Perry Hall High School (PHHS) is a

public high school State schools (in England, Wales, Australia and New Zealand) or public schools (Scottish English and North American English) are generally primary or secondary schools that educate all students without charge. They are funded in whole or in pa ...

Baltimore County Baltimore County ( , locally: or ) is the third-most populous county in the U.S. state of Maryland and is part of the Baltimore metropolitan area. Baltimore County (which partially surrounds, though does not include, the independent City of ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

, United States, established in 1967 enrolling about 2,000 students a year. Located in the northeastern

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

suburb of Perry Hall and serving the surrounding communities, such as Kingsville and Glen Arm, it is part of the

Baltimore County Public Schools Baltimore County Public Schools is the school district in charge of all public schools in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. It is the 25th largest school system in the US as of 2013. The school system is managed by the Board of Education, ...

system. Area middle schools that feed into Perry Hall High are Perry Hall Middle School and Pine Grove Middle School.

Structure

When initially established, Perry Hall High School was located in the building which today is Perry Hall Middle School. The class of 1968 was the first class to graduate from the new and current building located just down the road. In 1973 construction started on a small addition to the front of the building. This first addition was built adjacent to the library. Nine new classrooms were built to accommodate 350 more students and four new teachers. Renovations that took place in the same year included a team locker room, new biology, and chemistry labs, and an addition to the faculty dining room. A three-story new addition had to be built in 1997 to fight overcrowding. The new section has health and career education classrooms below ground level, tall music rooms and social science rooms at ground level, and foreign language and art rooms on the second floor. Because of the tall music rooms, the second floor of the new addition is a half story higher than the second floor of the main building. Currently, there are portable classrooms situated outside the main building to alleviate the continuing overpopulation problem. The most recent addition was a hallway around the auditorium to alleviate the crowded junction on the first floor between the old and new wings.

History

Perry Hall High School was established in 1963 in the middle of a growing community. The doors opened on September 6 to sophomores and juniors, taking students that would have otherwise attended

Parkville High School Parkville High School (PHS) is a four-year public high school in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. The school was originally established in 1953 on what is now the location of Parkville Middle School. The current high school building open ...

Overlea High School Overlea High School (OHS) is a four-year public high school in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. The school was opened in 1961. About the school The original building was constructed in the early-1960s. The main structure is . It is loca ...

. The first principal of Perry Hall High School was Maynard E. Keadle. Perry Hall High School's first graduates were members of the class of 1965. Within five years, a second building was constructed to accommodate the high number of students in the area. The new building opened in the fall of 1967 to Perry Hall High School students while the original building became Perry Hall Junior High School, known as Perry Hall Middle School today. In 1987, the movie ''

Hairspray Hairspray may refer to: * Hair spray, a personal grooming product that keeps hair protected from humidity and wind * ''Hairspray'' (1988 film), a film by John Waters ** ''Hairspray'' (1988 soundtrack), the film's soundtrack album ** ''Hairspray ...

'' was filmed at Perry Hall High School.

Overcrowding

A new addition replaced portable classrooms at Perry Hall High School in 1997, but by 2003 portable classrooms were needed once again. In 2005, a new hallway was built to try to ease the overcrowded hallways. With Perry Hall High School being the most populated school in the Baltimore County public school system, the Perry Hall Improvement Association has started a petition to gather support for a new high school to be constructed in northeast Baltimore County.

2012 shooting

A shooting occurred at the Perry Hall cafeteria on the first day of school at 10:45 a.m., Monday, August 27, 2012. The shooter, 15-year-old

sophomore In the United States, a sophomore ( or ) is a person in the second year at an educational institution; usually at a secondary school or at the college and university level, but also in other forms of post-secondary educational institutions. In ...

student Robert Gladden, Jr., attended the first two classes and then went to the school restroom during break time, where he allegedly reassembled a

16 gauge The gauge (or commonly bore in British English) of a firearm is a unit of measurement used to express the inner diameter (bore diameter) of the barrel. Gauge is determined from the weight of a solid sphere of lead that will fit the bore of the ...

shotgun A shotgun (also known as a scattergun, or historically as a fowling piece) is a long gun, long-barreled firearm designed to shoot a straight-walled cartridge (firearms), cartridge known as a shotshell, which usually discharges numerous small p ...

from his backpack and loaded it. He exited the restroom with the shotgun hidden under his clothing and pulled it out in the cafeteria, where he fired a shot that struck a 17-year-old male student in the back, critically wounding him. A school guidance counselor, Jesse Wasmer, and Richard Rosenthal, a mathematics teacher, immediately rushed to Gladden and attempted to subdue him. More faculty members rushed the shooter, who fired into the ceiling during the struggle. Several people suffered minor cuts and bruises during the panic that ensued. Students were evacuated to a nearby shopping center and middle school. In February 2013, Gladden was sentenced to 35 years in prison on charges of attempted murder.

