About

Chartered in 1836, Central High School is a college-preparatory magnet public school in Philadelphia and the second oldest continuously public high school in the United States. The school is known for its high academic standards, requiring that applicants maintain a particular grade point average over their middle school years. Central High is also notable for its diversity, being ranked #1 Most Diverse High Schools on Niche. Readers of our website will notice that when we reference a student we put a number in parentheses. Students and staff of Central know that one of the many aspects of the school that differentiate them from other high schoolers is that they refer to their graduating class not by the year but by a class number. For example, the first graduating class in 1842 was class number 1. Up until 1965, graduations were held twice a year and thus altered the graduating class count. Currently, the 280th graduating class is referred to as simply “280.”

The online version of Central High School’s publication The Centralizer was launched back in 2015. The website serves as an additional news source for both current students and Central’s extensive alumni network.  As our print edition is only published on a monthly basis, the website provides the Central High alumni community with more up-to-date weekly stories. The website also includes tools that the editorial staff uses to gauge the wider audience’s reading preferences, permitting tracking “views” of the entire website and individual articles.  Monitoring the views rise and fall on a weekly and monthly basis keeps us abreast of the location and category of our viewership and their interests. Using the website platform WordPress reveals that our readers come from as far north as Alaska and as far east as Japan. The website also serves as an archive for the print edition of The Centralizer, which is ordinarily distributed solely around the school community, so that readers from all over the world can access and read the text and provide critique and feedback.  The website gives us more freedom with to add visual excitement to articles with colorful photos and videos, as opposed to the duochrome print edition with static photos. Our gallery of photos provides an organized visual record of school events and projects. In addition to our website, we also maintain a Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram page directly accessible through our website. A combination of all online platforms allows us to be communicate with our audience through notifications and updates.

Sydney French and Kate Ratner
Editors-in-Chief

Staff for the 2020-2021 school year:

Editors-in-Chief: Sydney French (280) and Kate Ratner (280)

Managing Editor: Lily Lam (280)

News Editors: Mia McElhatton (281) and Ethan Tom (280)

Arts and Entertainment Editors:

Chaundra Furin-Campbell (281) and Alexandra Kerrigan (281)

Op-ed Editors: Margaretta Maguire (282) and Matilda Brewe (282)

Science Editor: Anika Koruba (281)

Sports: Jordan Carrier (280)

The 2019-2020 Centralizer Staff: Mr. McElhenny, Anna Bokarev, Lily Lam, Jordan Carrier, Gabriel Raytsis, Jay Pandya, Max Hall, Jeremy Tejeda, Anika Koruba / Kayla Elie, Judy Tran, Kate Ratner, Sydney French, Jessica Lvov, Grace Jickling