Chadwick School is a

nonsectarian Nonsectarian institutions are secular institutions or other organizations not affiliated with or restricted to a particular religious group. Academic sphere Examples of US universities that identify themselves as being nonsectarian include Adelp ...

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

K-12 day school located in an

unincorporated area An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

on the

Palos Verdes Peninsula The Palos Verdes Peninsula (''Palos Verdes'', Spanish for "Green Sticks") is a landform and a geographic sub-region of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, within southwestern Los Angeles County in the U.S. state of California. Located in the S ...

in Los Angeles County,

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, United States. Specifically it is located at the top of the neighborhood referred to as Academy Hill, which is bounded by a canyon, a precipice,

Crenshaw Boulevard Crenshaw Boulevard is a north-south thoroughfare in Los Angeles, California, that runs through Crenshaw and other neighborhoods along a 23-mile (37.76 km) route in the west-central part of the city. The street extends between Wilshire Bouleva ...

, and Palos Verdes Drive North.

History

The school was founded in 1935 by Margaret Lee Chadwick and Commander Joseph Chadwick in

San Pedro, California San Pedro ( ; Spanish: "St. Peter") is a neighborhood within the City of Los Angeles, California. Formerly a separate city, it consolidated with Los Angeles in 1909. The Port of Los Angeles, a major international seaport, is partially located wi ...

. In 1938, the school moved to

Palos Verdes, California The Palos Verdes Peninsula (''Palos Verdes'', Spanish for "Green Sticks") is a landform and a geographic sub-region of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, within southwestern Los Angeles County in the U.S. state of California. Located in the S ...

. In the beginning, Chadwick was an open-air day and boarding school for 75 students. After the retirement of the Chadwick family in 1963, the school created a board of trustees and in 1968 discontinued its boarding program. In 1972, Chadwick joined the

Cum Laude Society The Cum Laude Society is an organization that honors scholastic achievement at secondary institutions, similar to the Phi Beta Kappa Society, which honors scholastic achievements at the university level. It was founded at The Tome School in 19 ...

. Up until the 1970s, the school owned all of the hill leading up to it, which was sold off to establish the school's endowment. Since then, the school has opened more buildings, a

gym A gymnasium, also known as a gym, is an indoor location for athletics. The word is derived from the ancient Greek term " gymnasium". They are commonly found in athletic and fitness centres, and as activity and learning spaces in educational i ...

nasium, and a performing arts center. It is accredited by the

Western Association of Schools and Colleges The Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) was an organization providing accreditation of public and private universities, colleges, secondary and elementary schools in California and Hawaii, the territories of Guam, American Sam ...

. The movie adaptation of the book ''

Mommie Dearest ''Mommie Dearest'' is a memoir and exposé written by Christina Crawford, the adopted daughter of actress Joan Crawford. Published in 1978, it attracted much controversy for its portrayal of Joan Crawford as a cruel, unbalanced, and alcoholic m ...

'' was filmed at Chadwick in 1981.

Student and faculty profile

Chadwick is divided into three schools: the Village School (K-6), the Middle School (grades 7-8), and the Upper School (grades 9-12). Sixty-three percent of the faculty members held advanced degrees in the 2014-15 school year.

Chadwick International

On January 13, 2010, the school announced that it would be administering and integrating a sister school in South Korea. Chadwick was the third school chosen to administrate the new school after a deal with Vancouver International Primary and Secondary School fell through. Prior to that, the International School Service had submitted plans to run the school but withdrew them. Later in the process, the school's opening was delayed by Chadwick administrators when they failed to submit paperwork on time. The school is located in the Songdo International City, a city renowned for its efforts to "go green" and is administratively a near replica of Chadwick School in Palos Verdes. Headmaster Ted Hill has stated that the sister school will remain in contact with the originating school through the use of

Telepresence Telepresence refers to a set of technologies which allow a person to feel as if they were present, to give the appearance or effect of being present via telerobotics, at a place other than their true location. Telepresence requires that the use ...

equipment supplied by

Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, ...

. The school opened on September 6, 2010, and completed its first year in June 2011. As of the 2013-14 school year, Chadwick International enrolled 780 students in grades pre-K through 10. Eleventh grade was added in September 2014, and the school graduated its first class in 2015-16. There are now frequent exchanges and visits between the two Chadwick campuses.

