New Trier High School

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New Trier High School
Motto To commit minds to inquiry, hearts to compassion, and lives to the service of humanity.
Established 1901
Type Public secondary
Principal Debra Stacey (Winnetka)
Jan Borja (Northfield)
Students 4,094 (2005)
Grades 9–12
Location 385 Winnetka Avenue
Winnetka, Illinois USA
Campus Suburban
Colors Blue and green
Mascot Trevians
Website www.newtrier.k12.il.us

New Trier High School (also known as New Trier Township High School or NTHS) is a public four-year high school located in Winnetka, Illinois, U.S.A.. Founded in 1901, the school is well known for its large spending per student, academic excellence, and its athletic, drama, and music programs. New Trier's primary campus in Winnetka is utilized by sophomores, juniors, and seniors, while the freshmen attend classes at the Northfield campus. The school serves Chicago's North Shore suburbs of Wilmette, Glencoe, Winnetka, Kenilworth, Northfield, as well as small portions of Glenview and Northbrook.

Contents

[edit] History

Winnetka campus
Winnetka campus

The high school was founded in 1901 in Winnetka, Illinois, with seventy-six students and seven faculty members by Francis John Acott[citation needed]. In 1912, New Trier became the first high school in America to have an indoor swimming pool. During World War I, New Trier became a training ground for soldiers in 1918 under Private Sam Trohman, grandfather of pop guitarist legend, Joe Trohman. A fund raising drive by students led to the purchase of an ambulance. During the mid 1920s, New Trier began the adviser system that is still in place today. Later, students sold tax warrants door to door to keep the school operating as the flow of property tax funds was disrupted by the Great Depression in the early 1930s. In the 1940s, students raised enough funds to finance the purchase of a B-17 bomber (The Spirit of New Trier) and a B-29.

By 1962, student enrollment had increased to over 4,000. To accommodate this larger student body, voters approved a referendum for New Trier to purchase forty-six acres in Northfield through a bond issue. New Trier West opened for freshmen and sophomores in 1965. Then in 1967, the New Trier West campus was dedicated as a separate four-year high school. Attending the dedication ceremony were then Education Secretary John Gardner, U.S. Senator Charles Percy ('37), and Congressman Donald Rumsfeld ('50).

Enrollment reached an all time peak of 6,558 students in 1972. By 1981, enrollment had dropped significantly. As a result, the school board decided to combine the East and West schools back into one, and convert the Northfield (west) buildings into a freshmen-only campus for the combined school. The resulting arrangement (freshmen at the "west campus" and upperclassmen at the "east campus") lasted from September 1981 until June 1985, when enrollment had declined enough for the board to close and convert the entire Northfield campus to a community recreation space. The campus later housed a senior center, corporate dormitories, a public swimming pool, and an alternative high school program known as West Center Academy.

In 2001, the Northfield campus was reopened as a freshmen-only campus due to increasing enrollment. The decision to make it a freshmen-only campus was a compromise from a stalemate between plans to either increase capacity at the Winnetka campus or reopen the Northfield campus as a separate school. The Northfield campus also houses the administrative offices of the New Trier Township High School District. Today New Trier is considered one of the most elite public high schools in the country, in academics, athletics and the arts.

[edit] Academics

[edit] Profile

Gaffney Auditorium at the Winnetka campus
Gaffney Auditorium at the Winnetka campus

New Trier graduated 98.5% of its senior class in 2005. The average class size is 1050.[1] New Trier spends over $14,000 yearly per student, well above the national average of $8,200. It has been included in the "Top Hundred" and "Most Successful" lists of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Parade magazine. The school was also identified as "quite possibly the best public school in America" by Town and Country.[2] Life also recognized New Trier as one of the best high schools in America with cover stories in 1950 and 1998.[3]

