Half Hollow Hills Central School District
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
To meet Wikipedia's quality standards, this article may require cleanup.
More verifiable information on this school is needed. Guidelines and editing help are available.
See rationale on this article's talk page. This school based article is related to WikiProject Schools.
Half Hollow Hills Central School District (#5) is located in Dix Hills, New York. The district includes parts of both Huntington and Babylon townships. The school district contains eleven schools (seven elementary schools, two middle schools, and two high schools). The current superintendent of schools is Dr. Sheldon Karnilow.
Both High School East and High School West are known for their research departments, run by Chrysi Notskas, producing a number of Intel Science Talent Search, Intel ISEF, and Siemens Westinghouse Competition finalists over the past decade.
The district continues to annually have large population increases due to extensive development within its borders. As a result, most of the schools have recently undergone expansions to accommodate additional students.
Contents |
[edit] Schools
High Schools (9-12): High School East ("Hills East" or "HSE"), High School West ("Hills West" or "HSW")
Middle Schools (6-8): Candlewood Middle School, West Hollow Middle School
Elementary Schools (K-5): Chestnut Hill Elementary School, Forest Park Elementary School, Otsego Elementary School, Paumanok Elementary School, Signal Hill Elementary School, Sunquam Elementary School, Vanderbilt Elementary School
[edit] High School East
High School East is located at 50 Vanderbilt Parkway in Dix Hills, New York, across the street from the Dix Hills branch of the The Half Hollow Hills Community Library. Albert Kindelmann is the current principal. It is fed from West Hollow Middle School and is the larger of the two high schools in the district. Hills East was once used as both a middle school and a high school, so the building is sprawling. It is located on uneven land; parts of the building are one-and-a-half stories above other areas. The school is very large and unfortunatly suffers from gang-related violence.
[edit] Notable Clubs
Hills East is known across New York State for winning titles in the We The People: The Citizen and the Constitution competition for the past consecutive four years. They have won the Northeast Region in the 2003–2004 and 2004–2005 competitions and placed within the top 10 nationally in 2002-2003 and 2005-2006 [1].
Hill's East is known for it's drama and fine arts programs making it one of the most competitive schools on Long Island. Each year drama participants produce three plays which are rather challenging to enter. The school often hosts "NYSSMA" and "SCMEA".
The Football team at East is one of the worst in the state and the sports quality here is rather poor.
A notable sports team is the Boy's Varsity Golf Team which won the Suffolk County and Long Island Championships for High School Boy's Golf in 2006 with players Marc Battipaglia, Dan Horowitz, Jordan Meltzer, Brandon Meltzer, Jisoo Park, Matthew Lustberg, Alex Cooper, Sam Kim, Brandon Simon, Steven Hershkowitz and coach Ed Lein.
The award-winning school newspaper bears the same name as the mascot, the Thunderbird. In 2005, it won numerous awards through the Long Island Press Association [2] and Columbia Student Press Association (CSPA). It has won gold awards in the CSPA competitions on and off for the last 7 years.
[edit] Facilities
One rather unique feature of High School East is its planetarium, located one floor above the main office. It features a Spitz A3P planetarium projector, and is usually used to host class trips from the middle and elementary schools; it is also home to High School East's Astronomy Club. In past years (2003-2005), it has been vandalized externally by seniors with spraypaint, apparently trying to imitate the success of MIT's "hacks" on their dome.
Another unique feature of High School East is the auditorium which seats over 2,000 on two levels [3], making it the largest not-for-profit auditorium on Long Island. It hosts various school events throughout the year, including Comp Day (talent contest between grades), the Spring Musical, and Athletic Awards. The space is also rented out to local companies for events throughout the year. The stage is a full Broadway-sized stage (88 feet wide, 49 deep, three stories tall for fly space (hanging scenery).
The school also has a recently-renovated lecture hall that is significantly smaller than the auditorium. It hosts the Fall Drama and Senior Theatrical Production and other smaller gatherings.
[edit] Student life
The school mascot of Hills East is the Thunderbird, which struts the school donning the school colors, Red and Black. There are facilities on both ends of the building for socialization: the student center on the west end and the library on the east end. The student center features a small bookstore and candy counter that is open after school hours and staffed by students in the business leadership clubs.
There are also computer facilities on both ends of campus, in the library and in the math wing. The district was primarily Apple Macintosh based for a long time, but purchased a number of PCs in 2006.
[edit] High School West
West is located at 375 Wolf Hill Road in Dix Hills, New York. Its current principal is Dr. James J. LoFrese. The smaller of the two high schools, High School West has a natatorium next-door, which is used for swim meets, community events, gym classes, and occasional school trips. Since it was built exclusively as a high school, West has a more traditional layout than High School East, being rectangular, with two floors. It is located on the same property as Signal Hill Elementary School, and is fed primarily from Candlewood Middle School.
To compensate for recent population increase, a new wing was recently added to the rear of the building, adding English and science classrooms and a new gymnasium.
The school's teams are known as the Colts. West is well-known for its outstanding track team. Most recently, the boys' winter track team won the 2005-2006 league and county championships, and the girls' team placed second in its league. The school is also well known for its championship boys' tennis teams which won the 2004 Suffolk County Championship and placed 2nd in 2005.
Hills West's official newspaper is The Roundup. The student-run newspaper operates under the motto "published by and for the students of Hills West." In 2006 The Roundup won five Long Island Press awards. [4]
In February 2006, Newsday reported that about 80 Hills West seniors planned an unsupervised, non-school-sanctioned ski trip to Killington, VT, through the school [5]. According to Newsday, the trip “resulted in several arrests for underage drinking, with one student hospitalized and later released for drug poisoning. Local police in Vermont called it one of the worst ski groups they had seen in recent history.”
[edit] West Hollow Middle School
The larger of the two middle schools, West Hollow is located at 250 Old East Neck Road in Melville, New York. Students feed from West Hollow to High School East. The current principal is Ms. Mary Rettaliata. The school mascot is the Wolverine, but a proposal to change this is currently being considered. West Hollow is known as one of the most "up-tight" school's out their. The school has a rather strict administration making theese students "nerds".
[edit] Candlewood
The smaller middle school that recently underwent renovations. The school is located at 1200 Carll's Straight Path Dix Hills, New York. The current principl is Andrew Greene. The mascot is the cougar, and the school colors are red and gold. This school has a new renovated auditorium.
[edit] Notable alumni
- Actor Ralph Macchio (class of ’79) of The Karate Kid film series (High School West)
- Actress Dina Meyer (class of '86) of hit films Johnny Mnemonic, Starship Troopers and Star Trek: Nemesis
- Comedic director Todd Phillips (also known as Todd Bunzl, class of ’89) of hit films such as Road Trip, Old School and Starsky & Hutch
- Actress and radio talk show host Kim Serafin (class of ’91), who currently hosts her own weekly radio program on KABC 790 AM in Los Angeles
- Actor Brian Bloom (class of ’88) starred in As the World Turns
- Brian Bloom's brother Scott Bloom (class of ’91) was featured on Who's the Boss?
- Othniel Askew (class of ’90) an aspiring politician who shot and killed his rival, James E. Davis, a New York City councilman, on 23 July 2003.
[edit] Central Office
Previously Manasquan Elementary School, Central Office now serves as the central administration building for the Half Hollow Hills School District. It is located on Half Hollow Hills Road, on the same property as High School East. In addition to housing the offices of the Superintendent and other administrators, Central Office serves as the location for a small mock-astronautics program for children, the center for AHAP (Academically High Aptitude Program), and certain community events, as well as child care services.
