Hoboken High School Weekly Update

Dear Redwing Families,

It has been a short week here at Hoboken High School, and I think we can all agree that this little break is coming at just the right time! After all the excitement of Halloween weekend, our students and staff seem ready for a little rest and relaxation. As a reminder, the district will be closed on Thursday, November 5, and Friday, November 6, for the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) Teachers' Convention. I hope everyone takes advantage of the long weekend to recharge and enjoy some well-deserved downtime.

Attendance Matters!

I want to take a moment to bring your attention to the important attendance information below. As we approach the end of the first marking period, we are taking a closer look at student attendance. Mr. Ponce has begun meeting with students and families whose children have accumulated more than seven absences to date.

While seven absences may not seem like a significant number, at this point in the school year, it is certainly a concern. Students who reach 17 absences over the course of the school year are considered chronically absent. Our goal is to address attendance concerns early, before they begin to negatively impact academic performance.

We understand that students get sick and that circumstances arise. However, when students are healthy, it is incredibly important that they are in school each day. Every day of instruction matters! Please work closely with Mr. Ponce and your child's guidance counselor if attendance has become a concern. Together, we can help our students develop good habits and stay on track for success.

The First Marking Period Is Almost Over!

It is hard to believe, but Friday, November 13, 2026, marks the end of our first marking period! This is an important time to check in with your child and make sure all assignments are completed and submitted. I encourage all families to log into OnCourse, review grades, and have a conversation with their children about how things are going academically.

If your child is struggling in a class, missing assignments, or simply needs a little extra help, now is the perfect time to take advantage of the supports we have in place. Our Academic Success Center and library are available daily after school from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m., with certified staff ready to assist students. Sometimes just an extra hour of focused work can make all the difference!

Please encourage your child to use these valuable resources. We want every student to finish the first marking period feeling proud of their efforts and ready for a successful second marking period.

As always, thank you for your continued partnership and support. It truly takes all of us working together to ensure our Redwings are successful.

Enjoy the long weekend, get some rest, and we look forward to welcoming everyone back on Monday!

All the best,

Ms. Picc

The Rockin’ Redwings are finishing the season on a high note! The Hoboken High School Marching Band delivered another strong performance at the Tournament of Bands New Jersey State Championships on Sunday, November 1, at Washington Township High School, earning a score of 82.57. This marks an improvement of more than three points over last year's State Championship performance and an incredible gain of nearly 14 points since the season began in September!

Facing a strong field of 17 Group 1-A bands from across New Jersey, Hoboken finished 11th, just 0.44 points shy of breaking into the state's Top 10. The band also received particularly encouraging marks in the visual captions, placing 8th in Visual Analysis and 9th in overall Visual scoring.

The State Championships followed another successful showing at the Region 10 Championships at West Essex High School, where the Rockin’ Redwings earned third place against some of North Jersey's strongest marching band programs. This marked the band's third consecutive year finishing among the top three in the region, continuing a tradition of consistent success and growth.

The students will bring their exciting production, “Legends of Rock,” to Hersheypark Stadium in Pennsylvania this Sunday, November 8, for the Atlantic Coast Championships, where they will compete against Group 1-A bands from across the nine-state Tournament of Bands circuit. As they prepare for their final performance of the season, the Rockin’ Redwings look to build on their momentum and cap off another year of remarkable growth and achievement for the Hoboken High School marching band program!

Buy a Yearbook - for parents of grades 9,10,11 only

Don't miss your chance to buy your underclass Redwing a yearbook. They are on sale now through January in our online store. The price is $100.00. The yearbooks are delivered in June.

Go to www.yearbookforever.com, enter our school's name and click on "Buy yearbook."

We thank you for your support!

Dear parents,

Would you like to recognize your senior with a personal ad in the yearbook? Our ad store is open for business and space is limited so don't delay!