Approximately 97% of the Class of 2005 enrolled in college. Of the 977 students in the Class of 2005, 12 were National Merit Scholarship Winners, 32 were National Merit Semifinalists, and 68 received Letters of Commendation. For the class of 2005, the mean SAT Verbal score was 623, and the mean SAT Math score was 641. The mean ACT composite score was 26.8.[4] According to an article by the University of Michigan Department of Psychology, "New Trier students outperform their Illinois classmates on every conceivable measure." [5]

The instrumental music department has received 27 Downbeat awards in that magazine's annual student musician awards program.[citation needed] This is the most awards received by any public high school. More than 1,100 students participate in the music department by presenting 24 concerts a year with almost all concerts webcast live on the internet at ntjazz.com, live on local cable television, and in stereo on WNTH radio.

New Trier was named a Grammy Signature School Gold recipient by the Grammy Foundation in 2000 for its commitment to music education[6], as well as being named the National Signature School in 2007 as the nation's top high school music program. In April of 2006, the school's Concert Choir and Symphony Orchestra performed in New York City at Carnegie Hall. In the summer of 2000, the school's Jazz Ensemble, Chamber Orchestra and Blue Grass Band enjoyed a successful two week concert tour of China.

Northfield campus
Northfield campus

[edit] Tracking

New Trier has practiced subject-level grouping for over fifty years. In this system, up to four different levels of difficulty are offered for each academic subject and Advanced Placement classes provide a fifth alternative for upperclassmen. Level 1 is considered a general level. Levels 2, 3, and 4 are college preparatory, accelerated, and honors levels respectively. Level 5 is reserved for Advanced Placement classes. Students may work at different levels in different subjects.

New Trier offers both unweighted and weighted grade point averages (GPA), and plus and minus grades are reported on transcripts. However, transcripts only report decile rank instead of exact class rank. Decile rank gives the 10% range in which each students ranks. For example, "fourth decile" means the student's GPA places him or her somewhere between the top 30% and 40% in the class. For weighted GPA, the maximum score (an A) in a 1-level course is a 3.33 out of 4.00. In a 2-level course, it is 4.00 for the same grade. In levels 3/9, 4, and 5, the maximums are 4.67, 5.33 and 5.67, respectively.

Since the late 1990s, the Board of Education has been examining how to encourage students to pursue a strong academic career without having them focus too much on their class rank. The first step taken by the administration was to eliminate the process of reporting class rank and switch to decile ranking. Around the same time, the scale for weighted GPA calculations was modified, and plus and minus grades were implemented. Previously, an A in a 4-level course was considered a 6.0 in the weighted GPA scale, while it is presently weighted 5.33. In late October of 2005, Superintendent Hank Bangser revealed that the school board is seriously evaluating whether the school should eliminate the practice of class (decile) ranking altogether. Bangser stated to a reporter from the Pioneer Press, "What we really want to do is eliminate it because it makes it harder and harder for really good students who are in the middle of the class to be selected by competitive schools because they won't select kids in the middle of the class."[citation needed]

[edit] Athletics

Official logo of the New Trier Trevians
Official logo of the New Trier Trevians

New Trier's mascot is the Trevian, named after soldiers from the city of Trier, Germany during the Roman Empire. The Trevian mascot was chosen in recognition that the Grosse Pointe area of Wilmette was largely settled by immigrants from Trier, Germany. From 1901 to 1965, the school's sports teams were known as the Indians. When the new campus in the western part of the district, opened in 1965, the new school's sports team was known as the Cowboys. The year before the two schools merged in 1981, a number of student forums were held on both the East and West campuses, giving students the opportunity to provide feedback on potential school colors and nicknames. After a series of votes of the student body, the school adopted Trevians as a team name and green, blue and grey as the school colors (East having previously been green and white, while West was blue, gray and white). During the 2004-2005 school year the mascot was named "Trevius Maximus" after conducting a poll among the students.

