| Harriton Senior High School | |
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"Carpe Diem"
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| Location | |
| 600 N. Ithan Ave. Rosemont in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, 19010 |
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| Information | |
| Type | High School |
| Established | 1957 (old school closed in 2009) |
| Principal | Mr. Steven R. Kline |
| Faculty | 105 |
| Enrollment | 1088[1] |
| Color(s) | Red, White, and Black |
| Information | +1 610 658 3950 |
| Mascot | Ram |
| Website | LMSD.org |
Harriton High School is a public secondary school located in Rosemont, a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania.
Harriton is one of two high schools in Lower Merion School District; the other is Lower Merion High School. It used to be a comparatively small high school, containing 889 students in 9th through 12th grades. Following the late redistricting policy both schools are now more even and now Harriton has nearly 1,088[2] students. At the school, the student teacher ratio is 10.6:1[3].
Harriton also offers the IB, or International Baccalaureate, program.
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In 1697, William Penn sold a 700 acre (2.8 km²) tract of land to Rowland Ellis. Years later, Ellis sold his home to Richard Harrison, who had married a local woman named Hannah Norris. Some of the land holdings of her family were known as Norriton. Thus, the combination of the names of Harrison and Norriton became known as Harriton. The daughter of Richard and Hannah Harrison married Charles Thomson.
In 1957, a new "campus-style" school was designed by architect Vincent Kling. It was situated on a portion of the plantation grounds belonging to Charles Thomson, which gave Harriton High School its name. Harriton High School opened its doors for the first time in 1958.[4]
As of the 2009 school year, a new three-story building was completed to be used as the new school while the older "campus-style" school was mostly taken down and will be used as new sports fields. The old Harriton High School had a California-style campus, a unique style for a Philadelphia-area public school; its buildings surrounded a main quad known as the Tombs. The new school does not feature this style.
Harriton High School features a state-of-the-art building and campus that includes a student parking lot, a brand-new football field, and features designed to make Harriton an environmentally friendly school. The building incorporates a system that captures rain water, allowing plumbing to continue during power outages. The roof, painted with a light hue, is meant to reflect excessive energy from the sun, helping maintain the building's temperature and obviating the need for excessive air conditioning. Harriton further conserves energy through its motion-detecting lights; hallways and classrooms will automatically dim their lights in the absence of movement. The three-floor building surrounds a courtyard.
Harriton has pioneered a one-to-one laptop initiative in which each student receives a MacBook for their use during the school year. Since the 2008 school year, students have had access to computers with software including the Adobe CS products, allowing students to use and become acclimated to industrial level software.
Harriton is consistently ranked among the best public schools in the nation. It is a two-time recipient of the United States Department of Education's Blue Ribbon School Award, and consistently ranks high in Newsweek's lists of the top 1,000 high schools in the country. In a 2005 Newsweek list of the top high schools in the U.S., Harriton ranked 427. On a similar Newsweek list from 2003, it ranked 384. Philadelphia Magazine ranked Harriton the 33rd-best school in Pennsylvania, 6th-best public school in Pennsylvania, and second-best school in Montgomery County. In 2009, Philadelphia Magazine ranked Harriton High school number one in their ranking of the region's top 50 best performers.
The Harriton Science Olympiad Team has placed among the top 10 at the Science Olympiad National Tournament for 16 consecutive years, winning 3 national championships and 14 consecutive state championships in that span.[5] Harriton is also one of only 426 high schools in the United States to offer the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program.
The Harriton Science Olympiad team, under head coach Brian Gauvin, is one of the most followed teams at the school. Harriton has placed first in the Pennsylvania state Science Olympiad competition for the last 14 years (1997–2011), the longest state championship streak of any competitive activity or sport in Pennsylvania, and has won the national Science Olympiad title in 1995, 2001, and 2005. It is considered one of the best teams in the nation. Most recently, in 2011, at the National Competition at the University of Wisconsin, the Harriton team placed 8th.[6]
The Harriton Theater Company is most noted for having been a student-run organization. The shows were chosen by a student director, who then, with the guidance of a sponsor, directed the show. All of the set construction and lighting were done by students as well. In the 2007–08 school year Kevin Ginsberg, a teacher who had once directed the musicals at Welsh Valley Middle School, came to Harriton High School to direct the shows. The first show under new direction was The Who's Tommy and was followed in the spring by The Visit.
