On Friday, Oct. 10, Cranston High School East will launch its Centennial Celebration, marking the 100 years since the keystone on the building was set in 1925.

The event will begin a two-year celebration that will last through the graduating Class of 2027, marking the school’s 100^th graduating class.

It will open with the high school’s homecoming parade and game on Oct. 10. Opening ceremonies and a centennial banner will be revealed at 4:30 p.m., in the gymnasium lobby. Cranston East’s 2025 Alumni Award will be presented at that time.

Following tradition, the parade will run from Cranston East to Cranston Stadium for the homecoming game against Middletown High School at 7 p.m.

The parade will step off at 5 p.m. on the front steps of the school and proceed to the stadium for the game start at 5:30 p.m. 

The school was formerly known as Cranston High School, reminiscent that it was the city’s first and only high school in before Cranston High School West opened in 1958.

Before Cranston High School was established, any student in Cranston who wished to receive a high school education was sent to Providence.

In 1925, with $50,000 for the building of a new high school, Cranston High School East was realized. 

As the centerpiece of the Cranston East campus, the main building at 899 Park Ave., is where more than 1,500 students are enrolled, according to the most recent data available.

Now the Briggs building, at 845 Park Ave., where Cranston High School was originally housed, now houses school administration offices and a few Cranston East classrooms. It was built and named in honor of William A. Briggs, a former superintendent who served for nine years.

Thomas Barbieri is the current principal at Cranston High School East. He described the centennial celebration as a way to honor the school’s past while “energizing our future.”

“As principal, I am both humbled and proud to be part of her history,” Barbieri stated. “There’s something truly special about an educational institution standing tall for a full century — still thriving, still evolving, and still deeply rooted in tradition. That kind of legacy deserves to be celebrated, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

Barbieri says readers can expect a celebration filled with pride, reflection and community spirit –  “one worthy of 100 years of ‘We are East.’”

According to a press release from Cranston Public Schools, starting this fall, all events and logos will showcase the Centennial Celebration, and a series of special events will continue through the celebration.