To create and pay for an ad, go to www.yearbookforever.com and enter our school name, then scroll down past the "buy a yearbook" section. Seniors who pay their dues will automatically get a yearbook so parents of seniors do not need to order them.

Find the section called "Create an ad." Follow the prompts to either upload text and photos, design the ad online from a template, or upload a finished ad.

Reach out to Mrs. McGreivey (michelle.mcgreivey@hoboken.k12.nj.us).

Our photography company, Legacy, helps out the yearbook quite a bit by taking sports photos for us. Those photos can be purchased by parents by using the code in the attached graphic. They do a fantastic job with the photos.

As Americans line up to participate in Election Day this week, students in US History II have been presenting and discussing some of the different reforms that America's electoral process has gone through. In the early 1900s this included many local and state reforms to combat corruption and the influence of big business. In many states, voters were more effectively able to petition their government for new laws through the process of initiative. They could seek to remove legislation that they did not agree with by referendum and they could remove government officials through the process of recall.

On the national level, two Constitutional Amendments gave Americans more of a say in the Federal government. First was the 17th Amendment, ratified in 1913, that allowed for the direct election of Senators. Previously the Constitution required Senators to be chosen by the state legislature of each state. The concern had been that Senators were being influenced or controlled by wealthy business interests.

Second was the 19th Amendment, ratified in 1920, which resulted in the women being guaranteed the right to vote nationwide. Previously some states, especially states in the Western portion of the country had allowed women to vote, but the 19th Amendment was necessary to get all states recognize this fundamental right.

Student presentations highlighted an era in American History focused on increased political participation so that the people could act as a check on the government.

Students in Pre-AP Biology completed a lab to study the nutrient preference of yeast. The students hypothesized that the yeast would grow best in glucose since many species of molds are found on breads - which like glucose, are a form of carbohydrates. They cultivated the yeast, quantified the yeast growth by measuring the resulting trapped CO2 gas, and completed lab reports.

The students also learned all about the water, carbon and nitrogen cycles. After working on each type of cycle in detail, the students undertook a project in which they depicted all three cycles on one large, hand drawn poster. The students decorated their posters and labeled them with high level terminology. They followed up by playing a nitrogen cycling card game to learn the nuances of the nitrogen cycle.

The students are now investigating population ecology. They learned about the importance of doing population sampling and about the different types of population sampling techniques. They completed mark and recapture and quatrat sampling on a population of beans. The students compared their estimated versus actual results and learned how to calculate percent difference for their estimated values.

Students in AP Biology completed a microscopy lab on cells. They made their own slides and examined eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells under the microscope and made drawings of them. The students honed their microscope skills, learned about how to draw and label sophisticated structures on biological samples and observed differences between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells.

In their next lab investigation, they were given six “mystery” solutions. They were “mystery” solutions because the solute concentrations of each solution was unknown. Using potato cores, the principle of osmosis and a multi-day lab procedure, they were able to determine the molarity of each solution, produce a graph of concentration verses percent change in mass for each solution, interpolate the curve to determine the solute concentration of the potato and then use it to determine the water potential using the formula -iCRT, where i is the solute constant, C is the concentration of the solution, R is the ideal gas constant and T is the temperature of the room.

AP Language Students Learn Rhetorical Analysis Through Creative Writing

Our AP Language and Composition students recently wrapped up a mini-unit on rhetorical analysis, exploring how authors use sensory language and figurative language—especially extended metaphor—to serve their purpose.

Students examined two very different texts: Barbara Ehrenreich's "Serving in Florida," a powerful piece of social commentary, and Ursula K. Le Guin's beloved short story "The Wife's Story." By considering the authors' rhetorical choices, students gained a deeper understanding of how writers use sensory details and figurative language to draw readers in and develop their themes.

Students turned their analytical eye toward their own writing in a Halloween Story Writing Contest on Friday, October 30. Participants created original stories full of vivid imagery, figurative language, and suspenseful plots.

