Greetings HS East Community, Fourth Quarter begins in a few days! Our students have been working hard all year to excel in their classes; however, I must emphasize the year is not over yet. With another quarter left and Regents and final exams in some courses, there is still an opportunity to make a significant impact on final grades. Par-

ents, please encourage your children to continue to strive for excellence. It has been an amazing year so far at HS East. This issue highlights some of the meaningful accomplishments of our students in various areas. I am extremely proud of all of them. As you read through the pages, you will see that our students are truly benefiting from their experiences here at HS East with our remarkable

faculty and staff! The Junior class gives us an indication of academic excellence with nearly 186 of them being inducted into the National Honor Society. The class of 2011 also shines here at HS East and their efforts have been rec-ognized by many of the world’s finest colleges and universities. As has been reported in the media, college application rates have soared and admission rates are way down. Even still, our students are faring very well in the college admissions game. Remember, whether one is accepted to his or her top choice or not,

there is a school out there for everyone. Hopefully, everyone will find the perfect fit. Again, I encourage all of our students to stay focused academically and end the year on a positive note all around. As the warm weather approaches, attitudes and behavior tend to change. I urge all of the stu-dents to stay involved in positive activities both in and outside of school. Specifically to our seniors, I advise you to refrain from behaviors that could jeopardize all that you have worked for throughout your high

school years. Remember: Respect, Responsibility and Excellence! Sincerely, Dr. J. A. Woodberry

A Special Message from Dr. Woodberry

HALF HOLLOW

HILLS

HIGH SCHOOL EAST

PRINCIPAL’S

NEWSLETTER

April 6, 2011 Volume 1I , Issue III

Perspectives

The Insider’s View

• Spotlight on Excellence

• Spotlight on Respect and

Responsibility

• High School East Has Got

Spirit!

Inside this issue:

Page 2 A Peek into the Hearts

and Minds of Our Val and Sal

Page 5 Peer Ambassadors Take

On Bullies

Pages 6 East and West Unite

in Europe

Page 8 A Scholar, An Athlete

and A Gentleman

The Best of the Best at HSE

The Class of 2011 Top Twenty Students Always positive and with high hopes for a bright future, our top twenty seniors balance rigorous course work with a multitude of extra-curricular activities. They truly exemplify respect, responsibil-

ity and excellence in all their endeavors. The best of the best at Hills East are: Samara Badash, Samantha Caen, Jake Cohen, Scott Dunaisky, Katelyn Fletcher, Rachel Gerber, Samuel Goldberg, Monika Haebich, Eric Kessler, Thomas McCune, Alexandra Nemeth, Molly Ripp, Salutatorian Karishma Sabhnani, Alexan-der Schnapp, Daphne Shen, Benjamin

Spiegel, Danielle Stansky, Melissa Tannenbaum, Vale-dictorian Brett Teplitz, and Michael Winter.

Page 2 Perspectives

Spotlight on Excellence

A Peek Into the Hearts and Minds of

Our Val and Sal An avid tennis player and music lover, Valedictorian Brett Teplitz has aspirations of becoming a doctor. Brett says his source of inspiration is his parents. They are the reason he became interested in the medical field. He also credits Dr. Lake and the science research program for deepening his knowledge and experience in biochemical research. His project in-volving a mutation protein may lead to a therapeutic treatment for cancer someday

and may even render HIV inactive. Brett keeps very busy these days as vice-president of HSE National Honor Society, secretary of Mathletes, and member of Science Olympiads, Spanish Club and Spanish Honor Society. He is also on the Varsity Tennis team. With such a busy schedule, Brett still finds time to enjoy movies (the comedy Stepbrothers is a fa-vorite) and spend time with his friends. He advises, “you can’t get through high school without friends to support you.” He says that friendships provide a needed