Study abroad

In addition to sending students to Chadwick International, Chadwick frequently exchanges students with other schools that participate in the

Round Square Round Square is an international network of schools, based on the educational concepts of Kurt Hahn, and named after a distinctive building at Gordonstoun. Founded by a group of seven schools in the late 1960s, by 1996 it had grown to 20 member ...

program. Chadwick students also travel to other schools through additional programs such as ones through the Community Service program.

Sperm whale skull fossil

On February 5, 2014, a fossil of a sperm whale skull embedded in a boulder of Middle Miocene Era Altamira Shale located on the grounds of Chadwick School was removed to be studied at the L.A. County Natural History Museum. An expert from the museum believed that the skull might be of a previously unknown species. This event was widely covered by Los Angeles area news outlets.

Extracurricular activities

Debate team

Chadwick's debate team was founded in September 2019 and grew to over 30 students in its second year. Chadwick has accrued four team awards in Public Forum Debate tournaments.

Athletics

Chadwick's main rivals are

Polytechnic School Polytechnic School, often referred to simply as Poly, is a college preparatory private day school located in Pasadena, California with approximately 850 students enrolled in grades Kindergarten through 12. The school is a former member of the ...

in Pasadena, California and Flintridge Preparatory School in La Cañada, California. Chadwick participates in 23 Varsity CIF sports. They include boys' football, tennis, volleyball, waterpolo, basketball, soccer, baseball, golf, and girls' tennis, volleyball, water polo, equestrian, basketball, soccer, golf, lacrosse, softball, and cheerleading. They also include coed cross country, swimming, and track and field. In 2007, Chadwick reevaluated its image and decided that yellow was not an appropriate school color. It also realized that its athletics logo featured a non-native dolphin. After these realizations, the school designed a new blue, grey, and white logo featuring a native and more aggressive-looking dolphin.

School newspaper

The school newspaper, ''The Mainsheet'', is published in print and online. Online publication was restarted at the beginning of March 2012.

Intracurricular activities

Robotics

In 2006 members of the high school community started Wicked Wobotics, team 2150, a

FIRST Robotics Competition FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) is an international high school robotics competition. Each year, teams of high school students, coaches, and mentors work during a six-week period to build robots capable of competing in that year's game that weig ...

team. The team won the Judges' choice award at the 2008 FIRST Robotics competition in Las Vegas, Nevada and was ranked sixth after the qualifying rounds. The FRC team was discontinued in 2010. The remaining team focused on the simpler and less expensive

VEX Robotics VEX Robotics is a robotics program for elementary through university students, and a subset of Innovation First International. The VEX Robotics competitions and programs are managed by the Robotics Education and Competition Foundation (RECF). In ...

Competition. In 2011, the school added an optional robotics class to its science curriculum and moved into a larger room previously occupied by the maintenance department. In 2014, the team had 30 members and had to move to a much larger classroom. In 2015, the team had 12 students. Chadwick Robotics also collaborates with the robotics program at the Chadwick International campus in Songdo, South Korea, sharing engineering techniques and innovative strategies for each year's contest.

Notable alumni

Business

* Danese Cooper - computer scientist and open-source advocate,

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

* Jann Wenner - owner of

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...

magazine

Medical

* David Chadwick - clinical research pediatrician, author, founder of Chadwick Center for Children and Autism Discovery Institute-San Diego, 2019 recipient of Chadwick School Distinguished Alumnus

Entertainment

Christina Crawford Christina Crawford is an American author and actress, best known for her 1978 memoir and exposé, '' Mommie Dearest'', which described her abusive relationship with her adoptive mother, film star Joan Crawford. Early life and education Christ ...

- actor and author of

* Peter Davis - winner of an Academy Award for documentary * Chuck Dukowski - Bass player for 1970s punk rock band Black Flag * Jessica Gottlieb - author *

Brandon Lee Brandon Bruce Lee (February 1, 1965 – March 31, 1993) was an American actor and martial artist. Establishing himself as a rising action star in the early 1990s, he landed his breakthrough role as Eric Draven in the dark fantasy film '' T ...

- actor and martial artist, son of Bruce Lee *

Shannon Lee Shannon Emery Lee Keasler (born April 19, 1969) is an American actress and businesswoman. She is the only living child of martial artist Bruce Lee and retired martial arts teacher Linda Lee Cadwell, the granddaughter of Cantonese opera singer L ...

- daughter of Bruce Lee, sister of

Mike Lookinland Michael Paul Lookinland (born December 19, 1960) is an American actor and cameraman. He is best known for his role as the youngest brother, Bobby Brady, on the ABC sitcom ''The Brady Bunch'' from 1969 to 1974, and its many sequels and spinoffs. ...