Contest Winners:

• Period 1: Jameson Payne

• Period 3: Truman Pimner

• Period 8: Anay Verma and Clover Jovais

Huge congratulations to everyone who participated!

Semi-Log Plots

“Logging an Exponential World!”

This week, AP Precalculus students will take on the world of Semi-Log Plots! From

Carbon-Dating, to pH calculations, to Earthquakes, etc. it’s clear from the science: we live in a

logarithmic and exponential world! To properly analyze these, and many more phenomena, AP

Precalc students take upon themselves the task of modeling using a very useful technique

called Semi-Log plotting.

This involves graphs where the y-axis is scaled by powers of 10: 100, 101, 102, 103, etc. while the

x-axis is “normal” scaled i.e 1, 2, 3, etc. This allows us to see exponential data more clearly and

make better predictions. Here, our students practice with some problems on AP Collegeboard

together to better understand this exponential world of ours!

In AP Business with Personal Finance we are examining how supply chain processes and organizational structures operate, and how the COVID-19 pandemic exposed their vulnerabilities through real-world disruptions. We are exploring the end-to-end mechanics of supply chain operations, from sourcing and production to logistics and distribution, alongside the organizational structures that coordinate them. Drawing on concrete examples from the COVID-19 pandemic, including factory shutdowns, port congestion, semiconductor shortages, and sudden swings in consumer demand, it shows how rigid, lean, and highly globalized systems struggled under pressure, and how organizations adapted through diversification, greater visibility, and more flexible decision-making.

The AP Computer Science A class is hard at work on its Escape Room game. In the game, an image has to escape a randomly generated maze, much as people have to leave escape rooms in real life. The students are applying their knowledge of conditional statements, Boolean expressions, user input, coordinate geometry, and Java syntax in this novel way. This assignment is one of many such feats accomplished thus far by the AP Cimpuret Science A class. They have also built a Mad Libs simulator and a riddle validation game, among several other programs.

This week in Intro to Engineering Design we concluded the Carnival Game Redesign by completing Step 6 of the Engineering Design Process - The Presentation of Results. The student teams created and presented a slideshow depicting their newly created carnival games. They spoke in front of the class and explained the game development process. They walked their fellow students through the different competing designs that their team were debating constructing. Then they presented the decision matrix which allowed them to settle on a winning design. They demonstrated their games playability and how it would be a solution to the problem of drawing more participants to the Hoboken carnival and finally showed the class how the game was played. Next week we begin Isometric drawings.

This week in Principles of Engineering Design we began the week by administering a quiz of common engineering terms and concepts. Next we started to study and build gear trains that reduce high RPMs into slow moving gears that produce more torque, both in series and compound. Basically using the same reasoning behind how a farm tractor engine can be running at hundreds of RPM but the tractor itself can move very slowly in comparison but pull with much force. Once that lesson was completed we began building a model car that when completed will be run by a battery powered electric motor and will also turn a higher RPM smaller gear into a lower RPM slower moving vehicle that has more torque.

Career Lab: Building Skills for Success

This week in Career Lab, students strengthened their communication skills by practicing restating questions in their answers and asking meaningful follow-up questions. Through small-group conversations, they explored how thoughtful questions demonstrate interest, clarify information, and encourage deeper discussion. Students took turns asking, answering, and following up while practicing active listening.

As the first marking period draws to a close, students also watched a motivational youth TED Talk highlighting short-term goal setting and grit—the combination of passion and perseverance. Our discussion focused on setting manageable goals, taking responsibility for progress, and working through challenges to finish strong and approach the second marking period with renewed purpose.

Students also continue building independence and time management skills through their eDynamic Learning courses, chosen based on their career interests. Balancing online coursework with collaborative activities gives students opportunities to practice the habits and skills that support success in school and the workplace.

Math Skills: Making Cents of Money!