balance in an intense and challenging aca-

demic environment. Salutatorian Karishma Sabhnani has a passion for finance and business. She is going to explore other areas in college, however, in a quest to keep an open and learning mind. “I would like to major in engineering or eco-nomics or statistics,” she says, “and then go to grad school for business.” As she awaits decisions from col-leges, Karishma ponders whether she would like U Penn—Wharton, Princeton or Harvard. “I change my mind about my top pick on an hourly

basis,” she claims. This president of four clubs, dedi-cated AP student and finalist in the 2011 National Merit Scholarship Program, cites her parents as her role models in life. “They never pressure me; I never felt pushed into anything I didn’t want. And I get my organization skills from my mother.” Karishma also says she found her best friend for life right here at HS East. She describes their

friendship as a “volleyball match”—they keep the ball going even with an occa-

sional twist or spin to the ball.

Karishma would like to study and travel abroad someday. She has family all over the world and muses, “Maybe I’ll take a world trip the year after college gradua-

tion.”

Perfection

For the second year in a row, HS East boasts of a student earning a perfect score on the ACT college admissions and placement exam. Hannah Kenagy performed the feat and is among less than one percent of all test takers who earned the top score. ACT scores are accepted at all major U.S. col-leges, and Hannah’s achievement indicates that she is ready for the challenge of higher education. We wish Hannah suc-

cess as she advances in her academic pursuits.

Scientific Research One of our top twenty seniors Rachel Gerber earned the distin-guished honor of semi-finalist in the 2011 Intel Science Talent Search with her project entitled “Nanosecond Simulations of the Folding Thermodynamics of the Trp-cage Miniprotein.” Although Rachel considers Math as her strongest subject, she has always been interested in science as well. She has been accepted on an early decision to Cornell where she will pursue a degree in biome-

try and statistics, a perfect blending of math and science research.

Volume 1I , Issue III Page 3

...and More Excellence

Best in Show The Long Island Media Arts Show is an annual event hosted by Eastern Suffolk BOCES in collaboration with the NYS Sum-mer School of the Media Arts. Media Arts students visit Five Towns College to showcase their art and receive peer feed-

back and cri-tiques from professionals in the corre-s p o n d i n g

fields. This event combines all forms of digital and media art: video, photo-graphy, com-

puter graphics and animation. Mrs. Uttendorfer's video stu-dents: Dean Baram, Kimberly Cain, Rachel Cohen, Alex Freed-man, and Matt Kronrad presented videos on various themes such as stop motion animation and Twilight Zone parodies. Each student discussed his or her movie before it played for everyone to see. Following the preview, the two professional judges offered feedback and discussed the strengths. Dean Baram's video, The Futurist Manifesto and Rachel Cohen's video, The Hand, were so well received by the judges that they made it to the 'best in show' round and played for everyone that attended the event. Over 135 videos were played and over 500 students from Nassau and Suffolk Counties attended the event. Dean and Rachel's videos will move on to another

round of judging by the NYS Film Commissioner.

Young Writer Takes the Gold

Sophomore Jake Ethe’ was honored as a “gold-key recipient” in the Scholastic Art and Writing contest. Jake was selected among an exclusive group of students from across the country and this award recognizes that Jake’s writing has advanced to

the national level of competition.

The essay Jake chose to submit is a personal memoir about his grandfather’s experience in the Holocaust. He says that his grandfather will always be his inspiration. While Jake likes to have fun with creative writing, he prefers essay writing and loves poetry. The poets Alexander Pope and Allen Ginsberg

are his favorites.

Percussion is His Passion Andrew Grossman has been playing percussion instruments since fourth grade. This quiet and unassuming senior has consistently improved and fine tuned his craft over the years and grown into a talented and passionate percussionist. He has graced the stages of HS East and numerous others as he competed and won NYSSMA honors throughout his four high school years, and this year he was honored as the All-Eastern Alterna-

tive in Percussion. Andrew says he has been inspired by the marimba artist Gordon Stout who teaches at Ithaca College. When Andrew was in 8th grade, he heard a recording of Mr. Stout’s performance and that’s when

Andrew fell in love with the marimba. This has been a particularly busy year for Andrew as he prepares for his future. His college application process involves grueling auditions in which he has to perform two ma-rimba, two timpani and two snare drum compositions. He would prefer to go to a conservatory over a tradi-tional college or university so he can

concentrate on his music. One day, Andrew would like to be a member of a symphony orchestra or perhaps a pit orchestra on Broadway. If you have ever had the pleasure of seeing and hearing Andrew perform, you would agree that he has a prom-

ising musical future.