New Trier's biggest conference rival is Evanston Township High School. The rivalry between their football teams is one of the oldest uninterrupted sports rivalries in the history of high school sports, dating back to before 1920. Both schools compete in the Central Suburban League-South conference. The two annual basketball games New Trier plays against Evanston draw so many people that since 2001 they have been held at Northwestern University's larger Welsh-Ryan Arena. New Trier's biggest non-conference rival is Loyola Academy, which is located in Wilmette, just down the road from the Northfield campus.

With more than 120 state championships, New Trier High School currently has more state championships than any other high school in Illinois. New Trier also leads the state in Boys State titles, and Girls state titles. The sports in which New Trier has the most titles are Boys Swimming and Diving (19), Boys Tennis (18), Boys Fencing (15) (Midwest Championships), Girls Swimming and Diving (10), Boys Golf (9), and Girls Tennis (8).[7] However, New Trier has yet to win a state title in football or basketball. In May 2005, New Trier was ranked #12 in Sports Illustrated's list of the Top 25 High School Sports Programs in America, and first in Illinois.[citation needed] New Trier Girls Soccer finished the two seasons 2002-2004 first in the nation, with a combined record of 59-0-1.[citation needed] The boys soccer team won their first state championship in 2006, finishing with a 21-4 record. The girls' fencing team has won the Midwest Championships for the past three years, from 2004 to 2006.

[edit] Facilities

Leslie Gates Gymnasium (Basketball)

Winnetka and Northfield Natatoriums (Swimming, Diving, & Water Polo)

Doug Chase Track (Track)

Robert Naughton Field at New Trier Stadium (Football, Soccer, & Lacrosse)

Duke Childs Fields (Baseball & Softball)

Four Additional Indoor Gyms

Robert Warren Schoder, Jr. Indoor Track and Weight Room

Two Tennis Court Complexes

Eight Outdoor Playfields

[edit] Swimming and Diving

The Boys Swimming and Diving Team usually has five co-captains. The team itself is typically separated into six practice groups: Varsity Swimming, JV Winnetka Swimming, JV Northfield Swimming, Freshman Swimming, Varsity Diving and JV Diving. Each group has at least one specific coach, although the varsity teams have two to three. The Athletic Department has always given the swimming and diving teams more funding than other sports because of their successes. The team, under the direction of coaches Mark P. Onstott, Joe Huyler, Michael Leissner, Larry Stoegbauer, Greg Sego, Olympic diver Bruce Kimball, Bruce Burton and Eric Saszik, has become a consistent contender in Illinois high school competition, with a number of state runner-up trophies (18) and state championships (19).

The Girls Swimming and Diving Team is also an extremely talented team with almost as many practice groups as the boys. The current head coach as of 2006, Bruce Woodbury, has been coaching for over two decades. Along with assistants Mark Onstott, Bruce Kimball, Mike Leissner and Larry Stoegbauer, Coach Woodbury has brought New Trier to all star status in IHSA swimming. The team consistently places among the top three in the state finals and has large numbers of All-Americans.

[edit] Water Polo

The boys' team is instructed by David Goodspeed, in his 14th year of coaching at New Trier after starting the water polo program in 1994. Throughout the course of the 13 completed seasons (1994-2006), Goodspeed and the team have an overall record of 189-125-1.

Since the Illinois High School Association (IHSA) added Water Polo as an official sport in 2002, New Trier has twice advanced to the Illinois State Water Polo Tournament of 8 final teams. In 2002, the Trevians lost and were eliminated in their first game by state runner-up Brother Rice by a score of 11-15. In 2004, New Trier trophied for the first time by winning 4th after defeating Palatine HS 16-10 in the first round and losing to eventual state champion Fenwick and The Latin School of Chicago in the third place game 8-12 and 7-13, respectively.

New Trier has produced 4 NISCA All-Americans in the program's history. In 2001, Alex Turner became the first All-American by being selected to the Honorable Mention list. During the 2003 season, both Gerrit Adams (5th Team) and Mike Hill (Honorable Mention) were named All-American. Adams was again named All-American in 2004, this time First Team, along with Chris Soper, who was named Honorable Mention. Soper was also an Honorable Mention All-American in 2005.

