Randolph School

Randolph School
Diligentes Ad Veritatem Quaerendam (Diligent in Seeking Truth)
Location
Huntsville, Alabama USA
Coordinates	34°42′22″N 86°33′29″W / 34.706°N 86.558°W / 34.706; -86.558Coordinates: 34°42′22″N 86°33′29″W / 34.706°N 86.558°W / 34.706; -86.558
Information
Type	Private
Established	1959
CEEB code	011475
Headmaster	James E. Rainey Jr.
Faculty	150
Enrollment	997
Average class size	13 students
Student to teacher ratio	10:1
Campus	Suburban (67 acres)
Color(s)	Blue, White, and Gray
Team name	Raiders
Average SAT scores (2011)	635 verbal 635 math 625 writing
Website	www.randolphschool.net

Randolph School is an American independent private kindergarten-through-12th-grade college preparatory school chartered in 1959 in Huntsville, Madison County, Alabama. It started in an antebellum home on Randolph Avenue in downtown Huntsville with just a few elementary classes. A few years later it moved to a much larger 17-acre (69,000 m²) campus on Drake Avenue, where it is now located, gradually adding grade levels until having a graduating high school class in the early 1970s.

In 1998, the school purchased 50 acres (200,000 m²) of land on Garth Road, less than one mile (1.6 km) from the present location of the main campus. After only expanding the athletic facilities there, in 2006, the Board of Trustees finally gave approval for the construction of a new campus for the high school, something which had been discussed since 1997. According to the plans, the second campus will more than double the square footage of available facilities, and allow continued increase in enrollment. The new high school opened for the 2009–2010 school year. For the Fine arts, the new school includes a new theater with stadium seating, a workshop for stagecraft, band and choral rooms, and new restroom facilities. For athletics, The Shields-Jones Athletic Complex on the new Garth Campus has six spacious locker rooms, two health and human performance classrooms, a state-of-the-art athletic training room and a 2,200-square-foot weight and fitness room with cardio machines and Hammer Strength weight equipment. In total, Randolph has two gymnasiums, six tennis courts, two practice fields and professionally maintained fields for football, baseball, softball and soccer.^[1]

For the academic year 2016-2017, tuition and fees averaged about $20,000, though the school offers need-based tuition assistance to help meet the needs of our families who might not otherwise be able to attend Randolph. Admission decisions are made separately from tuition assistance decisions. In order to assess a family’s financial need, the School partners with the School and Student Service for Financial Aid, a service of the National Association of Independent Schools.

In 2014, Randolph received a grant from the Edward. E. Ford Foundation to help the School begin to address the long-term sustainability of a robust tuition assistance program.

Academic awards and other recognition

Logo used for varsity athletics, introduced in the 2008–2009 school year

During the 2001–02 school year, and again in 2003–04, Randolph School was recognized with the Blue Ribbon School Award of Excellence by the United States Department of Education,^[2][3] the highest award an American school can receive.^[4][5]

Between a fifth and a third of each graduating class is identified as a Commended Scholar, Semi-Finalist, or Finalist in the National Merit Scholarship competition. Virtually all graduates go on to attend four-year college.

Athletics

All varsity teams currently compete in the AHSAA 5A division which include rival schools such as Kate Duncan Smith DAR School and Madison County High School. The Randolph boys have won the Cross Country State Championships in 1982, as well as 2005–2013, setting a new state record for most consecutive state championship wins in Alabama with 9. They were runners up in 2014. The girls Cross Country team won in 1978, 1979, 1980, 1996, and 1998, and were runners-up in 2012, 2013 and 2014. The boys soccer team won State Championships in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2006, 2007, and 2015. The Raiders Varsity Boys Soccer were also ranked 3rd nationally in 2006 and first in the Southeast. In 2012, the boys showed a strong showing in the state tournament but lost in the championship game to rival Altamont School. They again were state runners-up in 2014, losing to Indian Springs. In 2015, they finally broke the 8-year spell, defeating St. Paul's Episcopal School 3-2 in the finals. Fisher Lucas had a hat-trick, scoring the winning goal off an assist from midfielder Austin Ly with 37 seconds left in the game. The Randolph soccer team has either been state runner up or state champs since the year 2000, except 2004, 2005, and 2010. The girls soccer team won their first state championship in 2009 and won again in 2013, defeating Montgomery Academy after losing to them in the finals in 2012. The girls team were again state runners-up in 2014, losing to Montgomery Academy. They were state champions in 2015. The boys tennis team won the state championship in 1984 and 2008, and has finished runner-up in 2002, 2007, and 2009. The boys tennis team also won the state sportsmanship award in 2008 and 2009. The girls tennis team finished as the state runner-up in 2012. The girls volleyball team won the state title in 1983, 1985 and 2015. For the first time in 30 years, Randolph launched a varsity football program in 2010 and reached the playoffs for the first time in 2015 only to be defeated by Wenonah High School in the first round.

Technology

Randolph was one of the first high schools to provide its students with a computer lab in 1981, which was donated by Intergraph, a local software company. The lab had a PDP-11/44 with 14 terminals, a console and printer. Wiring ran through the ceiling – a sharp departure from other computer labs of the day.

Randolph instituted a Bulletin Board System, enhanced by the donation of a 1200 baud modem in 1984 by local television station WAAY-TV. The bulletin board was entirely custom software running on the PDP-11, written by students. Some years later, Randolph hosted the Igmeister Zone BBS, a WWIV node at speeds up to 9600 bit/s.

National press coverage in 1998 covered the school's implementation of a wireless network which integrated the use of laptops.^[6]

Notable alumni

Its alumni include many of the children of the German rocket scientists that moved to Huntsville with Wernher von Braun after World War II. Other notable alumni include:

• Allison Lami Sawyer– attended Randolph from grades 1-9 and graduated from Choate. Her company, Rebellion Photonics, was named "WSJ Startup of the Year" in 2013.
• Macon Phillips – White House Director of Digital Strategy in the Obama Administration^[7]
• Susanna Phillips (graduated 1999) – soprano opera singer at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City^[8]
• Brian Reynolds (game designer) – Chief Game Designer for Zynga, co-founder of Firaxis and Big Huge Games^[9]
• Bryan Shelton – Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets women's tennis head coach and six-time Wimbledon participant^[10]
• Jimmy Wales – co-founder of Wikipedia^{[11][12][13][14]}

References

External links

• Official web site