James B. Conant High School is a public four-year

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

located in

Hoffman Estates, Illinois Hoffman Estates is a village in Illinois, United States. The village is located primarily in Cook County, with a small section in Kane County. It is a suburb of Chicago. Per the 2020 census, the population was 52,530. The village now serves a ...

, a northwest suburb of

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. It is part of

Township High School District 211 Township High School District 211 is a school district located in Cook County, Illinois, and is the largest high school district in Illinois. District 211 serves the communities of Hoffman Estates, Inverness, Palatine, and Schaumburg, and p ...

, which also includes

William Fremd High School William Fremd High School, or Fremd (initially Palatine High School South), is a public four-year high school located in Palatine, Illinois, a northwest suburb of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. It is part of Township High School District ...

Hoffman Estates High School Hoffman Estates High School (HEHS) is a public four-year high school located in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, a northwest suburb of Chicago, in the United States. It is part of Township High School District 211, which also includes James B. Conant Hi ...

Palatine High School Palatine High School, or PHS, is a public four-year high school in Township High School District 211. Located at 1111 N. Rohlwing Road in Palatine, Illinois, United States, a northwest suburb of Chicago, it serves primarily all of and only those ...

, and

Schaumburg High School Schaumburg High School, also known as SHS, is a public four-year high school located in Schaumburg, Illinois, a northwest suburb of Chicago, United States. The school is part of Township High School District 211, which also includes William Fremd ...

. Feeder schools are Mead Junior High, Keller Junior High, and Frost Junior High.

History

Conant opened in 1964 and was the first high school built within Schaumburg Township, and the third in District 211. It was named after

James Bryant Conant James Bryant Conant (March 26, 1893 – February 11, 1978) was an American chemist, a transformative President of Harvard University, and the first U.S. Ambassador to West Germany. Conant obtained a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Harvard in 1916 ...

, a chemist, educator, and leading authority on teacher education, who helped model the high school system used today. Conant serves students who reside in the east side of

Schaumburg Schaumburg is a district (''Landkreis'') of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is bounded by (clockwise from the north) the districts of Nienburg, Hanover and Hamelin-Pyrmont, and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (districts of Lippe and Minden-Lübbe ...

, the west side of

Elk Grove Village Elk Grove Village is a village in Cook and DuPage counties in the U.S. state of Illinois. Per the 2020 census, the population was 32,812. Located northwest of Chicago along the Golden Corridor, the Village of Elk Grove Village was incorpora ...

, the northern Cook County section of Roselle and the Southeast side of

Hoffman Estates Hoffman Estates is a village (Illinois), village in Illinois, United States. The village is located primarily in Cook County, Illinois, Cook County, with a small section in Kane County, Illinois, Kane County. It is a suburb of Chicago. Per the 2 ...

. Conant also served students in the Northern Cook County section of Hanover Park until 2001. In 2000, District 211 approved a boundary change that sent about 300 Conant students who resided in Hanover Park and the south side of Schaumburg to attend Schaumburg High School to relieve overcrowding at Conant.

Academics

In 2018, James B. Conant High School was ranked No. 25 in the state according to U.S. News & World Report, making it the highest-ranked high school in District 211. In 2008, the senior class of Conant HS scored an average of 22.9 on the ACT, and 94.7% of the senior class graduated. In 1995-96, the

United States Department of Education The United States Department of Education is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government. It began operating on May 4, 1980, having been created after the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was split into the Department ...

recognized Conant High School as a part of its

Blue Ribbon Schools Program The National Blue Ribbon Schools Program is a United States Department of Education award program that recognizes exemplary public and non-public schools on a yearly basis. Using standards of excellence evidenced by student achievement measures, ...

. In 2006, Conant was recognized by the

College Board The College Board is an American nonprofit organization that was formed in December 1899 as the College Entrance Examination Board (CEEB) to expand access to higher education. While the College Board is not an association of colleges, it runs a ...

as having the highest percentage of students passing their

Advanced Placement Advanced Placement (AP) is a program in the United States and Canada created by the College Board which offers college-level curricula and examinations to high school students. American colleges and universities may grant placement and course ...

or AP exams in the College Board's Midwest Region. In January 2016, the ''Conant Hyperloop Club'', founded by Nick Pope, received a Subsystem Technical Excellence Award in the

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal of ...

