From open lockers to traditions like eating on the floor, the CHS community is packed with fun and unique experiences. To get prospective eighth graders interested in attending the school, CHS hosts information sessions every year where staff and ambassadors show students around the building, answer questions and shed light on the CHS experience. These sessions spark interest in potential students and illustrate the courses and environment CHS offers.

Principal James Gleason thinks that the information sessions help prospective students decide if it’s the school for them.

“It’s important to know what we’re doing and what we’re not doing, so that way students and parents can make an educated decision on whether CHS is a good fit for them,” Gleason said.

SGA President Lucy Battista of Tinton Falls believes the purpose of the info sessions is to strengthen prospective students’ interest in CHS.

“We try to convince them at the sessions so we can get as many applicants as possible for the incoming freshman class,” Battista said.

This year was different than last year because students weren’t required to sign up online, making it hard to tell how many students are interested.

“I don’t know exactly how many people came to the first information session, but we didn’t have any idea as to how many people were going to be here,” Wheeler said.

According to Gleason, the info sessions have been going quite well so far. The only issue has been a traffic jam brought on by President Biden coming to Middletown on Oct. 6.

“When the president gets into town, they close down traffic all over the place,” Gleason explained. “So traffic here [on the day of the info session] and traffic in Monmouth county was crazy.”

Even with arrival difficulties, the sessions have gone well.

SGA President Lucy Battista describes how heartening it feels to help run the info sessions.

“I remember when I was their age, coming to look at CHS and falling in love with it,” Battista said. “I’m hoping I can help give more students that welcoming feeling of CHS that I felt as an eighth grader.”