Mr. Kenny Leatherwood, Interim Principal, brings decades of wide-ranging leadership experience at Charlottesville City Schools. He began his service in our schools as a CHS teacher and basketball coach in 1981. He later assumed administrative responsibilities in the school, including six years as CHS principal. Later in his career, he worked in the division’s central offices in human resources and as coordinator of our alternative learning programs. Even after retiring in 2012, he has continued to serve as interim principal in a number of our schools. Since his first days in our schools, Mr. Leatherwood has been a respected educator and leader.

Built in 1974, Charlottesville High School replaced the historic Lane High School, which now serves as the Albemarle County Office Building. Lane High was built in 1939 but shut its doors in 1958 as part of the state’s massive resistance to racial integration.  Lane High, along with Venable Elementary, were the first Charlottesville schools to be integrated when the “Charlottesville Twelve” entered the schools on September 8, 1959. In recent years, many Charlottesville City Schools have often hosted members of the “Venable Twelve” to speak to students about their experiences integrating the schools.

Charlottesville High School is home of the Black Knights, serving approximately 1,200 students in grades 9-12. CHS excels in academics, the arts, athletics, and more. Students regularly earn an array of honors and qualify for national and international competitions in academics, fine arts, and STEM programming.

Through its extensive AP, dual enrollment, and dual-degree programs with Piedmont Virginia Community College, CHS prepares students to go to elite universities. Graduates of the Class of 2023 are attending the University of Chicago, VCU, JMU, VSU, UVA, MIT, University of Pennsylvania, Brown, the School of Arts Institute of Chicago, Old Dominion, Mary Washington, Virginia Tech, William & Mary, Mary Baldwin, Clark Atlanta, Princeton, Hampshire, Harvard, Hollins, Duke, Penn State, Tulane, Johnson & Wales, Sarah Lawrence, and many more. 

We also prepare first-generation college students to blaze a trail for their families with continuing education through our AVID program (Advancement Via Individual Determination). Read more about  this successful in-school college preparatory program here.

A few CHS highlights:

• Our high-tech STEM lab is home to science and engineering classes and serves as a shared space for cross-curricular work. It is also home to the award-winning  BACON Club (Best All-Around Club of Nerds), along with an internationally-qualifying Zero Robotics team (two years in a row!).
• The CHS band and orchestra are among the most-decorated in Virginia, and the orchestra has received superior ratings continually since 1984. CHS has earned twelve“Blue Ribbons” from the Virginia Music Educators Association, given to schools whose top band, choir, and orchestra all earn superior.

• CHS students pitched proposals for community projects — and earned cash support — at events such as the Tom Tom Founders Festival and CFA Institute’s Project SERVE.
• CHS students enrolled in career and technical education classes at CHS or at the Charlottesville Albemarle Technical Education Center (CATEC) model future-readiness in a wide variety of areas, such as the program’s partnership with tech leader CISCO or their newly launched Technical Eats food bus, and they earn college credits and industry certifications.
• CHS students excel in world languages, including French, German, Latin, Spanish, and even Chinese!   Our students put this language training into practice by translating for Spanish-speaking families at school events, partnering with the East Asia Center at U.Va., hosting guests from China, and making field trips to the German Embassy (plus China, France, Spain, and Switzerland).
• CHS students outperform their state and national peers on the SAT and AP exams.  We are the only area school recognized by the Washington Post as a “challenging school” that encourages a wide variety of students to take AP classes and exams. Our honors and advanced classes are increasingly diverse — African-American enrollment in honors classes is up 29 percent in the last three years. This is in part due to greater use of “honors-optional” classes that allow students within a single class to elect assignments and readings that qualify for honors credit.

Follow CHS on Twitter or Facebook at @CHSBlackKnights!

What else is there to love about CHS? Ask a Black Knight! The video below, "CHS: I love it! I love it! I love it! Portrait Project," is a celebration of why students and staff love being a Black Knight. This photography/interview project is a partnership between Rachel Wilson's Capstone & Photo 4 photography class and the Knight Time Review.