-sponsored

Hyperloop pod competition The Hyperloop Pod Competition was an annual competition sponsored by SpaceX from 2015 to 2019 in which a number of student and non-student teams participate to design—and for some, build—a scale model, subscale prototype transport vehicle in ...

. The award was for outstanding technical merit in subsystem and design, based on "innovation and uniqueness of subsystem design, full

Hyperloop A hyperloop is a proposed high-speed transportion system for both public and goods transport. The idea was picked up by Elon Musk to describe a modern project based on the vactrain concept (first appearance in 1799). Hyperloop systems compris ...

system applicability and economics; level of design detail; strength of supporting analysis and tests; and quality of documentation and presentation."

Athletics

Conant High School competes in the

Mid-Suburban League The Mid-Suburban League (MSL) is an Illinois High School Association recognized high school extra-curricular league which includes 12 schools located in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. The conference is split up into two divisions for ...

(MSL), and is a member of the

Illinois High School Association The Illinois High School Association (IHSA) is an association that regulates competition of interscholastic sports and some interscholastic activities at the high school level for the state of Illinois. It is a charter member of the National Fed ...

(IHSA), which governs most interscholastic sports and academic competitions in Illinois. The teams representing the school are stylized as the

Cougars The cougar (''Puma concolor'') is a large cat native to the Americas. Its range spans from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes in South America and is the most widespread of any large wild terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere. I ...

. The school sponsors interscholastic athletic teams for young men and women in

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

bowling Bowling is a target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a ball toward pins (in pin bowling) or another target (in target bowling). The term ''bowling'' usually refers to pin bowling (most commonly ten-pin bowling), though ...

, cross country,

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

gymnastics Gymnastics is a type of sport that includes physical exercises requiring balance, strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, dedication and endurance. The movements involved in gymnastics contribute to the development of the arms, legs, shou ...

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

lacrosse Lacrosse is a team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game was extensively ...

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

diving Diving most often refers to: * Diving (sport), the sport of jumping into deep water * Underwater diving, human activity underwater for recreational or occupational purposes Diving or Dive may also refer to: Sports * Dive (American football), a ...

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

track & field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events ...

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

cheerleading Cheerleading is an activity in which the participants (called cheerleaders) cheer for their team as a form of encouragement. It can range from chanting slogans to intense physical activity. It can be performed to motivate sports teams, to ente ...

, and

water polo Water polo is a competitive team sport played in water between two teams of seven players each. The game consists of four quarters in which the teams attempt to score goals by throwing the ball into the opposing team's goal. The team with the ...

. Young men may also compete in

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

, and

wrestling Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat ...

, while young women may compete in

badminton Badminton is a racquet sport played using racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per side) and "doubles" (with two players pe ...

, and

softball Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...

. While not sponsored by the IHSA, the school also sponsors a co-op

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...

team for young men, along with Hoffman Estates and Schaumburg High Schools. Conant also has an

ultimate frisbee Ultimate, originally known as ultimate Frisbee, is a non-contact team sport played with a frisbee flung by hand. Ultimate was developed in 1968 by AJ Gator in Maplewood, New Jersey. Although ultimate resembles many traditional sports in its ath ...

club, which competes with neighboring high schools during the spring season. The following teams have placed in the top four of their respective IHSA sponsored state tournament or meet: * Bowling (girls): 4th place (1997–98); 3rd place (1998–99); 2nd place (1999–2000) * Cross Country (boys): 4th place (1984–85); 3rd place (1983–84, 1985–86) * Cross Country (girls): 2nd place (1989–90); State Champion (1988–89) * Gymnastics (boys): 4th place (1989–90, 1990–91, 1996–97); 3rd place (1991–92, 2009–10); 2nd place (1984–85, 1985–86, 2012–13); State Champions (1986–87, 1987–88) * Gymnastics (girls): 3rd place (2006–07); 2nd place (2003–04, 2004–05); State Champions (2005–06) * Soccer (boys): 4th place (1999–2000, 2016–17); 3rd place (1991–92) * Soccer (girls): 4th place (2008–09); 3rd place (2010–11) * Track & Field (girls): 4th place (2006–07); 3rd place (2007–08) * Water Polo (boys): 4th place (2017–18) * Wrestling: 4th place (2002–03); 2nd place (1982–83, 1995–96, 1999–2000) *Cheerleading: 3rd place (2012-2013) ; 2nd place (2014–15, 2016–17); State Champions (2013-2014) * Lacrosse (IHSLA, boys): Lacrosse Cup Champions (2010)