This year's 2007 team is led by captains Rick Farmer, Brendan Nyhan, Mark Saleh, and Ben Wampler.

[edit] Ice Hockey

Although ice hockey is not officially supported by the school nor the IHSA, the independent New Trier Hockey Club fields three varsity, one junior varsity and two girls teams—has enjoyed 9 varsity state championships, 2 junior varsity state championships and 3 girls varsity state championships since the two campuses were joined in 1981.

[edit] Boys Tennis

The Boys Tennis team has enjoyed as much success as the swimming and diving program, especially in recent years. They have won 18 state titles including 1996, 97, 98, 2000, 01, 02, and 05. They were also runners up in 2004. They have 7 of the top 8 team point totals in Illinois history. The 2002 team shattered the state record scoring 56 points out of a possible 60. They placed 1st and 2nd in doubles and 2nd and 4th in singles, and were only two points away from a perfect tournament (Paul Rose lost in a third set tiebreaker to eventual state champion Ryan Heller, then retired in the next match which began 10 minutes later due to exhaustion). This team was arguably the best public school tennis team in the history of American prep tennis, sending 11 of its members on to Division I programs, including Ryan Preston (Vanderbilt University), Paul Rose (Purdue University), Patrick Rose (Purdue University), Adam Rubenstein (Trinity College, then transferred to University of Iowa), Eddie Kang (United States Military Academy), and Chris Klingemann (Ohio State).

The team is currently coached by Tim Kajfez and Assistant Coach Phil Brunetti. Their duel match record over the past 10 years features more than 100 wins and fewer than 10 losses, most of which came when they were resting their players before big invitationals. Their biggest rivals include fellow CSL south members Glenbrook South High School and Glenbrook North High School and CSL North foes Lake Forest High School and Deerfield High School. Hinsdale Central High School is also a big match every year. The varsity team plays at AC Nielsen Tennis Center in Winnetka, IL.

[edit] Student life

[edit] Activities

There are over 100 different co-curricular organizations at New Trier. Some notable organizations include:

