Herricks High School

Senior Ty Patrick Flood passed away on April 19th, 2022. We are all heartbroken and our thoughts and prayers are with Ty’s family. At a young age he was diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a genetic disorder and muscle disease that progressively debilitates the patient. This diagnosis did not stop Ty. He loved intelligent, thoughtful conversations, made positive contributions to classroom discussions, and passionately followed his favorite sports teams. Ty was a loyal son, brother, and friend to many. His hard work in the classroom earned him a scholarship to Hofstra University. As we struggle as a school community to fill the void of Ty's passing, we have found ways to honor and celebrate the way he lived, and the lessons he taught each of us.

From May 16th to May 20th, HHS students competitively battled each other in various competitions to crown the next Battle of the Classes Champions. Check out the recap from a fun and amazing week.

Congratulations to the Class of 2022!

Congratulations to Patricia McGibney, Rob Gioia, Alexa Riegal, Erin Carroll and Kathleen Denaro!

And Congratulations to some of our 2021 Tenures!

Congratulations to all of our Seniors who have committed to post graduation plans!

Congratulations to the following

See Below

Sophomore Chloe Lin received two honors for her writing! Chloe's poem "Lessons in Framing" was selected as the Grand Champion for grades 9 and 10 in the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association's 36th Annual Student Poetry Contest! She was honored in a ceremony at WW's Birthplace on Sunday, May 15th.

Also, Chloe's poem "對牛彈琴* / a folktale in which we finally understand" was named a finalist in the 7th Annual Narrative High School Writing Contest (an international competition). I've included a link below.

https://www.narrativemagazine.com/seventh-annual-narrative-high-school-writing-contest-winners

Long Island Arts Council at Freeport sponsors an annual poetry contest for all HS students in Nassau County. This was their 7th annual contest. For the 9th and 10th grade category, sophomore Aieshah Ashfer received 3rd place honors for "Land of the Free" and sophomore Dylan Lee was an honorable mention for "Where'd You Go?"

In the 11th and 12th grade category, senior Kayla Sohn received 3rd place honors for "To a Soldier, Thank You."

Junior Pearl Joseph's poem was selected for publication as a Topical Winner for the Live Poets Society of NJ's American High School Poets Summer 2022 edition.

http://www.highschoolpoetrycontest.com/inme.html

The following students were winners in this year's Nassau Reading Council Young Authors' Contest:

Kaitlyn Rams (Grade 9), Prisha Agarwal (Grade 10), Fiona Kuo (Grade 10), Sasha Stern (Grade 10), Carolyn Lau (Grade 11), Bianca Leung (Grade 11), Catherine Su (Grade 11), and Lucas Lin (Grade 12)

In addition Brianna Gallagher earned an Honorable Mention in the 2022 Carl Sandburg Poetry Contest for her poem "Mountainous Ambition."

Congratulations to all of these writers for their hard work and commitment to their craft.

Congratulations to Herricks’ LIBTA Annual Business Contest Winners! Carolyn Lau, 1st place in Marketing, Lauren Lui, 1st place in Fashion Merchandising, Roshni Patel, 1st place in Entrepreneurship, and Prableen Kaur, 4th place in Entrepreneurship.

We are thrilled to share the results of this year's National French Contest with everyone. The National French Contest is given annually to over 40,000 French students across the country and is a difficult exam, testing students on their reading, listening, and language skills. This year the high school students did particularly well! It is a testament to their effort and dedication that they achieved as much as they did and we are proud of all of them!

Level 2

Enya Sakhrani - perfect score, 1st place in Nassau County, 1st place nationally, platinum medal winner. Enya has had a perfect score two years in a row, in 8th and 9th grade.

Shannon Hong - 2nd place in AATF Nassau, 3rd place nationally, gold medal winner

Bella Pavlovici - 2nd place in AATF Nassau, 3rd place nationally, gold medal winner

Nicole Muzaka - 3rd place in AATF Nassau, 4th place nationally, gold medal winner

Peter Aliprandis - 3rd place in AATF Nassau, 4th place nationally, gold medal winner

Serena Chen - 3rd place in AATF Nassau, 4th place nationally, gold medal winner

Maya Aboutaleb - 7th place in AATF Nassau, 9th place nationally, silver medal winner

Archana Kumar - 8th place in AATF Nassau, 10th place nationally, bronze medal winner