The Harriton Theater Company moved to a new home in the 2009-10 school year--the brand new Harriton High School--which contained a brand new theater as well as a black box theater. The Harriton Theater Company has utilized the black box theater for productions such as High Fidelity and Our Town.
In the fall of 2009 they performed four sold out performances of High Fidelity the Musical, making them the first school in the country to have performed it. In addition, the Harriton Theater Company performed Our Town as their winter show and the musical Hair to close out the season.
Starting with the 2009-2010 season, Harriton also joined the Greater Philadelphia chapter of the Critics and Awards Program, known as the Cappies. Similar to a high school version of the Tony Awards, students review other shows, and then vote to give awards to the shows for various categories. HTC received 6 nominations for HAIR (Sound, Lighting, Costumes, Choreography, Featured Actor (Peter Marshall), Lead Actor (James Butler)), and won the Cappie award for Best Costumes (Chelsea Katz).
Past Shows:
2007–10:
2008-09
2009-10
2010-11
Shows for 2011-12
2010 Student Leadership Positions
The Harriton Academic Decathlon Team under renowned coach Howard Kritzer, have dominated the decathlon circuit under his tenure. They have qualified for the state championship event five years running and are currently in the process of putting together a national championship caliber team.
Harriton features a full symphonic band and orchestra, currently under the direction of James M. Joseph, formerly of Conestoga High School, who also teaches IB Music and Music Theory. The freshman chorus and concert choir are directed by Jason Bizich. Bizich is also the AP Music Theory teacher. Harriton also features a performance jazz band, led by James Joseph. Every fall and spring Harriton has a music concert featuring all the ensembles, as well as the occasional string quartet or percussion ensemble. Though it lacks a marching band, Harriton does have its own "RAM Band", which plays at all home and away football games.
Every year Harriton musicians audition for positions in the PMEA district band and/or orchestra. Dozens of Harriton students attend the try-out, competing against hundreds of other students. Some succeed, and a few even go on to perform in the regional band/orchestra and all-state band/orchestra.
In addition to these directed groups, Harriton is home to Pitch Please, a student-run a capella group. Performing pop and similar types of music, Pitch Please features talented singers as well as one beat-boxer.
Since the opening of Harriton High School in 1957, the school newspaper had been called either the Harriton Forum or the Harriton Free Forum, but in October 2006 it was renamed The Harriton Banner.
Harriton TSA can be noted for continual successes at regional, state, and national competitions, including a TSA national championship in Prepared Presentation in 2010. Harriton TSA members were elected to and presently hold five of eight Pennsylvania TSA state officer positions.
This is the main body of representation for the Harriton student body. HSC holds regular meetings that are open to any Harriton student. HSC annually recruits members, who vote on a variety of issues at these meetings. Members are also divided up into six committees: Students' Rights, Events, Communication, Finance, Planning, and Technology. There is also a sub-committee under Students' Rights that was established after the district initiated the 1:1 laptop to student initiative (the Students' Rights Technology Sub-Committee).
2011-12 Officers
2010-11 Officers
A relatively new club at Harriton, JSA focuses on engaging its members in exciting political activities, such as debates, keynotes, etc. Its members are typically students who are interested in politics and government, foreign affairs, the law and education. Its mottos include, "Be the People" and "Make democracy work". The club is advised by Mr. Christopher Santa Maria.
The Harriton Service League is Harriton's community service club. The club, supervised by Jason Fritz, supplies student volunteers for community events including Fox's Fight, a local basketball-tournament and fundraiser for melanoma research, as well as Harriton's own Open House and other events. In addition, HSL is home to community service events led by students; Jared's Box, one such initiative, is student-run and involves the delivery of toys and other simple products to children at CHOP with terminal cancer.
Harriton's football team had a big turnaround in the 2011 season, going 4-3 before losing its last 3 games. Coached by Matt Barr, the team has had an up-and-down history of the past few years, though it still manages to draw packed crowds for every game. Largely a passing team, they are ranked 311th in the state, and includes a varsity roster of 56 students.