Academics

Perry Hall High school received a 54.7 out of a possible 100 points (54%) on the 2018-2019 Maryland State Department of Education Report Card and received a 3 out of 5 star rating, ranking in the 35th percentile among all Maryland schools.

Students

The 2019–2020 enrollment at Perry Hall High School was 1969 students.

Extracurricular activities

There are many clubs and activities in the arts, languages, music, career interests, and recreation from which students may choose:

Academic

It's Academic ''It's Academic'' is the name for a number of televised academic student quiz shows for high school students through the United States and internationally. ''It's Academic'' programs have notably aired on NBC-owned WMAQ-TV Chicago, WRC-TV (an ...

*Science Club *Mock Trial

Art and Music

Chamber Choir A chamber choir is a small or medium-sized choir of roughly 8 to 40 singers (occasionally called 'chamber singers'), typically singing classical or religious music in a concert setting. (This is distinct from e.g. a church choir, which sings in rel ...

Concert Band A concert band, also called a wind band, wind ensemble, wind symphony, wind orchestra, symphonic band, the symphonic winds, or symphonic wind ensemble, is a performing ensemble consisting of members of the woodwind, brass, and percussion famil ...

*Symphonic Band *Symphonic Winds *Wind Ensemble *Guitar Ensemble *Jazz Band * Marching Gators *Men's Chorus *Mixed

Chorale Chorale is the name of several related musical forms originating in the music genre of the Lutheran chorale: * Hymn tune of a Lutheran hymn (e.g. the melody of "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme"), or a tune in a similar format (e.g. one of the t ...

National Art Honor Society The National Art Honor Society was established in 1978 in the United States by the National Art Education Association for high school students grades 9-12 from the National Art Honor Society. The NAEA also offers a National Junior Art Honor Soci ...

Symphony Orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, ce ...

*Photography Club *

Tri-M Tri-M Music Honor Society, formerly known as Modern Music Masters, is an American high school and middle school music honor society. A program of the National Association for Music Education (NAfME), it is designed to recognize students for their ...

*Women's

Chorus Chorus may refer to: Music * Chorus (song) or refrain, line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse * Chorus effect, the perception of similar sounds from multiple sources as a single, richer sound * Chorus form, song in which all verse ...

Athletics

Perry Hall has athletic teams for: * Allied Sports *Badminton *Baseball *

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 ...

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 ...

* Cross country *

Field Hockey Field hockey is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with ten outfield players and a goalkeeper. Teams must drive a round hockey ball by hitting it with a hockey stick towards the rival team's shooting ci ...

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 ...

*Golf *

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 ...

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 ...

*Soccer *Tennis *Track *Volleyball *

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 ...

State championships

Girls Cross Country *4A 1993 Boys Cross Country *Class AA 1987 Field Hockey *Class AA 1982 Girls Soccer *4A 2018, 2019 Boys Soccer *4A 2015 Boys Basketball *4A 2017, 2018 Baseball *4A 1990, 1992, 1994 Softball *Class AA 1979

Notable alumni

Diane Fanning Diane Fanning (born, June 21, 1950) is an American crime writer and author who writes nonfiction and mystery novels. Biography Fanning was born Diane Lynn Butcher in Baltimore, Maryland. She graduated from Perry Hall High School, and then Lynch ...

(née Butcher), crime writer * Chuck Porter, former Major League Baseball player * James F. Ports Jr., former member of

Maryland House of Delegates The Maryland House of Delegates is the lower house of the legislature of the State of Maryland. It consists of 141 delegates elected from 47 districts. The House of Delegates Chamber is in the Maryland State House on State Circle in Annapolis, ...

* Alfred W. Redmer Jr., former member of

, current Maryland State Insurance Commissioner *

Tonja Walker Tonja Annette Walker is an American actress and singer, who is also a former beauty pageant titleholder who has competed in the Miss USA pageant. She is known for her role as Alex Olanov on ''One Life to Live'' and for her role as Olivia St. Joh ...

, actress

References

External links

* {{authority control Public high schools in Maryland Baltimore County Public Schools Educational institutions established in 1963 Middle States Commission on Secondary Schools 1963 establishments in Maryland