This week in Math Skills, our Rising Red Wings students focused on developing essential money management skills! Students practiced identifying coins, recognizing the value of each coin and counting different combinations of coins to determine their total amount.

Using their individualized math binders, students strengthened their understanding of how different combinations of coins can equal the same amount of money. They also practiced real-life shopping scenarios, calculating the cost of purchases and determining how much change they would have left after buying an item.

These skills directly connect to the work our students do at Common Grounds Café. Students apply their money-counting skills when handling café sales, counting the money earned and preparing bank deposits. They also practice recording financial information in a spreadsheet to keep track of earnings and deposits. This allows students to see how the math skills they practice in the classroom are used in real-world vocational experiences.

These hands-on activities help students build confidence, strengthen problem-solving skills and develop greater independence when making everyday purchases and managing money. We are proud of the progress our students are making as they continue to develop important life and vocational skills!

This week in vocational/life skills, my students took part in our first of many luncheons we will be holding tri-weekly for the staff. When customers arrived to purchase the mac & cheese with baked chicken that the students prepared, they were professional and kind. The students participated in all aspects of the selling process from making the dish to calculating how much money we made or didn’t make. In English skills, I introduced the students to A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Conner which we will continue to read in the coming week. This story introduces the concept of morality and innate good versus evil, which will be an ongoing discussion in our other classes. In US History I, students were given a more in-depth study of the pilgrim’s journey to the new world. They were told about the “gun deck” and engaged in discussion regarding the conditions for the passengers and how likely they’d do the same. Next week, we will learn about the middle passage and compare the two horrifying journeys. In Practical Math, the students practiced their ability to reduce fractions to their smallest point and adding/subtracting fractions by finding a common denominator. Next week, I will introduce the students to multiplying and dividing fractions, transitioning to our second unit which will focus heavily on conversions between fractions, decimals, and percents.

Congratulations to the Hoboken High School Football team with their win over Ramsey High School by a score of 49-14 at home on Friday.

Best of Luck to the Hoboken High School football team in the next state round vs Bernards High School at home on Friday at 6:30 PM.

Best of luck to our Girls Volleyball team vs Pascack Valley High School on Tuesday at home in the NJSIAA first round volleyball tournament.

Good Luck to the Hoboken High School girls soccer team on Tuesday vs Voorhees at home at 7 PM.

The Hoboken High School boys soccer team plays West Morris High School on Wednesday at 7 PM at home.

Our Vision

The Hoboken Public School District will be recognized as a premier educational choice and widely known as a best-practice model for academic growth, high quality instruction, innovative and equitable programs, engagement, facilities and personalized pathways that are essential for college, career and life-preparedness in our ever-changing, interconnected global society.

Our Mission

The Hoboken Public School District will prepare confident and resilient graduates who value academic achievement, embrace challenge, honor diversity, appreciate collaboration, and respectfully contribute to their local and wider communities.

Our District Goals

The Hoboken Public School District will implement a rigorous, relevant and responsive curriculum that meets the needs of all students, fosters personalized pathways for learning, and ensures continuous academic growth.

The Hoboken Public School District will support its diverse staff in professional growth, encourage them to serve as role models, and empower them to provide the highest quality of instruction for our students.

The Hoboken Public School District will develop and implement unique and innovative programs that promote global learning, ensure equitable access, and foster the social, emotional and academic growth of each student.

The Hoboken Public School District will engage and communicate with families and the wider community to bridge understanding and advance partnerships.

The Hoboken Public School District will operate well-maintained and safe facilities that respond to our growing student enrollment, support our academic and co-curricular programs, and promote pride across the city.

Email: District@Hoboken.k12.nj.us
Website: www.hoboken.k12.nj.us
Location: 524 Park Avenue, Hoboken, NJ, USA
Phone: (201) 356-3600
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hoboken.schools/
Twitter: @HobokenSchools

https://sites.google.com/hoboken.k12.nj.us/guardians/home