Peer Ambassadors take on

Bullies

A force of thirty students, under the direction of school psychologist Mr. Mira-colo and guidance counselor Dennis Mur-phy, are ready to fight bullying at HS East. They are committed to raising awareness of bullying and harassment among all stu-dents. Peer Ambassador Julia Bertolino claims, “It’s great that students are in-volved because kids aren’t going to talk to a teacher about bullying; they rather talk to kids.” Peer Ambassador Nicolette Walsh says, “My friends that know I’m in

the program say, ‘Wow, that’s great’.” The Peer Ambassadors attended a day of intensive training with the psycholo-gists and social worker Julia Gallo where they engaged in interactive games and role playing to learn how to deal with bullying situations. Feedback from the day was positive. The students discussed how great it was to get together and share a common interest. After the training, they felt it would be much easier to get to know individual people and how to start a conversation in order to help

victims or bystanders stand up to bullies.

At their last meeting, the peer ambassadors brain-stormed projects to get the word out about their mis-sion. Ideas included a no bullying day on which stu-dents come to the student center and sign a contract, handing out pins or badges that say “I support anti-bullying,”’ and a website or social network site where people can talk about bully-

ing. However they decide to get the message out, this passionate group of students will make it clear that bullying is not acceptable behav-ior at HS East. With their infec-tious enthusiasm and energy, it won’t be long until other students follow their lead.

Page 4 Perspectives

Bringing Real Issues to Life Building a strong, positive character is as important as building a strong academic transcript. In this rapidly changing world, our young people are constantly faced with choices that can either foster self-respect and integrity or lead to moral decline. The staff at HS East has been working together in an effort to offer programs that can help our students

make the right choices. Eleventh and tenth graders attended productions by “Stories of Substance”, a theatrical ensemble that uses drama, hu-mor and music to educate students about making healthy decisions no matter what issues they may face. The “stories” are based on real life situations and include

dramatizations of substance abuse, domestic violence, self-esteem issues, and depres-sion. Some of the actors have actually experienced the scenes they portray and share their experiences in a ques-tion and answer discussion at

the end of the performance. Facebook poses additional respect and responsibility challenges for young people. Ninth graders attended a presentation by the Suffolk County Police department on internet safety and cyber-bullying. This informational assembly emphasized the consequences for engag-ing in inappropriate use of computers,

particularly on social networks.

At HS East we have made a commit-ment to search for the best programs available that will engage our students in thinking critically about the choices they

make.

Spotlight on Respect and Responsibility

Page 5 Volume 1I , Issue III

Academic Teams Finish with Top Honors

State and County Champs After a busy day of challenging course-work, projects and exams, our students continue their intellectual pursuits in a variety of academic clubs and teams.

News of success on the state and county level came pouring in over the past two months and we are proud to

recognize these accomplishments. HS East students of “We the People” will represent New York as the state champions in the national finals in Ar-lington, Virginia. Under the guidance of their teacher, Mr. Pitman, the team earned the best score of the nine high schools that attended the NY State Final

Hearings in Albany on March 5th. Stu-dents were rated on their knowledge of the Constitution and their ability to relate today’s news and court cases to

their knowledge of the Constitution.

