William H. Wells Community Academy High School (commonly known as Wells High School) is
public
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...
4-year high school located in the
West Town neighborhood on the
Near Northwest Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Wells is a part of the
Chicago Public Schools
Chicago Public Schools (CPS), officially classified as City of Chicago School District #299 for funding and districting reasons, in Chicago, Illinois, is the third-largest school district in the United States, after New York and Los Angeles.
...
system. Wells serves grades
9 through
12. Wells is named after former
superintendent of Chicago Public Schools
Chicago Public Schools is headed by a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) appointed by the mayor of Chicago. Currently serving as CEO is Pedro Martinez. This job is equivalent to a superintendent, and, before 1995, the occupant of this office was know ...
William H. Wells.
Currently, Wells serves a large section of the inner and central areas of Chicago, with its attendance boundaries reaching as far north as Webster Avenue, as far south as 16th Street, as far east as Lake Michigan, and as far west as Sacramento Boulevard. This area includes sections of
West Town,
Bucktown, the
Chicago Loop
The Loop, one of Chicago's 77 designated community areas, is the central business district of the city and is the main section of Downtown Chicago. Home to Chicago's commercial core, it is the second largest commercial business district in Nort ...
, the
Near North Side, and the
Near West Side.
History
Wells was established in
William Harvey Wells's honor approximately a year after his death in 1886. The current building opened in 1935 on the site of the original school with extra ground at the north. Originally, the city of Chicago planned for Wells to open as a junior high school in 1930; construction of the school was delayed.
Principal
In October 2013, Rituparna Raichoudhuri was named as principal of the school, succeeding Ernesto Matias. Raichoudhuri served as resident principal during the 2012–13 school year, and previously served in the office of performance management at Chicago Public Schools, and as a teacher in California.
Small schools
Wells includes 3 Smaller Learning Communities:
*Law & Public Safety Academy (LPSA)
*Fine Arts Academy
*Gaming Academy
Athletics
Wells competes in the
Chicago Public League (CPL) 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). Wells sports teams are nicknamed raiders. The boys'
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 ...
team won the public league championship in 1936–37. The boys' soccer team were regional champions in 2008–09, and the girls' team were regional champions in 2011–12.
Extra-curricular activities
*Chess
*GSA
*Soccer
*Cheerleading
*Volleyball
*Basketball
*Baseball
*Softball
*Track & Field
*National Honor's Society (NHS)
*JROTC
*ROTC
Feeder patterns
K-8 schools which feed into Wells include Andersen, Burr, Columbus, Chopin,
Jenner, Lozano, Mitchell,
Ogden K-8, Otis, Peabody, Pritzker, and Talcott.
[HS North/Near North]
" Chicago Public Schools
Chicago Public Schools (CPS), officially classified as City of Chicago School District #299 for funding and districting reasons, in Chicago, Illinois, is the third-largest school district in the United States, after New York and Los Angeles.
...
. 2013. Retrieved September 30, 2016.
Notable alumni
*
Curtis Mayfield
Curtis Lee Mayfield (June 3, 1942 – December 26, 1999) was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer, and one of the most influential musicians behind soul and politically conscious African-American music. –
R&B/
funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the m ...
singer, songwriter
*
Jerry Butler
Jerry Butler Jr. (born December 8, 1939) is an American soul singer-songwriter, producer, musician, and retired politician. He was the original lead singer of the Rhythm and blues, R&B vocal group the Impressions, inducted into the Rock and Rol ...
– singer, politician
*
Michael Rooker
Michael Rooker (born April 6, 1955) is an American actor known for his roles as Henry in '' Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer'' (1986), Chick Gandil in ''Eight Men Out'' (1988), Frank Baily in '' Mississippi Burning'' (1988), Terry Cruger in '' ...
– Actor
*
Ramsey Lewis
Ramsey Emmanuel Lewis Jr. (May 27, 1935 – September 12, 2022) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and radio personality. Lewis recorded over 80 albums and received five gold records and three Grammy Awards in his career. His album '' The ...
– Musician
References
External links
*
{{authority control
Public high schools in Chicago
West Side, Chicago
Educational institutions established in 1935
1935 establishments in Illinois