- actor,

The Brady Bunch ''The Brady Bunch'' is an American sitcom created by Sherwood Schwartz that aired from September 26, 1969, to March 8, 1974, on ABC. The series revolves around a large blended family with six children. The show aired for five seasons and, afte ...

* Liza Minnelli - winner of the Emmy, Grammy, Academy and Tony Awards * Aida Mollenkamp - television chef and food writer, Ask Aida and '' FoodCrafters'' * Rick Moses - actor/singer/songwriter *

Maureen Reagan Maureen Elizabeth Reagan (January 4, 1941 – August 8, 2001) was an American political activist and the first child of U.S. president Ronald Reagan and his first wife, actress Jane Wyman. Her brother is Michael Reagan and her half-siblings ar ...

- actor, child of Ronald Reagan * Pippa Scott - actress *

Robert Towne Robert Towne (born Robert Bertram Schwartz;'' Easy Riders, Raging Bulls'' by Peter Biskind page 30, 1999 Bloomsbury edition November 23, 1934) is an American screenwriter, producer, director and actor. He started with writing films for Roger ...

- screenwriter/director, winner of an Academy Award for the screenplay of '' Chinatown'' *

Michael Viner Michael Ames Viner ( ; February 27, 1944 – August 8, 2009) was an American film producer and record producer, who later shifted into book publishing and became an innovator in the audiobook field. A widely sampled percussion break in the recordi ...

- record and audiobook producer

Literature

* Susan Berman - author and screenwriter * Eric Puchner - novelist and short story writer *

George Starbuck George Edwin Starbuck (June 15, 1931 in Columbus, Ohio – August 15, 1996 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama) was an American poet of the neo-formalist school. Life Starbuck studied at Chadwick School, the California Institute of Technology, the Univers ...

- poet, winner of the 1983

Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize The Academy of American Poets is a national, member-supported organization that promotes poets and the art of poetry. The nonprofit organization was incorporated in the state of New York in 1934. It fosters the readership of poetry through outreac ...

* Peter Zuckerman - journalist (

The Oregonian ''The Oregonian'' is a daily newspaper based in Portland, Oregon, United States, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 18 ...

) and author

Athletics

Lindsay Davenport Lindsay Ann Davenport Leach (born June 8, 1976) is an American former professional tennis player. Davenport was ranked singles world No. 1 for a total of 98 weeks, and was the year-end singles world No. 1 four times (1998, 2001, 2004, and 2005) ...

- No. 1 ranked female tennis player *

Christen Press Christen Annemarie Press (born December 29, 1988) is an American soccer player for Angel City FC of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) and the United States national team. She first appeared for the United States national team during an ...

- Professional Soccer player. Two-time

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...

Champion, Olympian, recipient of the 2010 Hermann Trophy. * Rebecca Smith - Olympic soccer player *

John Thorrington John Gerard Thorrington (born October 17, 1979) is a South African-born American retired soccer player who currently serves as co-president and general manager of Major League Soccer club Los Angeles FC. Although raised in the United States, Th ...

- soccer player

Notable employees

* Margaret Lee Chadwick - School founder and headmistress (1935 to 1963) * Latario Rachal - Athletics coach * Cedric Wright - photography teacher, recruited Ansel Adams to arrange darkroom and photograph school events

In literature

Nonfiction

* ''Hedy Lamarr: The Most Beautiful Woman in Film'' by Ruth Barton * ''Indigenous: growing up Californian'' by

Cris Mazza Cris Mazza (born 1956) is an American novelist, short story writer, and non-fiction author. Early life and education A native of Southern California, Mazza earned her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees from San Diego State University and ...

* ''

'' by

* ''The Milk of Almonds: Italian American Women Writers on Food and Culture'' by Edvige Giunta

Fictional Chadwick School novels

* ''Mandie'' by Lois Gladys Leppard * ''Surviving Chadwick: A Novel'' by Phillip Wilhite * ''THE TRUST: A Secret Society Novel'' by Tom DolbyTHE TRUST: A Secret Society Novel by Tom Dolby
/ref> * ''White Lines'' by Jennifer Banash. Several fictional teachers in the novel share their names with Chadwick faculty. For example, the character Mr. Cass in the novel shares his last name with a Chadwick teacher. Dr. Banash herself taught English at Chadwick.

Filmography

References

External links

Chadwick School
{{authority control Private K-12 schools in Los Angeles County, California Preparatory schools in California Educational institutions established in 1935 1935 establishments in California