Hilary Cheng - 9th place in AATF Nassau, bronze medal winner

Arjun Sharma - honorable mention

Abigail Loo - honorable mention

Anderson Wang - honorable mention

Shruti Sharma - honorable mention

Hiba Irfan - honorable mention

Samia Sattaur - honorable mention

Gabriella Berninger - honorable mention

Athul Santhosh - honorable mention

Rheya Chaudhri - honorable mention

Level 3

Aashi Hirani - 8th place in AATF Nassau, bronze medal winner

Nikki Shah - 8th place in AATF Nassau, bronze medal winner

Faaiz Jalil - 8th place in AATF Nassau, bronze medal winner

Vera Peng - 9th place in AATF Nassau, bronze medal winner

Sibora Gosturani - 9th place in AATF Nassau, bronze medal winner

Omar Khoga - 10th place in AATF Nassau, bronze medal winner

Marina Matveyeva - bronze medal winner

Drishti Patel - honorable mention

Hiuyi Cheng - honorable mention

Catalin Wong - honorable mention

Samaira Pai - honorable mention

Kevin Zhu - honorable mention

Shaorya Srivastava - honorable mention

Evgenia Kandilas - honorable mention

Theodore Brown - honorable mention

Level 4

Sneha Abraham - 8th place in AATF Nassau, bronze medal winner

Avani Woolsey - honorable mention

Tyler Ullman - honorable mention

AnnMarie Gonzalez - honorable mention

Sanyah Nabi - honorable mention

Level 5AP

Catherine Su - 2nd place in AATF Nassau, bronze medal winner

Amisha Brahmbhatt - 2nd place in AATF Nassau, bronze medal winner

Madeleine Wang - honorable mention

Lamiya Rangwala - honorable mention

Ms. Kari Schiano was selected as a scholarship recipient for a virtual university class offered this summer through AATF and Wallonie-Bruxelles International.

Congratulations!

On Monday, May 23rd, Nassau County Police visited HHS to meet with seniors and discuss appropriate and safe ways to close out their Herricks experience.

Students from Shelter Rock Academy visited Sansone as a part of an Italian Field Trip! The kids had such a great time walking around Sansone and seeing the Italian products that they learned about in class, participating in the scavenger hunt to find the prices of those items as well as taste-testing some authentic Italian items, one of which was pizza that the chef at Sansone so kindly prepared for us in the brick oven!

HHS students travel to Bellmore Merrick to participate in Challenge Day!

In STEAM, students at SRA learned about the plant life cycle by planting sunflower seeds and observing their growth. They also learned that Ukraine’s national flower is the sunflower and the yellow in their flag represents sunflowers. When the sunflowers were ready, we transplanted them outside into our SRA garden. As they blossom, our garden will symbolize peace for Ukraine.

The Environmental Club hosted an Earth Day Clean-Up at the High School on April 28th with The Town of North Hempstead. Councilman Peter Zuckerman attended and over 125 Herricks students participated in the event collecting 20 bags of garbage around the campus.

Congratulations to following Herricks Students who have works on display at the All County Art Exhibition

Center Street: Art Teacher- Doreen McDevitt

Jodi Chung

Emelyn Geevarghese

Denton Avenue: Art Teacher- Maria Monda

Arianna Khan

Alexander Wainer

Alex Wen

Searingtown School: Art Teacher- Amanda Rodriguez

Brandon Mok

Chloe Chen

Isabella Kim

Herricks Middle School: Art Teachers- Kim Friedman and Cindy Perotti

Lucas Pudlowski

Lauren Cho

Abigail Dodge

Oscar Liu

Kaya Shah

Ethan Lim

Herricks High School: Art Teachers- Alexis Camisa, Jennifer Cavalluzzo, Allyson Zebrowski

Ankitha Vinod

Nicoletta Karras

Amber Joneleit

Ashley Ha

Ciara Montemayor

Lamiya Rangwala

Aneesa Malik

Nicole Muzaka

Ellia Zhang

Herricks High School is pleased to announce that Keneil Soni was honored as one of twenty Long Island Scholar Artists for this school year. His profile will be featured in Newsday for the month of May that highlights his academic and artistic successes in the area of Music. The Scholar Artist program is managed by the Woodbury-based Long Island Arts Alliance.

“We are very proud of Keneil and his accomplishments,” said Anissa Arnold, Herricks’ Director of Fine and Performing Arts. “The hard work and dedication demanded by his craft is evident. Keneil is an excellent representative of our music program.”

The Herricks High School Chamber Orchestra, under the direction of Mrs. Catherine Birke, is proud to share the world premiere of "The Voyage," with the Herricks Community. This piece was written by Indian-American composer Reena Esmail specifically for our orchestra, in direct collaboration with Mrs. Birke and the students. Esmail is a composer widely renowned for "bridging the worlds of Indian and Western classical music and bringing communities together through the creation of equitable musical spaces" (https://www.reenaesmail.com/bio/). Her work has been commissioned and performed by such ensembles as the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Kronos Quartet, Imani Winds, Juilliard 415, Yale Institute of Sacred Music, Seattle Symphony, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and many more. We are thrilled to be able to add the Herricks High School Chamber Orchestra to this illustrious list!

This April, STAC students worked with professional playwright Morgan McGuire on ten-minute plays in a playwriting workshop at Herricks High School. They examined questions such as:

· What delights the audience about the play?

· What about the play makes them curious?

· What are the challenges of telling a complete story in ten minutes?