The Hills East Science Olym-piad team came in 7th out of fifty teams at the New York State competition earlier in March. Prior to that, at the Long Island Regional Competi-tion, they had earned four gold, five silver, five bronze, one fourth, three fifth and seven sixth place medals, to-taling 25 medals earned, a new record for the

team. HS East Speech

and Debate students are having an exciting year as they rack up the honors at all levels. Twenty one stu-dents have qualified for the 2011 New York State Foren-sics Championships. Two of those students will represent at the National level: Shre-yas Havaldar in JV Ex-temporaneous Speaking and Zakiya Williams Wells in Declama-

tion. Check in on our website for the

results later this spring. Our future leaders in the business world demonstrated their expertise with another successful DECA State Competition in Rochester, NY. The Hills East DECA team had five State Champions, Schuyler Berland, Alexa Goetz, Ted Goshman, Karishma Sabhnani, and Aneesh Shah; and five top ten winners, Jenna Ferranti, Adam Friedman, Madison Marisi, Victoria Sulenski, and Eric Steinberg in a variety

of business categories.

Team Killshark Dominates

On February 4, 2011 the annual Trivia Challenge for the United Cerebral Palsy of Greater Suffolk took place. Over one hundred students participated in the event, which was organized and orches-trated by Mrs. Lykos. Students gathered and worked in teams to answer difficult trivia questions on topics ranging from pop culture to history and literature. The day was a fun and enjoyable experi-ence for all, especially Mr. Simon and Ms. Damato who helped run the chal-lenge. The cumulative efforts of all the participants raised over $1,300 for this

great cause!

After this school-wide competition ended, one team stood above the rest. For the third consecutive year, Team Killshark dominated the competition. Seniors Brandon Ehrlich, Jonathan Franco, Rachel Gerber and Jessica Golden took their trivia knowledge to the regional competition hosted by the UCP of Greater Suffolk for the third and final time. Team Killshark took 5th place at the competition, and we are very proud of their accomplish-ment! Thank you again to all who par-

ticipated. — article contributed by Rachel Gerber

The Science Olympiad Team

DECA State Champions and Winners

For more photos, see the HS East website.

Page 6 Perspectives

Around High School East

Hills East Students are Out of This World

The district’s planetarium teachers Tom Affatigato and Brian Clare have worked for many months constructing a 200 square foot red Martian surface at the Discovery Center at the Fran Greenspan Administration Center. Along with a number of students from around the district, HSE students were instrumental in helping along the way. Allyson Uttendor-fer’s AP Art students painted the Martian sky and horizon. Tenth grader Jordan Raitses helped build the robotic arm rover. Eleventh grader Chris Wolfrom helped see the project through difficult times, working on robots, rockets, and many

other technical problems. The Mars surface will be used during elementary school trips to the Discovery Center and students will remotely drive two small robot rovers—one equipped with a video camera and the other with a robotic arm. After hundreds of hours of work, the Mars landscape looks spectacular. Drop by the

Discovery Center and see for yourself! — Thank you to Brian Clare for his contribution to this article

Youth to Youth The students in Youth to Youth Teach-ing were able to walk in a teacher’s shoes recently at Signal Hill Elementary School. They designed a lesson on seg-regation for the elementary students. First, they used blue and red popsicle sticks to separate the class. Children with the blue popsicle sticks were asked, “How many jumping jacks do you want the red popsicle stick children to do?” The students with the red sticks had to comply. The blue popsicle stick students were then told they could relax. This along with another activity sparked a

discussion about how it felt to be the ones with the red sticks. They then read a book entitled The Other Side by Jacque-line Woodson after which the students wrote responses and drew pictures. They finished with a passage about Rosa Parks and discussed how it related to

the book. Ninth grader Jenna Sarcona said it was fun teaching the children. She is fea-tured right executing the lesson with

tenth grader Ashley Jimenez.

East and West Unite in Europe For the first time in over ten years, students from HS East and HS West had the opportunity to become travel buddies in two trips to Europe. One group began in France in the beautiful cities of Paris and Nice. They then ventured on to Montecatini and Rome, Italy. Another group enjoyed three cities in sunny Spain: Grenada, Seville, and Madrid. Lindsay Sperin (featured below with fellow travelers), who was on the Spain trip, said the best part was “getting to bond with stu-dents from West.” She also said that the stay in Madrid was

her favorite part of the trip. The students are grateful for this unique opportunity and thank LOTE director Francesco Fratto and all those who chaperoned for making this adventure possible. Planning has

already begun for more trips next year.

