Abraham Joshua Heschel School
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| Abraham Joshua Heschel School | |
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| Superintendent/ Principal Administrator |
Roanna Shorofsky |
|---|---|
| School type | Private |
| Religious affiliation | Jewish |
| Lower School Location | 270 West 89th Street, New York, New York 10024 |
| Middle School Location | 314 West 91st Street, New York, New York 10024 |
| High School Location | 20 West End Avenue, New York, New York 10023 |
| Sports teams | Heschel Heat and Heschel Hurricanes |
The Abraham Joshua Heschel Heschel School (AJHS) is a pluralistic K-12 Jewish day school in New York City. Its two central values, pluralism and egalitarianism, create a tightly-knit, yet diverse community. Located in Manhattan, the school seeks to follow the example of its namesake, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who sought to make the world a better place for members of the community, Jews, and everyone throughout the world.
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[edit] Schools
The Abraham Joshua Heschel School's student body is divided up into several buildings due to space constraints. Namely, there is an early childhood center and lower school, a middle school, and a newly constructed high school. All three buildings can be found on the west side of Manhattan.
[edit] The high school
The newly built high school contains a diverse student body, and it is run on a more democratic system than many similar schools, which is outlined below.
[edit] Student body
The Heschel High School (or AJHHS) students come from a variety of neighborhoods within New York and New Jersey. There is a constituency from every borough of New York City, and several students come in from Westchester and Riverdale every day. The student body also contains a varied international representation that includes Switzerland, Ukraine, Russia, Argentina, Venezuela (Moises) and Israel.
[edit] Clubs
Clubs constitute a large part of the social life at The Heschel High School. Most clubs are supervised by a faculty member. Some clubs, such as A cappella and Movie Club are in fact completely student supervised.
Club List:
- Newspaper- Heschel Helios
- Debate- led by Sandra Silverman
- Mock Trial- led by Bruce Gitlin
- Model UN- Led by Katherine Kwok
- Chess
- A Cappella- The Heschel Harmonizers
- Photography
- Drama
- Ping-Pong
- Movie
- Math and Science
- Linguistics- Led by Jeff Segall
- Zoology Society- founded by Elliot Sion led by Danny Aviv
- Current Events - founded by Sarah Bayefsky-Anand
- Finance/Investment
- Chesed
- Literary Magazine- Epitome
- Creative Writing
- Book
- Jazz Band 1 - led by Ari "mix master" Gold
- Jazz Band 2 - led by Ari "mix master" Gold
- Chamber Music- Beaux Arts Ensemble
Also included in the clubs category are committees that exist within the High School. Such committees include Student Senate and the Fairness Committee. These groups are not open to participants, but rather representatives are elected by the Student Body.
- Student Senate
- Va'ad Tzedek- or Fairness Committee
- Graduation Committee
- Student Admission Representatives- SARs
[edit] The Heschel Helios
| The Heschel Helios | |
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| Faculty Advisor | Lisa Epstein, Dena Schutzer |
|---|---|
| Editors-in-Chief | Jason Merrin, Robyn Spector |
| Managing Editor | Michael Mizrahi |
| Alumus Editors | Sara Arrow, Gabriella Kula |
| Official Motto | "We stand for what we utter." |
| Website | helios.heschel.org |
The Heschel Helios is the official student produced newspaper of the Heschel High School. The namesake of the newspaper follows with the High Schools heat theme (sports team- Heschel Heat). Helios is Greek for sun. The student club aims to produce four issues per school year. The club goes through a complete traditional newspaper experience. The process includes "slugging" articles, writing the articles, producing images or graphics for feature articles, peer editing of editorials and articles and finally, layout and printing, the involved students get a full experience of how a newspaper operates. The newspaper's motto, "We stand for what we utter," was chosen in the Winter of 2005 and is an original quote from the school's namesake, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.
[edit] "Just Community"
The Heschel High School, unlike its Middle and Lower counterparts runs on a system they call the "Just Community". This type of system was created to ensure that students and their desires are respected. Each student has a say in his or her life at school, and although the administration may veto their opinions, they will always be heard. Additionally, this system dictates that the student body votes upon a council to represent them early on in the year. This senate brings issues to the schools attention (and vice-versa) during weekly "town meetings" where issues are discussed, voted upon and, if approved, become part of Heschel Policy. Limitations on the length of homework assignments and the frequency of tests are two significant changes that were introduced by the students and have become a standardized feature of academic life at Heschel.
Students never have a say on topics related to religious policy, safety, and curriculum although they may always express their opinion.
All rules on which the student body (through the student senate) agrees are posted on the school constitution.
[edit] Technology usage
The High School is a "laptop" school. This means that all students are required to obtain the Heschel laptop to use it as a learning tool throughout their education. All teachers are equipped with laptops, and all classrooms contain smartboards, which they often use to record class notes.
This inclusion of technology gives students a responsibility to use their computers appropriately, as they can easily be used for good and bad.
[edit] Dual curriculum
All students at the Heschel School learn a dual curriculum, studying both Jewish and secular topics throughout the day. Although this leads to a longer day, students end up with a rich and varied education and bilinguality (Hebrew) from a young age.
The Heschel Heat is the name carried by the various sports teams that play for the High School. The teams include boys and girls basketball, girls volleyball, tennis, soccer, girls floor hockey, and track and field.
[edit] Disambiguation
The Heschel School located in Manhattan is not to be confused with the schools that go by the same name in Los Angeles, California and Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Despite having similar names, the three schools are not related at all.