  • Chess Club: The chess club is one of the oldest clubs at New Trier. It sponsors a chess team that competes with other schools in the Central Suburban League. In 2005, the team placed 2nd overall in the state tournament, while it placed 13th in 2006 and 10th in 2007.
  • Climbing Club: New Trier has two climbing walls at the Winnetka campus, one in a gymnasium and the other in a retired racquetball court.
  • Freshman Focus/Sophomore Journal/View From the Garden Window: Freshmen and sophomores run their own newspapers, respectively titled The Freshman Focus and The Sophomore Journal, the former of which has been a Silver Medalist in each of the past two years in the Columbia University contest for high school newspapers. There is a third paper, View from the Garden Window, formerly called News and Views, run by a cross-section of students in all grades. It publishes poems and cartoons in addition to articles.
  • Girls Club: Girls Club's objective is to raise money for girls' scholarships. Every girl at New Trier is automatically a member of the club and annually a board of members is selected to meet daily. Girls Club usually raises approximately $20,000 each year[citation needed], which is distributed to worthy New Trier girls in need of college funding. Annual fund raisers for Girls Club include running the concessions at football games, a magazine drive, and cookie dough and candy sales. In 2006, Girls Club also participated in the Glass Slipper Project.
  • Intramural Sports: Intramural Sports provides opportunities for student groups to play athletic games against each other.
  • Kinesis Dance Company: Kinesis Dance Company prepares for and performs dances at their yearly concert in January and dance festivals in March, April, and May.
  • Lagniappe/Potpourri: Lagniappe/Potpourri is the student-produced musical comedy revue, presenting skits and songs satirizing student life. Themes in the past have been "Everybody Wins" and "The Big Picture." The double name derives from two similar productions that merged in 1981 when the two campuses reunited, Lagniappe having been New Trier East's production, and Potpourri having been New Trier West's. As of 2005, this former club is now included in the Performing Arts division. Lagniappe/Potpourri is an entirely student-run production; the only adult involvement is supervision, optional advice, and oversight through censorship. It is a custom for students to have dinner with their advisory at school before the show and then attend in the nearby Gaffney Auditorium.
  • Math Team: New Trier won eight straight ICTM State math competitions under the leadership of Richard Rhoad.
  • New Trier Debate: 100 students compete in 5 different forms of debate and as many as 13 Individual Events. New Trier is especially known for its policy debate team, which consistently wins national tournaments and has a history of excellence stretching back into the 1920s.
  • New Trier Mock Newspaper: In the fall of 2006, two students founded the New Trier Mock Newspaper Club, a club devoted to producing a humor/satirical publication. The newspaper, commonly referred to as The Newsance or Fake Newspaper, comes out quarterly, and has achieved some notoriety throughout the school.[citation needed]
  • New Trier News: New Trier's weekly student newspaper is the New Trier News and has been published since 1904. It has won the All-American citation from the Scholastic Press Association as well as Quill and Scroll's George Gallup Award. In 2006, the New Trier News staff won the first ever IHSA journalism championship.
  • New Trier Rugby Team: New Trier Fields one Varsity, Tier 1 Rugby team in the "Chicago Area Rugby Football Union", which is in the Mid West Rugby Union.
  • New Trier Scholastic Bowl: The Scholastic Bowl team has attended the IHSA State Finals nine times starting in 1990, and won its first State title in 2007.
  • New Trier Theater: New Trier students and faculty produce nine shows a year. These include Lagniappe/Potpourri, four "straight" plays (the fall play, the winter play, the freshman play and the Shakespeare Workshop), two musicals, and Co-op. Finally, New Trier students in advanced acting produce the Spring Plays Festival, a week of one-acts directed by the advanced acting class. New Trier's theaters include the McGee Theater and Gaffney Auditorium at the Winnetka campus, and the Cornog Auditorium at the Northfield campus.
  • Pep Band: Pep Band plays at the football and basketball games. It is composed of volunteers from the school's curricular music ensembles.
  • Pep Club: Pep Club promotes school spirit for athletic and other school events.
  • Science Olympiad: Each year, the Science Olympiad team works to prepare for events by studying general material, taking practice tests, and building various contraptions for the events at the tournament. New Trier's 2004-2005 school year team ranked 6th nationally. Both campuses now have their own teams, with the Northfield team being one of the only teams in the country to advance to the state competition with an all-freshman team, an accomplishment achieved three times over, most recently in 2007.
  • Social Service: Social Service, the largest club at New Trier, is a very popular community service organization.
  • Soundtracks: Soundtracks is a student-run, 48-track digital audio recording studio, and an 8-camera video production facility that records student music ensemble concerts and presents all school concerts live on http://www.ntjazz.com/, local cable television, and WNTH radio.
  • Student Alliance: Student Alliance is a student government body at New Trier High School. It serves as a liaison between the students and the administration. Student Alliance meets every day and votes to charter or reject new clubs at the Wednesday parliamentary procedure meetings. Past projects Student Alliance has worked on include the cell phone policy, textbooks in the library, a WNTH Radio Show, getting a student on the school board, and other topics of interest to the student body.
  • Trevia: Trevia is New Trier's print yearbook. Members of Trevia are responsible for putting the yearbook together.
  • TriShip: TriShip is a school and community service organization for boys. It organizes a wide variety of activities every year. Its name stems from the values of sportsmanship, citizenship, and fellowship. TriShip raises money for senior scholarships usually grossing above $30,000 per year. Among many other long-running traditions, they sell Christmas trees every year.
  • WNTH Radio: WNTH is the school's radio station that broadcasts throughout the New Trier community. WNTH also has had famous guests on show, including Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, White Sox Assistant General Manager Rick Hahn (alumnus) and makeup artist Bobbi Brown (alumnus). The award-winning show "SportsLife," which aired from 1996-2000 with hosts Jack M. Silverstein, Brad Meyers, Dan Schor, Sam Vangelovski, and Jonny Corwin, featured interviews with current Northwestern University coach and former All-American linebacker Pat Fitzgerald and Chicago sportswriters Rick Telander, Bill Gleason, Bill Jauss, Lester Munson. One particularly notable interview with Chicago Tribune basketball writer Sam Smith, aired the night before Michael Jordan announced his second retirement.[citation needed]

