Discover the Largest High School in Arizona (And Notable Alums)

Key Points:

• The biggest high school in Arizona is Hamilton High School, located in Chandler, AZ.
• There are around 4,116 students enrolled at the school, which offers grades 9 through 12.
• It was named after the Hamilton family, who originally owned the land its campus now resides on.

Arizona has 1,003 high schools, of which 926 are public, and 77 are private. In addition, Arizona ranks 20^th in terms of the number of schools in a state and 14^th for student enrollment. Furthermore, the Grand Canyon State ranks 48^th for the student/teacher ratio. But the largest school in Arizona is Hamilton High School.

The Largest High School in Arizona

Hamilton High School is the largest high school in Arizona. It is located in Chandler, Arizona and the 64^th largest high school in the U.S., with approximately 4,000 students a year enrolled. Students can complete grades 9 to 12 at this comprehensive high school.

Hamilton High School has an excellent curriculum, including comprehensive fine arts, STEM, athletics programs, and many extracurricular activities. For example, more than 80 sponsored clubs encourage students to participate in school activities. Furthermore, the school provides modern technology to enhance the learning experience for its students. It appears this approach is working because the school has had great success at national and state levels in academics, athletics, and fine art competitions.

History

The largest school in Arizona was named after the family who originally owned the land its campus now resides on, the Hamilton family. The head of the family, John Augustus Hamilton, was one of the founding members of Chandler and served as the sheriff for the southeast Phoenix Metropolitan Area. As Chandler expanded, the local high school couldn’t keep up with the demand, and voters granted a $33 million bond to purchase a property for Hamilton High School, which opened in 1998. Furthermore, accepting around 1,600 freshmen relieved a lot of pressure from the local high school.

Enrollment Numbers For the Largest High School in Arizona

There are around 4,116 students enrolled at Hamilton High School, which offers grades 9 through 12. In addition, 65% of the students at the largest school in Arizona scored at or above the level for reading, and 73% scored at or above the proficient level for math. Furthermore, the student-teacher ratio is 1:24, which is below average for the district, and the school’s minority student enrollment is 55%. Hamilton High School has 173 full-time teachers and nine full-time counselors. Lastly, the student population consists of 50% male and 50% female students.

Awards

In 2005, 2009, and 2013 the Arizona Education Foundation awarded Hamilton its A+ School of Excellence Award. Additionally, Hamilton was the fifteenth highest-scoring school on AIMS tests (Arizona’s Instrument to Measure Standards) in 2014 and the top non-magnet school in the annual public school examination. In 2019, Deborah Nipar was presented with the Presidential Excellence Award in Science and Mathematics for her work as an Honors science research and AP chemistry instructor. This is a high accolade as she is one in five recipients of this award in Arizona. Students at the largest high school in Arizona have also achieved the following:

• Western Governors Association’s annual Spirit Award
• ASU Gammage High School Musical Theatre Awards
• National Merit Honors
• Honorable mention for the Governor’s Celebration of Innovation Award.

Extracurricular Activities

There are many sporting activities to take part in at the largest high school in Arizona. Students have their pick of freshmen, junior varsity, and varsity-only teams, but also individual sports, including:

• Basketball for girls and boys
• Baseball
• Badminton for girls
• Flag football
• Cheer for girls and coed
• Football
• Cross country
• Golf for girls and boys
• Lacrosse for girls and boys
• Hockey competitive
• Soccer for girls and boys
• Pom line
• Softball
• Tennis for girls and boys
• Volleyball for girls and boys
• Swim and Dive for girls and boys
• Track and field for girls and boys
• Wrestling for girls and boys.

Academics

Hamilton High School hosts an Academic Decathlon, which has garnered numerous individual and team awards, including region titles from 2018 to 2019 and 2019 to 2020 seasons and Region IV Arizona State Championship. One of the teams received an Arizona State Champion runners-up trophy during the 2017 to 2018 season. In fact, they competed against 73 other schools from the USA, UK, and China during the 2018 to 2019 season and placed third in the Academic Decathlon’s Super Quiz competition and fourth overall.

Another notable academic option is Hamilton’s robotics team, Microbots, who designed and created award-winning robots for the First Robotics Competition. In addition, in its first year of existence in 2001, the team won the Regional Award at the South California Competitions. Other awards include:

• The Judges’ Award by the Arizona Regionals in 2003
• Industrial Safety Award and Entrepreneurship Award in 2014
• FIRST Dean’s List Finalist Award by the Arizona West Regional in 2017.

Lastly, the students receive mentoring hand sponsoring from several technology companies within the city of Chandler during all phases of the competitions.

Campus

Stantec built the largest high school in Arizona on a budget of $33 million. The school sits on a 359,341-square-foot property at 3700 S. Arizona Ave. The double-story structure has an administrative wing on the bottom floor next to the main entrance. There is an indoor dining area and a shaded patio outside for students to use during lunch, and the food services line the south end area of the cafeteria, which offers six styles of food.

The C, D, and E wings are two stories tall and house traditional square-shaped classrooms on each side of the hallways. In addition, the main corridor has two staircases and an elevator. The ground floor in D-wing sports the Lil Express Learning Center, a child care service open to faculty and students participating n the Arizona Department of Education’s Early Childhood Education Program. This learning center also contains a walled-off playground. Furthermore, special education classrooms are also situated on the ground floor for students with intellectual disabilities, providing licensed occupational, speech, and physical therapists.

The southeast section of the main building belongs to the performing arts. H-wing contains dance, orchestra, concert band, art, and gymnastics spaces surrounding the 600-seat auditorium. The G-wing has a small weight-lifting room and lockers surrounded by the gym. Additionally, due to the large student population, there are mobile classrooms in the northern parking lot, close to the N-wing, with two classrooms per building. However, $4.5 million has been allocated to construct a 20-classroom double-story building (N-wing) and additional administration offices where the outdoor concrete basketball courts once stood.

Alumni

Many successful alums attended the largest school in Arizona, including the following athletes:

But, it’s not just athletes that have succeeded from Hamilton High School, other notable alums include:

• Parris Sheets: author of the “Essence of Ohr” trilogy
• Kylee Saunders: entertainer and J-Pop star
• Viputheshwar Sitaraman: an entrepreneur, CEO, and founder of Explica, Inc.

Where Is Hamilton High School Located on a Map?

Hamilton High School is a public high school located in Chandler, Arizona. It holds the distinction of being the largest high school in Arizona and ranks 64th nationwide, with an enrollment of over 4,100 students.

Here is Hamilton High School on a map:

The photo featured at the top of this post is © Thatchriskid at English Wikipedia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons – License / Original