Cranston High School West (often called West, Cranston West or abbreviated as CHSW) is a public high school located in

Cranston, Rhode Island Cranston, formerly known as Pawtuxet, is a city in Providence County, Rhode Island, United States. The official population of the city in the 2020 United States Census was 82,934, making it the second-largest city in the state. The center of ...

, United States. The

school A school is the educational institution (and, in the case of in-person learning, the Educational architecture, building) designed to provide learning environments for the teaching of students, usually under the direction of teachers. Most co ...

comprises five buildings; one of these buildings is the Cranston Area Career and Technical Center. The school grounds include six tennis courts, a baseball field, and a track and football field. West has 155 staff members who work with the student population of approximately 1850 daily. The program of studies encompasses 203 different courses. The Cranston Area Career and Technical Center offers 17 different courses. All courses are geared toward student academic abilities. Fifty-two percent of graduates go on to pursue a four-year degree while twenty-two percent pursue a 2-year degree. Numerous athletic teams have won championship titles for the school, more recently being the 2004 varsity football team, 2006 varsity wrestling team, 2007 varsity wrestling team, 2008 varsity wrestling team, 2009 varsity wrestling team, 2006 varsity baseball team, 2007 varsity baseball team, 2009 varsity hockey team, 2011 varsity baseball team, and 2012 varsity boys tennis team. Also the varsity boys volleyball team made it to the semifinals of the State titles in 2011, 2012, 2014, and 2015 while winning the State Championship in 2016 and 2019. The 2017 boys swim team were the division three dual meet champions. It is also the high school of former

NFL The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The N ...

running back A running back (RB) is a member of the offensive backfield in gridiron football. The primary roles of a running back are to receive American football plays#Offensive terminology, handoffs from the quarterback to Rush (American football)#Offense ...

and two-time

Super Bowl The Super Bowl is the annual History of the NFL championship, league championship game of the National Football League (NFL) of the United States. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966 NFL season, 1966 (with the excep ...

champion with the

Oakland Raiders The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team based in Oakland, California, from its founding in 1960 to 1981, and again from 1995 to 2019 before Oakland Raiders relocation to Las Vegas, relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan ...

, Mark Van Eeghen.

''Ahlquist v. Cranston''

On April 4, 2011, 10th-grade student

Jessica Ahlquist Jessica Ahlquist (born June 21, 1995) is an American activist and public speaker who filed a lawsuit in 2012 against Cranston High School West, where she was a student, to remove a religious prayer from its auditorium. The suit, '' Ahlquist v. ...

filed a federal

lawsuit A lawsuit is a proceeding by one or more parties (the plaintiff or claimant) against one or more parties (the defendant) in a civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today ...

aimed at ending the school's display of a prayer on a banner. District Court Judge Ronald R. Lagueux issued a decision in favor of Jessica on January 11, 2012. The decision was in part based on the

Establishment Clause In United States law, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, together with that Amendment's Free Exercise Clause, form the constitutional right of freedom of religion. The ''Establishment Clause'' an ...

of the First Amendment, and the ''

Lemon v. Kurtzman ''Lemon v. Kurtzman'', 403 U.S. 602 (1971), was a case argued before the Supreme Court of the United States.. The court ruled in an 8–0 decision that Pennsylvania's Nonpublic Elementary and Secondary Education Act (represented through David Kur ...

'', ''

Lynch v. Donnelly ''Lynch v. Donnelly'', 465 U.S. 668 (1984), was a Supreme Court of the United States, United States Supreme Court case challenging the legality of Christmas decorations on town property. All plaintiffs, including lead plaintiff Daniel Donnelly, we ...

'', and '' Lee v. Weisman'' US Supreme Court cases. Upon learning of the results of the case, some residents of Cranston, and others opposed to the decision and to Jessica's

atheism Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the Existence of God, existence of Deity, deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the ...

, took their anger out on Jessica on

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

and

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

, and local florists refused to deliver to her.

Notable alumni

Stevie Aiello Stephen Aiello (born April 30, 1983) is an American songwriter, musician, and record producer. He is best known for touring and recording with American rock band Thirty Seconds to Mars. He was one of the founding members of Monty Are I, a band ...

– singer, songwriter, musician, record producer * Monty Are I – an

alternative rock Alternative rock (also known as alternative music, alt-rock or simply alternative) is a category of rock music that evolved from the independent music underground of the 1970s. Alternative rock acts achieved mainstream success in the 1990s w ...

band named after Arthur Montanaro, a former teacher at West *

Katelyn Bouyssou Katelyn Jarrell (born Bouyssou) (born June 11, 1994, in Hope, Rhode Island) is an American national competitor in judo is an unarmed gendai budō, modern Japanese martial art, combat sport, Olympic sport (since 1964), and the most prominent ...

– member of the US Judo national team; 3 time US Judo national champion * Marissa Castelli – figure skater, 2-time national pairs champion; bronze medalist in

2014 Winter Olympics The 2014 Winter Olympics, officially called the XXII Olympic Winter Games () and commonly known as Sochi 2014 (), were an international winter multi-sport event that was held from 7 to 23 February 2014 in Sochi, Russia. Opening ro ...

* Mark van Eeghen – former

and two-time

champion with the

; only person from Cranston West to have number retired in any sport *

JVKE Jacob Dodge Lawson (born 3 March 2001), known professionally as Jvke (stylized in all caps and pronounced "Jake /dʒeɪk/"), is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and social media personality. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, he star ...

– American singer-songwriter, producer, and social media personality

References

External links

* {{authority control Buildings and structures in Cranston, Rhode Island Schools in Providence County, Rhode Island Public high schools in Rhode Island