[edit] Traditions

Philanthropy
Each of the four official class governments (Sophomore and Junior Steering Committees and the Freshman and Senior Senates) makes significant annual donations to various philanthropic causes throughout the community, state, country, and planet. Every year since 2001, the Senior Senate has fully funded the construction of a house in conjunction with Habitat for Humanity of Lake County, Illinois, a non-profit organization that fights homelessness and substandard housing. Members of the senior class also have the opportunity to help build the house. Many fund raisers contribute to this and various other causes over the course of the academic year. The New Trier Tsunami Relief Committee donated more than $18,000 to relief organizations which helped victims of the Indian Ocean Tsunami in December 2004.[8]

Homecoming
Homecoming consists of a semi-formal dance, a football game, and various contests occurring in October. Like the other formal dance of the year, Turnabout, the upperclassmen choose to go in groups with "themes" instead of the formal dress that the freshmen and sophomores wear. Some oft-used themes are "Pirates," decades such as the 70s and 80s, "Cops (girls) and Criminals (boys)," or any theme that is easily conveyed.

Frank Mantooth Jazz Festival
The jazz festival began in 1983 and takes place on the first Saturday of February. Each year, the event brings in around fifty high school and junior high jazz ensembles from all over the Great Lakes region and Canada to perform during the day. The high school groups attend clinics with respected jazz educators and composers from around the country.. Seminars are also held throughout the day on improvisation, transcription, and becoming a professional musician. Smaller professional groups perform during the afternoon, while the evening concert features a professional jazz ensemble. Past groups have included the Buddy Rich Big Band, the Woody Herman Big Band, the Count Basie Orchestra, the Artie Shaw Orchestra, the Duke Ellington Orchestra, the Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra, the Bob Mintzer Big Band, Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band, Maynard Ferguson, and Dizzy Gillespie. The festival was renamed after jazz musician, educator, and composer Frank Mantooth in 2003 when he died just days before that year's festival.

The Frank Mantooth Jazz Festival occurred February 3 and featured the Tito Puente All-star Big Band. More information can be found here: http://www.ntjazz.com/.

[edit] Controversies

Northfield campus
Northfield campus

Newsweek ranking The school was ranked #293 on Newsweek's 2005 list of the "Best High Schools in America." The school had been rated much higher in similar polls over the past 50 years. Many students and faculty raised objections to the 1995 list's technique of evaluating a school based exclusively on the school's ratio of AP tests taken to the number of students in the graduating class. New Trier limits AP courses only to students who exhibit academic excellence, thereby reducing the number of AP tests taken.

Drug use New Trier was featured in the December 9, 1996, issue of Time in an article entitled "High Times at New Trier High."[9] Among other claims, the article stated that "New Trier kids who smoke pot" were "by all accounts more than three-fifths of the student body," compared with national averages at the time closer to 33%.

In the days and weeks that followed publication, there was intense discussion in the community of the true scope of the "drug problem" among high school students. James Graff, the Time magazine writer who penned the story, came to WNTH's studio for an especially lively episode of the weekly student-run Night Talk program. On the air, Graff acknowledged that the "three-fifths" claim had been inadvertently rewritten during the editing process in such a way that seemed to imply that more than 60% of New Trier students may be regular users of marijuana, whereas that figure should have been clearly labeled as the portion of students who had ever used marijuana, including many that had used it only once or twice.