Page 7 Volume 1I , Issue III

High School East Has Got Spirit! Teachers and Students Work

Together to Make it Happen

Spirit Day, March 18, 2011, was a huge success as period three classes battled for the honor of Most Spirited. Many students and their teachers rose to the occasion and demonstrated their spirit. While there were several classrooms that contended for the top spot, the four that stood out were Mrs. Southard’s Business Ownership and Marketing class, Dr. Stabile’s Regents Biology class, Mr. Herr’s Health class and Mr. DelGuidice’s AP Calculus class. At Pep Rally, the final four faced off in a draw and Mr. Del Guidice (featured in photo on right) was rewarded with a week off from duty and free lunch from

our cafeteria. His students won a bagel breakfast and Mr. Del Guidice

said he enjoyed a bagel as well! Pep Rally was also a spirit filled ex-perience with the introduction of our spring teams and performances by the Hills East Dixettes and dancers from The Expressive Movement Club. Lisa Diasparra thrilled the crowd with her rendition of Katy Perry’s “Firework” and Justin Starling cap-tured everyone’s attention with a performance of two Rap tunes, “Remix: I’m ill” and “Remix: We

Gotta Problem” . Enjoy these photos and more on

the Media Gallery.

High School East 50 Vanderbilt Parkway Dix Hills, NY 11746

Produced by: Darlene Lilla

Assistant Principal Phone: 631-592-3128 Fax: 631-592-3121

E-mail: dlilla@hhh.k12.ny.us

HALF HOLLOW HILLS

HIGH SCHOOL EAST

PRINCIPAL’S

NEWSLETTER

High School East

Visit Our Website: www.halfhollowhills.k12.ny.us

Excellence in Athletics Winter Sports Wrap Up

HS East athletes and teams gained recognition at the county and state level this past winter. The Boys’ Swim and Dive Team (combined with HS West) captured their 5th consecutive county championship with several team mem-bers taking first place at the state champion-ships. The Hills East Dixettes (pictured right) had a great day at the Long Island Kickline As-sociation Championships. The girls placed third in the Pom category and came home with the first place trophy in the kick category, earning them the title of Long Island Kick Champions. Wrestling also had a successful end to the sea-son. At the League III Wrestling Tournament, they had three league champs, Anthony Abidin,

Deshawn McNeil and Tommy Shair. Anthony Abidin went on to capture both the county and

state championships at 125 lbs. We congratulate all our athletes on all their successes and look forward to the spring sea-

son.

Letters of Intent Two of our finest athletes have made a commitment to pursue participation in their

sport at the college level. Bria Green (pictured left) signed her letter of intent for Softball at Delaware State University. Bria has been active in Volley-ball and Basketball as well here at East and is a passion-

ate and dedicated athlete. Matt DeBlasio (pictured right with coach Jason Wied-ersum) signed his letter of intent to Notre Dame for Swimming. Matt was the New

York State Champion in two swimming events and was hon-

ored with All American status.

A Scholar, An Athlete

and A Gentleman Varsity Swimmer Jared Siegel was honored recently with the very prestigious News 12 Scholar Athlete Award. A reporter and cameraman fol-lowed Jared on a typical day here at Hills East as Jared at-tended classes and swimming practice. His spotlight of fame was already aired, but you can still see the clip on the News

12 website. Jared started swimming in seventh grade as a regional and

national USA swimmer before going on to Varsity Swimming in high school. He enjoyed success at County and State Championship competitions in the 200 Medley Relay and Fly events. He was all county in Medley and all league in Fly. Jared credits his swimming coach Jason Wiedersum who encouraged Jared to never give

up and always try his hardest. Jared says he will not swim competitively in college and will most likely join a club swimming team. He wants to concentrate on excelling in his

academics as a biology major and will go on to medical

school.