list of the best high schools in the country. Cranford was ranked # 352. For the complete article: Click here.
Congratulations to Eamon Cagney on Placing 1st in Union County on the Merck State Science Integrated Science Exam.
Right handed pitcher Rob Chamra, of the CHS class of 2006, was selected in the 34th round of the MLB draft by the LA Dodgers. Congratulations!
I am pleased to announce that our program, "Cutting Boards for Toys", developed by John Chorazak has been recognized with a Promising Practice Award. Congrats to John, Dori and everyone involved!
Cranford High School placed 502nd out of the top 1900 High Schools in a national ranking of all public schools, based on a challenge index. The index is computed by dividing the number of AP tests taken by students by the number of students graduating. It essentially measures how much students in a given school are challenging themselves
Colleen Jones received the New Jersey Governor's Jefferson Students in Action Award for her volunteerism in creating the Intergenerational Senior Buddy Program.
Cranford High School's presentation of Oklahoma received 12 Rising Star nominations and 2 honorable mentions. All of the results can be seen on the site of the Paper Mill Playhouse.
Each year every county in the state of NJ nominates counselors for Counselor of the Year. Counselors are nominated by their peers and/or students. A committee reads these nominations and selects one counselor per county for this prestigious honor of Counselor of the year. The nominees are commended for their dedication and service to students, parents, educators and the community, and for promoting, by their example, the highest ideals of the school counseling profession. Congratulations to Christine Monsell for being named the 2011 Union County School Counselor of the Year!
Congratulations to CHS Senior, Sheila Lamar, who has been selected as one of New Jersey's Wallenberg Honors Award finalists. She will be recognized on Wednesday, May 11 at Parsippany Hills High School.
At this past weekend's Youth and Government conference, Cranford High School students took part in mock legislative and judicial hearings, ran for office, and participated in debate with 400 students from around New Jersey. click here to view the press release.
Congratulations to CHS Junior, Kevin Strotz, who was selected to attend the NJ Governor's School for Engineering.
Michele Altebrando and Peter Hopkins were selected as Finalists in Photographer's Forum magazine's College Photography Contest. Their photographs will be included in the book, Best of College Photography 2011. It is an honor for their work to have been selected out of the thousands of assets submitted worldwide. Here are links to Michele's photo, and Peters's photo.
Ava Friedrich and Jasmine Smith were chosen to receive the New Jersey Japanese Language Study Award for 2011: The students were chosen by their teacher, Mrs. Fisco, in recognition of their hard work, achievement and interest in learning Japanese language and culture.
The Cranford High School DECA Team attended the State Conference, and achieved great success.
CHS juniors, Billy Daly, Russ Hathaway and Andrew Miller have been selected to attend Boys State at Rider University. Boys State offers training in the processes of self government and good citizenship as practiced in a democratic society.
CHS juniors, Megan Byrne and Rebecca Deczynski have been selected to attend Girls State at Georgian CourtUniversity. Girls State offers training in the processes of self government and good citizenship as practiced in a democratic society.
CHS juniors Anna Zhao and Rebecca Deczynski have been selected as finalists for the prestigious NJ Scholars program. They are two of 78 students in NJ chosen. They will be interviewed in Princeton on March 26, when the group of 39 students will be chosen.
19 Latin students participated in the National Classics Etymology Exam on November 19th, 2010. The NCEE is an exam that tests the students' knowledge of both Latin and Greek etymology and word derivation. Congratulations to Eamon Cagney, who won a Gold Medal Award, Robert Faller, Galen vosseller, Emily Van Hook, and Noah Lee won Silver Medal Awards, and Daniel Rahal and George Smith won Bronze Medal Awards.
Eight Cranford High School German students participated in the National German Examination earlier this year. Kevin Strotz, Russell Hathaway, and Ava Friedrich earned "Achievement" recognition and will receive certificates for their performance. Margarita Bronshteyn, Bridget Gautieri, Aaron Black, Mariana Franzetti, and Thomas Feeney also participated.
Aaron Rogers and the Green Bay Packers defeated Ben Roethlisberger and the Pittsburg Steelers in Super Bowl 45. The Packers have won 13 NFL World championships, and this was the first Super bowl that they have been in since 1998.
Congratulations to the CHS science teams in the 2010-2011 Science League Competition. The Bio I, Bio II and Chem I teams each finished first in the January competition against participating schools: Arthur L. Johnson HS, Jonathan Dayton HS, and Mother Seton Regional HS. Two CHS students led the Bio I team with a combined score of 114, while Mother Seton finished 2nd with 107. ALJ and Dayton rounded out the field with scores of 96 and 93, respectively. The Bio II team finished with a combined score of 124, led by Galen Vosseller and Emily Baumann. Dayton finished 2nd with a score of 118 and ALJ finished 3rd with 102. The Chem I team, led by Eamon Cagney and Gary Hoffman, combined to score 152, with Dayton finishing 2nd with 148, ALJ and Mother Seton tied for 3rd with 140.
One hundred twenty-one Cranford High School student representatives along with their advisors, Mr. Lawrence Fuhro and Mr. Patrick Mamrak, competed with 32 other high schools in the 41st Annual YMCA Model United Nations program at Hershey, Pennsylvania the weekend of January 7, 8, and 9, 2011. Cranford's delegation came away with several awards, including the 2011 Outstanding Delegation award. In addition, individual Cranford delegates won thirteen awards: Security Council President, Outstanding Position Paper, two delegates elected to the Conference on National Affairs in North Carolina, four delegates elected as alternate delegates to the Conference on National Affairs. First year delegate awards were won for the Humanitarian and Cultural Committee, the International Criminal Court, Chair of the Council on Economic Advancement, the Security Council, and the General Assembly "B."
