General CCHS FAQ's
By Belia Gonzalez McDonald
February 09, 2010
Here are some questions posed recently by our Class of 2014 parents:
What unique programs and characteristics constitute the CCHS Advantage?
- Central Catholic believes that boys should learn as boys. Our seven-period day has been shown to be an advantage. Our single-gender environment eliminates many distractions and "drama." Our teachers are coached to appeal to male learning modalities.
- Central Catholic is serious about educating Christian gentlemen, missionaries, lay and clerical, to a world in need. Our Sodality is an unique approach to building Christian leaders.
- Although all of our curricula is college-preparatory, we believe that there are significant differences in students that require we create and continually improve the different "tracks" of learning, especially in language arts, math and science. Our advanced tracks culminate in AP or college classes in every core discipline.
- Central Catholic's leadership development begins with the JROTC program and continues through our Sodality, multi-level leadership opportunities, student retreats and organizations, and Student Council.
Your science curriculum is well-known across the city. How does it operate and why don't you encourage students to attend science fairs? There's lots of scholarship money in such programs.
- Our science program has three tracks, a basic college prep track with three classes, an honors track with four classes (required for the honors diploma) and an AP or advanced track with five or six units of science culminating in college chemistry or anatomy/physiology
- Seven cooperating schools offer our introductory "physics with algebra" course to their honors 8th grade math students taking algebra. Students who receive an 83 or higher in the 8th grade automatically get a science credit from CCHS and go into honors biology as freshmen.
- We do not discourage students from entering science fair competitions, and even sponsor our engineering students into a robotics competition in most years. However, we have found that by focusing on their math and science studies, our students can garner more college-level attention and scholarships than are available at such public competitions. Moreover, students who work on such research projects can act against their acquisition of a very broad and math-intensive science education in the high school.
What tuition assistance programs will be available in 2010-11?
- We are grateful to our friends and alumni for providing us with annual contributions to scholarships and emergency aid programs, and to the many who have endowed our school so we can give scholarships on a continuing basis.
- More information on scholarships can be found at the general admissions page.
- We have been notified that because of significant market declines recently, we will probably not have as much assistance money available in 2010-11 as we had this year.
Do public school students have a disadvantage when applying to Central Catholic?
We treat each applicant with equal fairness and as individuals. While our Catholic middle schools are familiar with our curricula, and some even teach our classes at their schools while being mentored by our teachers, we work with the families to make sure that public school students are academically prepared to start at Central Catholic. This means that students--whatever their background--may be required to take a summer "acceleration lane" course to shore up their Math and English foundations. We have about 10% of our students coming from public school each year. Most tend to do very well. With our small classes and our Big Brother mentor program, students have avenues to become engaged with the institutional community, and real members of our Marianist family.
What do you offer in the way of summer programs?
We offer many types of summer programs. We have a very active sports camp including football, basketball, and strength and conditioning. We have a band camp and a JROTC camp. We offer our acceleration lane program which includes math, English, and study skills. We anticipate again offering World Geography, Communication Technology, and Physics I as academic options for advancement to our incoming freshmen.
When do I need to turn in my son's application packet?
We are not taking applications at this time. Complete and submit yours as soon as possible. Once we receive his HSPT scores, usually about a week after the test, we are ready to begin reviewing his application. If it is not complete by then, we will contact you to inform you of what we still need. However, if we are not able to review his application by mid-January, then we may not be able to guarantee an admissions decision by February 5, 2010 when the notifications are mailed out to all applicants.
What is the student-faculty ratio? What is the average class size?
We have 36 full-time equivalents on our faculty, comprising 40 teachers and teacher-administrators. The student-faculty ratio, using the FTE number, is 15:1. The average class size is 23. We occasionally have a class as large as 29, but that is very rare. Some advanced classes have as few as eight students.
What is the student-faculty ratio? What is the average class size?
We have 36 full-time equivalents on our faculty, comprising 40 teachers and teacher-administrators. The student-faculty ratio, using the FTE number, is 15:1. The average class size is 23. We occasionally have a class as large as 29, but that is very rare. Some advanced classes have as few as eight students.