Harriton's girls tennis team has held the PIAA State Class AA Tennis Title for the past six years, a championship streak believed to be the longest among any high school athletic program in District history. The team is also noted for winning the District 1 title since 1999, a nine year streak. The Harriton girls tennis team won its fifth straight PIAA Class AA State Championship in 2008. Perhaps the most memorable moment for the boy's team came in 1998 when second seeded doubles partner, Frank Becker became enraged at an opponent while awaiting his turn to play and asked, "Yo, it's all good over here but what's up over there?" The boy's team was better known for incidents like this one than PIAA success--further drama occurred when Scott Savett, decidedly the second best player on the team was forced to play the #4 singles because of his "pusher" style.
Harriton has a cross country team in the fall, as well as a track team for the winter and the spring. These teams have enjoyed growing success. Coached by George Dick, the boys' XC team finished with a 7-6 record in the 2011 season, their first winning record in many years. The girls' team, coached by Jennifer Galvin, has also shown considerable improvement, placing 5th at the Central League Cross Country meet in October 2011. The winter and spring track teams are coached by Boris Oden, though these teams have not been able to compile winning records for many years. This has largely been attributed to Harriton's size, however. Notable among Harriton's runners is Max Norris, who, as of 2011, has qualified for the state XC meet for two straight years and has set the school record for a 5k with 15:31. He is closing on the school's mile record as well, which still stands at 4:17.
Harriton features its own rowing team, coached by Antoinette Calimag. It has enjoyed some success, sending several boats to the National regatta each year. Both its girls' and boys' teams have won races in the all-city regatta.
Harriton's boys basketball team is coached by Jesse Rappaport, and has an overall record of 55-102 dating back to 2005. The boys' team is ranked the 117th best team in the state, and features an offense that is geared towards three-point shots. Harriton has a varsity, junior varsity, and freshman team which are supported by "The Herd". The girls' team is coached by Carla Coleman.
In the 2010 WebcamGate case, plaintiffs charged Harriton High School and Lower Merion High School secretly spied on students by surreptitiously and remotely activating webcams embedded in school-issued laptops the students were using at home, and therefore infringed on their privacy rights. The schools admitted to secretly snapping over 66,000 webshots and screenshots, including webcam shots of students in their bedrooms.[7][8] In October 2010, the school district agreed to pay $610,000 to settle the Robbins and parallel Hasan lawsuits against it.[9]
On February 11, 2010, the plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The plaintiffs were a Harriton High School student and his parents. Plaintiffs said the student had been confronted by an assistant principal regarding behavior that had occurred in the student's bedroom, based upon an image allegedly taken by the student's webcam. The school district said that a software tracking and security feature it had installed on the students' laptops was only intended to recover stolen laptops, and potentially certain loaner laptops. After the suit was brought, the school district revealed that it had secretly snapped more than 66,000 images.
On February 19, 2010, the School District acknowledged that there had been "no explicit notification [to parents or students] that the laptop[s] contained the security software", and that "[t]his notice should have been given and we regret that was not done."
As the result of emergency proceedings commenced by the plaintiffs seeking a temporary restraining order, on February 20, 2010, District Judge Jan E. DuBois ordered that the School District was prohibited from activating the webcams during the litigation, and further ordered the District to preserve all webcam images, data, files, and storage media related to the allegations. The judge also ordered the district to pay plaintiffs' attorney fees for bringing the action.
The complaint alleged violations by the School District of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the Electronic Communication Privacy Act, the Computer Fraud Abuse Act, the Stored Communications Act, Section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act, the Pennsylvania Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Act, and Pennsylvania common law.
The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), U.S. Attorney's Office, and Montgomery County District Attorney all initiated criminal investigations of the matter, which they combined and then closed because they did not find evidence "that would establish beyond a reasonable doubt that anyone involved had criminal intent". In addition, a U.S. Senate Judiciary subcommittee held hearings on the issues raised by the schools' secret surveillance, and Senator Arlen Specter introduced draft legislation in the Senate to protect against it in the future. Parents, media, and academicians criticized the schools, and the matter was cited as a cautionary example of how modern technology can be used to infringe on personal privacy.
In July 2010, another student filed a parallel second suit. The district was put on notice of a third parallel suit that a third student intends to bring against the district, for—following "interrogation" of the student—"improper surveillance of the student on his school issued laptop", which included taking over 700 webcam shots.
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