These are the questions students are asking as they read and develop their work under Morgan's expert guidance. A selection of plays will also be performed at STAC Night on June 13th. Workshops with professional writers, performers and artists are part of the curriculum every year in the STAC classroom.

The Herricks High School Art Department is thrilled to announce that Junior Alexa Able was selected to exhibit her artwork at Heckscher’s Long Island’s Best. Alexa's work was selected among 75 pieces to be displayed out of 399 submissions. Her inspiration came from Howardena Pindell’s piece Relationships that she viewed at the Heckscher Museum. Alexa describes her inspiration through her written piece: “Her use of political reference, movement, and vibrant colors inspired me to depict these traits in my own piece. The business of her painting reminded me of a colorful New York City; a place that buzzes and whirls with every step you take. There’s a certain beauty in the midst of chaos; that causes us to move and feel that surge through the city in both dark and light. But between the cracks and tears of our shining metropolis, lay a disturbing sense of hate and disconnect between the people of our society. The black and white film roll between the torn city displays scenes of the Black Lives Matter movement, mask mandates, protests for climate change, stopping Asian hate, and the house of congress which have slowly started to tear our perfect city apart.” Alexa’s artwork was on display in the Heckscher Museum April 30-May 29.

On Friday, May 13th, the Herricks High School 9th Grade music ensembles participated in the Trills and Thrills Music Festival. The 9th Grade Concert Band, Orchestra, and Treble Choir each performed three selections for adjudicators at the festival site, Manchester High School in New Jersey. The judges scored the groups on their tone, intonation, technique, interpretation, balance, and musical repertoire content. All three ensembles received the highest possible rating of "Superior." Following these successful performances, the students enjoyed the rest of the day at Six Flags Great Aventure theme park. Congratulations Herricks' fabulous 9th grade musicians and to their teachers, Mrs. Birke, Mrs. O'Hanlon, and Mr. Stickley.

Herricks has been honored with the Best Communities for Music Education designation from The NAMM Foundation for its outstanding commitment to music education. Now in its 23rd year, the Best Communities for Music Education designation is awarded to districts that demonstrate outstanding achievement in efforts to provide music access and education to all students.

To qualify for the Best Communities designation, Herricks answered detailed questions about funding, graduation requirements, music class participation, instruction time, facilities, support for the music program and community music-making programs. Responses were verified with school officials and reviewed by The Music Research Institute at the University of Kansas.

Anissa Arnold, Director of Fine and Performing arts shares “Music is a prominent part of the Herricks community and is valued and supported by the district administration, the board of education, staff, music teachers and students. I am very proud to receive this recognition from NAMM once again this year and proud to be part of this community where music and our student musicians are in the forefront”

As per FOX61:

Growing up, Quinnipiac University student Justin Janoson never saw characters on television that he could see himself in. He has ADHD and his twin sister is autistic. Two things that he says weren't really represented in media.

"I wanted to create something that a younger me could look up and could relate to it," Janoson said.

So as a film student, he set off to create his own show. "What's the Rule" is a coming-of-age series that tells the story of twin sisters, Sam who has ADHD, and Jack, who is autistic. Both trying to navigate public school together for the first time.

On Friday, April 29th, the music department hosted the 12th annual Herricks Jazz Festival at the high school. Bands from around Long Island came together to perform for one another and participate in a workshop with clinician Matt Wilson. Matt is a world class drummer, percussionist, composer, and educator. Participating bands this year included Manhasset Middle School, Jericho Middle School, Howitt Middle School, Lynbrook High School, and Manhasset High School. The day culminated with Matt performing with the Herricks Blue Jazz Band. It was a wonderful experience for all students and teachers involved. As one visiting director said, "The comments from my students both during the festival and after we returned to school were really sincere and observant. Their perspectives and experience were all broadened by the other groups they heard. Thanks again for a great day!"

On Thursday, May 5th, 11 students from Herricks High School performed in the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society's (CMS) Young Musicians Program final concert. The performance featured all the finalists from the prestigious competition and was held at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center.

Twelve ensembles from four regions (Long Island, Westchester-Hudson Valley-Connecticut, New York City, and New Jersey) were chosen for the final performance based on their performance in the semi-final Regional Concert rounds. Three ensembles from Herricks performed in the Long Island Regional round and two ensembles moved on and were accepted into the final concert. Each selected group earned a coaching with a Lincoln Center CMS roster artist to prepare them for the performance.

Keneil Soni (12), Tyler Lau (10), Kaylee Luo (10), Brendon Lau (12), Preston Chan (10), and Dylan Lee (10) performed Reger's Scherzino for Horn and Strings.

Genesis Kang (12), Catalin Wong (10), Liam Tan (11), Esther Min (12), and Ryan Lo (10) performed Schubert's famous "Cello" Quintet in C Major.

Both ensembles gave thrilling performances in one of the most famous concert halls in New York. Congratulations to these incredible students and their teacher, Mrs. Catherine Birke!

Check out photos of our Spring Athletes in action!