Shenendehowa High School

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**Shenendehowa High School**
Established	January 14, 1950
Type of institution	Public secondary
Location	Clifton Park, New York, USA
Colors	Green, White
Mascot	Plainsmen Stallion
Website	Shenendehowa Central Schools

Shenendehowa is a high school located in Clifton Park, New York, USA The school's territory covers approximately 86 square miles serving families from the communities of Clifton Park, Halfmoon, Ballston Lake, Round Lake, Malta and parts of Waterford, Rexford, Mechanicville and Stillwater.

Approximately 9,200 students attend seven elementary schools (gr. K-5), three middle schools (gr. 6-8) and a high school (gr. 9-12). Shenendehowa is the largest central school in Saratoga County and the largest in student population in the Suburban Council, an interscholastic athletic consortium of 11 area school districts. Nine of the twelve school buildings are located on a 232-acre campus in Clifton Park, New York. There are three neighborhood elementary schools located off campus.

Traditionally, the schools were named with Iroquois words. Shenendehowa, for example, means great plains.

Currently, there are two buildings for the high school: the East building was the original high school, and the West building, which was formally Koda Junior High, now houses high school freshmen.

1 School history
2 References
- 2.1 Footnotes
- 2.2 Publications
3 External links

[edit] School history

The Shenendehowa Central School District was organized on January 14, 1950, by a vote of the residents of 21 former common school districts and one union-free school district.

These 22 schools in the towns of Clifton Park, Halfmoon, Malta, Waterford, Ballston and Stillwater (representing approximately 86 square miles) became officially centralized on July 1, 1950. From 1950 through 1953, the district housed grades K-8 in 16 one-, two- and three-room school houses plus an eight-room school house in Round Lake. All high school students (gr. 9-12) were transported to one of four high schools: Ballston Spa, Mechanicville, Waterford or Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake.

In 1951, the School District voted to purchase 160 acres to build an 1,800-pupil school for kindergarten through grade 12. This land was part of the Shenondahowe or Clifton Park Patent of 1708. The Iroquois word Shenondahowe means Great Plains. That’s how the district became know as Shenendehowa Central Schools.

Before 1950, the district was made up of 22 one- and two-room school houses, 11 of which still had school bells (click here for a location and status of the schools). Rodney Winans, the first superintendent, helped to centralize the district. He brought the 11 bells together to the bell court on the main campus (now Gowana) and had them assembled into a carillon.* The bells are a symbol which pays tribute to the schools and the towns which combined to form Shenendehowa Central Schools.

The original high school was built in the early 1970s and designed to be a model facility for its time. The design included plans for an inground pool and a building-wide closed-circuit television network complete with a broadcast studio and television sets in every classroom. Eventually the district found itself without enough budget money to fund both projects. Polls were taken of the students and faculty to gauge majority interest, and eventually the television network was chosen and implemented. The area set aside to house the pool was utilized as a weight room, and the school enjoyed student run news broadcasts and educational films in the classrooms. Over the next twenty years, maintenance and upgrades were neglected and by 1990, the studio had been dismantled with its space converted for use as a computer lab, and only the cafeteria televisions were utilized for presentations and news broadcasts during major world events like the Olympic Games and the Gulf War, though not 9/11.

A 2006 student run survey of 152 students found that 36% have tried marijuana, 10% have experimented with hallucinogens, and 4% have tried cocaine or ecstasy. In addition, 25% of sophmores, 31% of juniors, and 60% of seniors claimed they have had sexual intercourse, which are consistent with national averages.^[1]