The DemandTec Retail Challenge is a scholarship competition with a goal to get students excited about math and science. Two Cranford businesses, RAM Communications and Retail Wire partnered to offer two CHS participants $1000 scholarships, as well as the opportunity to compete on the national level in this competition. CHS was the only NJ school afforded this opportunity...16 Teams of two seniors competed. CHS seniors Ryan Monahan and Chris Drewniak were awarded the scholarships and given the opportunity to compete with students form across the country at NASDAQ.
Senior Bassoonist Kyle Gautieri recently auditioned for and was accepted to the 2011 New Jersey All-State Symphonic Band. Kyle placed sixth out of sixteen students state wide to achieve the honor. The band will rehearse under the direction of guest conductor Brad Genevro of Messiah College over the weekend of February 24-26, and the event will conclude with a public concert at NJPAC in Newark on Sunday February 26th, at 3PM. For information and tickets, contact NJPAC at 1-888-466-5722.
Thirty four DECA students at Cranford High School scored in the top of their business events, making them not only eligible to compete in the New Jersey DECA Leadership Conference in Cherry Hill, March 9-11 but also the most to ever advance in the history of Cranford High School. Many of our students pleaced within the top ten of their business specialties, including some who placed first. For more information, click here.
Two students from Cranford High School have been chosen for the highly selective New Jersey Central Regional Instrumental Ensembles. The students receiving the honors are seniors Bridget McCoy (French Horn) who placed into the Wind Ensemble and Kyle Gautieri (Bassoon) who placed into the Symphonic Band. The Ensembles consist of a wind ensemble, symphonic band, and an orchestra, composed of only the top players on each instrument. Selection to the ensemble requires winning a spot through an extensive audition process that requires students to perform scales, prepared pieces, and sight-reading. The Region concerts are held each year, and the musicians will rehearse through the weekend of January 14-16 at Montgomery High School. A public performance will be held at Montgomery High School on January 16, 2011 at 3pm.
Thanks to everyone who made donations, Cranford High School's grand piano is leaving the school on January 5th to be refurbished. All of the music students are grateful, and the piano will be back and beautifully restored in April, in time for the Spring performances.
Cranford quilters made a beautiful quilt and raised $110.00 from ticket sales to the Uganda Invisible Children organization.
Tuesday December 21st will be the last day to drop off toys for this years Toys for Tots. Any new unwrapped toy can be dropped off in the woodshop or in the rotunda. Thank you to all who made this years drive a huge success. The club was able to purchase over $1500.00 worth of toys this year and there are still about 100 donated toys in the woodshop waiting to be picked up. This was by far the most successful toy drive since we started participating in the Toys for Tots program 12 years ago!
Allison Barry, a sophomore, won the gold medal at the United States Fencing Association North American Cup Division II held October 18, 2010. Allison won first place over 62 competitors from across the US and Canada. Prior to competing in the junior Olympics in February, for which she recently qualified, she will be competing in USFA national events in November, December and January, throughout the country. Click here for competition bracket. Click here for the news article on usfencing.com
The San Francisco Giants won the 2010 World Series against the Texas Rangers.
Senior Eric Walano, a three sport star in soccer, swimming, and baseball has been selected as the NJ state winner of the 2010 Wendy's High School Heisman! When you get a chance check out the web site here. He is now one of 102 finalists from around the country! If he makes it to the next phase, Eric gets to go to the Heisman Award ceremony in NYC.
The Class of 2011 sold Think Pink T-Shirts for Breast Cancer Awareness. We donated $750 to the Lee Denim Day Fund from the T-Shirt Sales!
"On their way to Atlantic City!" Cranford High School All-State Chorus and Orchestra members, Kyle Aslin, Maeve Brady, Cara Costa, Jake Forrestal, Katie Gordon, Zach Love, Bridget McCoy, Erica Morreale, Allissa Mustillo, and Matthew Stoke perform in Atlantic City, November 5th and again at NJPAC on November 14.
The Cranford High School Marching Band was busy again the weekend of October 23rd as they competed in the USSBA New Jersey State Championships. After a strong competition season where the band took home several awards, including first place at JP Stevens and second place at South Plainfield, the expectations were high. The band delivered one of their best performances of the year and took home 3rd place overall, while also receiving the high score in the category of Music Ensemble. To see the video of the band's performance, click here. In all, 15 bands took the field in division 3a competition, each one showing a great deal of skill while marching formations and performing the music of their show. "After an entire season of hard work and long hours for the kids, it was great to see them really come through and display the abilities that they have. It is easy for groups to get nervous or just have an off day, so we (the band staff) were very proud of the way they handled the pressure today," band director Daniel Chernosky said after the show. Although their official competition season is over, the band will still be performing at the last few football games, and will be featured at the Halloween parade in downtown Cranford on October 31st.
Technical theater students have been working hard on the set for the fall play, Picnic on stage in the auditorium. Show dates are November 12 and 13. Come and see a great show and support the APA theater program.
CHS is proud to announce that NJ Monthly has ranked us as the 13th best high school in the state.