After the article was published, the school administration enhanced efforts to reduce drug use, including posting student-survey results. One step that was taken was putting up a poster claiming that most New Trier students do not smoke cigarettes; the poster featured a picture of a girl with the caption, "I'm one of them." The campaign was criticized for many reasons, one being that the girl was not a student but rather a model.

Former school superintendent Henry S. Bangser was quoted in the Time article as saying, "How could a school eradicate it? Schools have a responsibility to address the problem, but students didn't learn to do drugs here, and mostly they don't do it here."

Finances At the beginning of 2002, the school faced a cash crunch, and the community responded by supporting a referendum. Due to a slight miscalculation, the school found that it had asked for $6,500,000 more than it had actually needed. The excess money was returned to the community.

New Trier has a justifiably revered faculty including a large number of highly educated, highly effective teachers. The district also has administrative and support staffs that are extensive and dedicated. However, these assets come at a significant cost. According to official state of Illinois reports retrieved by the Family Taxpayers Network, 2005 salaries of more than $100,000 were received by 127 administrators, teachers and other staffers, all but 11 of whom were listed as working for 10 months of the year.

A particularly notable situation concerned the last few years of the previous superintendent, Henry "Hank" Bangser, who had a reported final-year salary of $345,600. Because Illinois state pensions are set according to salaries in the final years of employment, this produces a lifetime pension payout of as much as $232,500 annually.[10]

[edit] Pertussis Epidemic of 2006

[edit] General Information

In the late fall of the 2006-2007 school year the school had a massive outbreak of pertussis, commonly known as whooping cough. There were approximately thirty confirmed cases among students and faculty members. For a while the cases were only at New Trier but then after it had been contained cases were confirmed at Evanston Township High School.

[edit] Vaccination Clinic

On the week of December 4th- December 8th the Cook County Health Department offered a free vaccination clinic at the school. The school states, "We are very pleased that 1,080 students and 416 staff members were immunized last week, and we are hopeful that this will prove to be a significant help in containing the outbreak of whooping cough." (Source:http://www.newtrier.k12.il.us/information/pertuss.htm)

[edit] Trivia

The logo of New Trier High School depicts the Porta Nigra, a Roman city gate in the German city Trier. Symbol of the city of Trier, the Porta Nigra was built between 180-200 AD and is the largest Roman city gate north of the Alps.

[edit] Alumni

Notable alumni include actors Ann-Margret, Adam Baldwin, Rainn Wilson, Rock Hudson, Bruce Dern, Ralph Bellamy, Charlotte Ross, Virginia Madsen, and Charlton Heston, as well as director Edward Zwick. Musicians Liz Phair, Joe Trohman and Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy, and drummers Matt Walker of the The Smashing Pumpkins and Gary Novak of Chick Corea/Maynard Ferguson/Alanis Morissette fame also attended. Actor and comedian Hal Sparks attended the school, as did Liesel Matthews, actress and heiress to the Hyatt Hotel fortune. Carlos Bernard (Tony Almeta from the television show 24) is also a New Trier alumnus. Christie Hefner, CEO of Playboy Enterprises, Bobbi Brown, CEO of Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, Donald Rumsfeld, the former U.S. Secretary of Defense, and Jack Steinberger, a scientist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1988 hold New Trier diplomas. Alex Zoghlin, a software entrepreneur who co-founded Orbitz, attended New Trier. Journalists and writers include Ann Compton, Walter Jacobson, and John Stossel.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Illinois School Report Card
  2. ^ [1]
  3. ^ [2]
  4. ^ [3]
  5. ^ [4]
  6. ^ [5]
  7. ^ [6]
  8. ^ [7]
  9. ^ [8]
  10. ^ Novak, Tim. "Big Pay Boosts in Last Years Blow Out Retirement Packages", Chicago Sun-Times, July 13, 2003.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links


Coordinates: 42.094544° N 87.719137° W