Notable alumni

* William Beckett, singer for The Academy Is...; attended freshman year at Conant *

Sarah Gorden Sarah L. Gorden (born September 13, 1992) is an American professional soccer player who plays as a defender for Angel City FC in the NWSL. Early life The daughter of Jeff and Sue Gorden, Sarah Gorden began playing soccer at age four. When s ...

, a professional soccer player with

Chicago Red Stars The Chicago Red Stars are a professional women's soccer club based in Bridgeview, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. A founding member of the Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) league, they have played in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) sin ...

National Women's Soccer League The National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) is a professional women's soccer league at the top of the United States league system. It is owned by the teams and, until 2020, was under a management contract with the United States Soccer Federatio ...

(2016–present) *

Jennifer Grubb Jennifer Leigh Grubb (born July 20, 1978) is an American former Women's association football, women's soccer player. Career Grubb was the only Women's United Soccer Association, WUSA player to participate in every minute of every game for her te ...

, a professional soccer player with

Washington Freedom Washington Freedom was an American professional soccer club based in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Germantown, Maryland, that participated in Women's Professional Soccer. The Freedom was founded in 2001 as a member of the defunct Women's Uni ...

Women's United Soccer Association The Women's United Soccer Association (WUSA) was the world's first Women's association football, women's soccer league in which all the players were paid as professionals. Founded in February 2000 in sports, 2000, the league began its first se ...

(2001–04) *

Andre Holmes Andre Holmes (born June 16, 1988) is a former American football wide receiver. Originally signed by the Dallas Cowboys as an undrafted free agent in 2011, Holmes also played for the Oakland Raiders, Buffalo Bills, and Denver Broncos. Holmes pla ...

, former NFL wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys, Oakland Raiders, and Buffalo Bills. *

Russ Michna Russell Walter Michna (born February 3, 1981) is a former arena football quarterback. A two-time league champion of the United Football League (UFL), he is the only player that has been signed to a team in every current major professional footb ...

, former professional

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

in the

CFL The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...

AFL AFL may refer to: Sports * American Football League (AFL), a name shared by several separate and unrelated professional American football leagues: ** American Football League (1926) (a.k.a. "AFL I"), first rival of the National Football Leagu ...

, CIFL, and UFL. *

Emerson Swinford Emerson Swinford, a native of Chicago, is a Los Angeles-based guitarist, composer/songwriter and producer. He is currently a guitarist in the Rod Stewart band, and was formerly a member of the band Drill, a precursor to industrial- nu metal gro ...

, guitarist and composer living in

Hollywood, California Hollywood is a neighborhood in the central region of Los Angeles, California. Its name has come to be a shorthand reference for the U.S. film industry and the people associated with it. Many notable film studios, such as Columbia Pictures, ...

Tim Tyrrell Timothy Gordan Tyrrell (born February 19, 1961) is a former professional American football running back who played in the National Football League (NFL) for seven seasons, with the Atlanta Falcons (1984–1986), the Los Angeles Rams (1986–1988), ...

is a former professional football player for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Los Angeles Rams, and the Atlanta Falcons. * Laura Albert (academic), a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

References

External links

Official websiteOfficial websiteDistrict WebsiteOfficial Website of Conant's newspaper, the Crier
{{DEFAULTSORT:Conant High School, James B. Educational institutions established in 1964 Hoffman Estates, Illinois Public high schools in Cook County, Illinois 1964 establishments in Illinois