Churchill High School - What do you love? How could they improve?

[Anonymous]

This post is along the same lines as the one posted for Sidwell. If your DC went or goes there what have you observed, good or bad. i'd like to hear about classes, teachers (not named specifically, though), athletics, etc.

[Anonymous]

Good
A few talented teachers
High standards
Caring counselors
Decent athletics
Very good performing arts department

Bad
A lot of sub par teachers, though most of them are probably better than the "average teacher" in the nation
Not enough required art credits <- not exactly the school's fault
Tremendous amounts of pressure to do well
Not very lenient about skipping math courses

Neutral
Lots of cheating <- your call

Most of my issues concern the county/state/gov't approach to education and not the school itself.

[Anonymous]

Thanks PP. Can you point me in the direction of the good teachers? DD is having quite the sub par year. Science is terrible. Math, foreign language, english are sub par. Other classes are ok. Would really like to know who the excellent math and science teachers are.

[Anonymous]

Well, therein lies the problem for me. I absolutely hated the fact that education turned out to be all about regurgitating facts and plugging numbers into a formula. Nevertheless, I'll list a few that I had a pleasant time learning from.

Note that this small list doesn't imply that all other teachers are horrible. I was only able to work with a VERY small portion of the staff and there are MANY new faces.

Science
Boppana is a very good chemistry teacher. I think her attitude in the classroom is brilliant. She's strict and your daughter will learn much from her.

I also had a pretty good experience with Schwartz. AP Biology was one of my favorite classes at CHS. She's a great teacher although she is much more lenient than Boppana. Unfortunately, biology is one of the subjects that is plagued with memorization. If your DD takes this class, I would encourage her to attempt to connect all of the concepts to one another throughout the year rather than simply forgetting course material as the year goes on. Admittedly, I slept a lot in her class, but did well nonetheless. I thought that another negative aspect of the class is that the tests came from the book. However, I'm sure your DD is used to this already, and there really isn't any way to escape it in the public education system.

Kang was a brilliant physics teacher. Corny jokes and a bright mind. However, he left sick midway through my senior year and does not seem to be back. Do try to take a class with him if the chance presents itself.

Math
Although math was my strongest subject in HS, I have to say that I wasn't impressed. HS math is largely built around simple word problems and prescribed formulas. I don't see your DD stepping into a classroom where it won't be, so she'll have to take what she can get.

Cohen was okay for me. She was my teacher for two straight years. She goes at a very fast pace, and some did fall behind. I know a few of my friends had different experiences with her than I did.

Williams is head of the department and a very knowledgeable teacher. Similar to all other math courses and AP Bio, this course was a plug and chug course. She will give a lot of repetitive problem sets.

Your call on the math courses. There are brilliant teachers, but I just didn't sit well with the approaches they take.

Some general advice:

Foreign language
The latin department is a joke. I don't believe it exists anymore though...I don't see the teacher on the school website.

Spanish will only be useful if your DD is willing to expend time and energy on the subject while her peers goof off a bit.

I didn't hear much about French/Chinese while I was there.

I personally think that the foreign language department doesn't shine very much. While many of my college friends speak their respective foreign languages quite well, even while drunk, I find that my HS peers are quite lacking in that department, myself included.

English
The only serious English teacher I had the opportunity to learn from was Kim. He's very observant and definitely taught me more than I had in the years prior.

However, I did hear good things about the AP Lang/Lit courses and teachers, but be prepared to commit a lot of time if your DD chooses to enroll in those. Honors/regular English really is a crapshoot. Most counselors won't allow your daughter to choose your teacher.

Humanities
If your daughter has a course with Carroll right now, then great! If not, then it's not the end of the world. He is leaving after this year though.

Gadel was a pleasure to learn from. But I regret taking her philosophy/religion courses. Many students sign up for it as a joke class, and thus it turned into a joke class.

Schilling is a very engaging teacher as well, but it may be too late for your DD to take NSL/AP NSL.


I urge your daughter to simply take courses in subjects she is interested in and make it a personal goal to excel in those subjects, whether she likes the teacher or not. Do not treat my writings as a prescription; these are simply my reflections on my last two years in HS. I found myself to be very different from the vast majority of my friends in terms of intellectual curiosity. Once again, I have only taken courses with a very small portion of the staff. Some are new faces, and others I wasn't able to learn from due to scheduling. Things have gotten better for me in college due to the more relaxed guidelines on course curriculum.

Just survive high school and pick the right college/university.