E. O. Smith High School
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E. O. Smith High School, (or E.O. Smith) named after a member of Connecticut's legislature and former
University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from H ...
president Edwin O. Smith, is a secondary school located in Storrs, Connecticut, United States. E.O. Smith was established by the University of Connecticut in 1958 as the first high school in the area.


Overview

E.O. Smith High School serves the towns of Ashford, Mansfield, and Willington, which together make up Connecticut's Regional School District #19. E.O. Smith also serves students from the nearby town of Columbia, and students from surrounding towns such as
Coventry Coventry ( or ) is a city in the West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its city status until the Middle Ages. The city is governed b ...
and Windham may attend E. O. Smith as participants in the school's
Agriculture Education Agricultural education is the teaching of agriculture, natural resources, and land management. At higher levels, agricultural education is primarily undertaken to prepare students for employment in the agricultural sector. Classes taught in an ...
program.


Student demographics

In the 2021-22 academic year, E.O. Smith had an enrollment of 1,094 students in grades 9-12, and a student-teacher ratio of 12.7 to 1. While enrollment has been flat since the 2018-19 school year (1,091 students), the number of teachers has fallen, so the student-teacher ratio has increased (from 11.2 to 12.7). About one quarter (26%) of students come from poor households (measured by how many qualify for free or reduced-price school lunch). The majority of E.O. Smith students identify as white (76 percent), while 7 percent identify as Asian, 12 percent Hispanic, and 4 percent Black. Less than one percent of the student body identifies as multiracial, American Indian, Alaska Native, or Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander.


History

E. O. Smith was established in 1958 as a
laboratory school A laboratory school or demonstration school is an elementary or secondary school operated in association with a university, college, or other teacher education institution and used for the training of future teachers, educational experimentation, ...
for research and teacher training for the University of Connecticut, serving the towns of Ashford and Mansfield. It is located adjacent to the University of Connecticut campus, and was owned by the State of Connecticut and operated by the university until June 30, 1987. On that day, Public Act 84-42 was instated and the State Legislature voted to give ownership of the school to the Town of Mansfield and the Town of Ashford as long as the towns agreed to pay for the physical rehabilitation of the school. The Town of Willington joined the region in 1993. Dr. Louis DeLoreto has been principal of E.O. Smith since 2001. He is a graduate of UConn's educational administration program.


Academics

As a regional public high school, E.O. Smith offers a general secondary education curriculum, including foreign languages, science courses, history, English, etc. It has a special program in agriscience, tracing to its proximity to and history as part of UConn, which began as the Storrs Agricultural College. Students at E.O. Smith may take early college courses for credit at the University of Connecticut (adjacent to the high school campus), Eastern Connecticut State University in Willimantic, or Manchester Community College, in
Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
.


Extracurricular activities and sports

E.O. Smith science students have been active in a
coral reef A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups. C ...
conservation Conservation is the preservation or efficient use of resources, or the conservation of various quantities under physical laws. Conservation may also refer to: Environment and natural resources * Nature conservation, the protection and managem ...
project, propagating and maintaining a reef aquarium so students can learn about aquaculture, marine biology and reef ecosystems. E.O. Smith has hosted the New England Frag Farmer's Market for fifteen years, and it has become the biggest one-day coral event in the country, with over 1500 attendees in 2019. Wangumbaug Lake, in Coventry, Connecticut, location of rowing practice for the crew team. E.O. Smith soccer has a notable record. The soccer coach for forty years, John Blomstrann, has led the teams to more wins than any other coach in Connecticut history. From 1980 to 2020, Blomstrann coached the teams to 565 victories. Over a three-year period, from 1980 to 1983, the boys' soccer team won all but two games in the Eastern Connecticut Conference. EOS soccer player Lyle Yorks, was one of the most highly decorated youth players in Connecticut.2008 Connecticut Soccer Hall of Fame
Yorks won two
NCAA championships The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges and ...
with the
University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States, with highly selective ad ...
team, and then went on to a career in Major League Soccer. The school's
co-ed Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to ...
crew A crew is a body or a class of people who work at a common activity, generally in a structured or hierarchical organization. A location in which a crew works is called a crewyard or a workyard. The word has nautical resonances: the tasks involved ...
team was established in 1992. As the sport is dominated by private schools, it is the only public school rowing program in Northeastern Connecticut. The team practices at Coventry Lake ( Wangumbaug Lake) in the town of
Coventry Coventry ( or ) is a city in the West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its city status until the Middle Ages. The city is governed b ...
, where it shares a boathouse at with the UConn Huskies rowing team and uses some of the college's equipment. The E.O. Smith Drama Club presents four shows per year, including a winter musical, two straight shows in the fall and spring, and a night of senior directed one-acts at the end of the year. The spring show is performed at the Connecticut Drama Association Festival where cast and crew members have a chance to win awards and advance to the New England Drama Festival. E.O. Smith's Drama Club has won several awards from the Connecticut Drama Association including outstanding performance for ''Animal Farm'' (2009) and ''Lily's Purple Plastic Purse'' (2010), allowing them to continue to the New England Drama Festival, which E.O. Smith hosted in 2009. Several E. O. Smith actors have also won individual awards for their performances in the shows or in the Connecticut Drama Association Monologue Contest. The school has had competitive computer science and math teams since the early 1980s.


Notable alumni

* Desireé Bassett '10- guitar virtuoso *
Rivers Cuomo Rivers Cuomo ( ; born June 13, 1970) is an American musician. He is the lead vocalist, guitarist, pianist, and songwriter of the rock band Weezer. Cuomo was raised in a number of Buddhist communities in the Northeast U.S. until the age of 10, wh ...
'83 – musician, frontman of
Weezer Weezer is an American rock band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1992. Since 2001, the band has consisted of Rivers Cuomo (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Patrick Wilson (drums, backing vocals), Scott Shriner (bass guitar, keyboards, backing ...
* Elliot Gerson - American Secretary to the
Rhodes Trust Rhodes House is a building part of the University of Oxford in England. It is located on South Parks Road in central Oxford, and was built in memory of Cecil Rhodes, an alumnus of the university and a major benefactor. It is listed Grade II* ...
* Jennifer Gordon '83 -
MacArthur Fellow The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 indi ...
, professor and immigrant rights lawyer * Tim PagePulitzer Prize-winning critic and author *
Vin Suprynowicz Vin Suprynowicz (born c. 1950) is an American libertarian author who formerly edited editorial pages for the Las Vegas, Nevada-based ''Las Vegas Review-Journal''. He has published two volumes of nonfiction essays on the philosophy of law and socie ...
– Libertarian newspaper columnist *
Peter Tork Peter Halsten Thorkelson (February 13, 1942 – February 21, 2019), better known by his stage name Peter Tork, was an American musician and actor. He was best known as the keyboardist and bass guitarist of the Monkees and a co-star of the TV ...
'63– musician, member of
The Monkees The Monkees were an American rock and pop band, formed in Los Angeles in 1966, whose lineup consisted of the American actor/musicians Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork alongside English actor/singer Davy Jones. The group was con ...
, first graduating class at EOS * Lyle Yorks – MLS soccer midfielder, two-time
NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...
champion at
University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States, with highly selective ad ...
2008 Connecticut Soccer Hall of Fame


References


External links

{{authority control Mansfield, Connecticut Schools in Tolland County, Connecticut Public high schools in Connecticut