Suffern High School

Infobox HighSchool
name = Suffern High School


type = Public school
principal = Patrick Faherty
city = Suffern, New York
state = NY
country = USA
campus = Suburban
students = 1521cite web|url=http://sc.ramapocentral.org/education/components/scrapbook/default.php?sectiondetailid=13067&sc_id=1169663000&sc_id=1169663000|title=About Suffern High School]
free_label = Mascot
free = Mountain Lion
colors = Blue and White
homepage = [http://sc.ramapocentral.org/education/school/school.php?sectionid=6 Website]

Suffern High School is located in the Ramapo Central School District in Suffern, New York.The address of the school is 49 Viola Road, Suffern, New York, 10901. Students participate in classes from 7:30 - 14:05 EST. The school's mascot is a Mountain Lion (Mountie) and its newspaper is the "Mountain Echo". Its news program is "SHS News". Suffern High School also publishes a poetry magazine called "Picking the Endangered Wildflowers" as well as an art & literature magazine known as the "Chameleon". Suffern High is ranked in the top 1200 high schools in the United States at number 501 [ [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18757087/?sort=Rank&count=1351&Search=&start=700&limit=100&year=2007& America's Top Public High Schools - Newsweek America's Best High Schools - MSNBC.com ] ] .

Layout

Suffern High School has two main wings; one to the right of the main entrance with two floors, each separated into two sections, and one to the left of the entrance with three floors. Each floor of the right wing is separated into two square shaped sections joined by a narrow strip. Each square is home to a different department, namely:
*Bottom left: History (as well as a newer science wing)
*Bottom right: English
*Top Left: Science
*Top Right: Math

The left wing of the school is home to the music and art programs. The bottom floor contains choral and orchestral rooms, while the top two floors include rooms for art, photography, computers, home economics, as well as extra athletic rooms.

The main office, nurses office, cafeteria, gymnasium, and 1,000+ seat auditorium occupy some of the rooms which connect the two main wings to the school. Connecting the two sides of the right wing of the school on the bottom floor is the recently renovated library.

Suffern High School was used for shooting in the films "The Manhattan Project" and "Off the Black".

chool Features

Suffern High is known for its unique feature, unit lunch, where every student in the school has lunch at the same time, as opposed to a period based schedule. With 1500+ students having lunch simultaneously students can eat in the halls as well as the cafeteria. The unit lunch enables students to go to extra help for their classes, attend club meetings, or spend time with friends.

There are also special facilities designed for physical education. A recently added fitness center contains several FIT LINNx exercise machines which track your workouts over time using a local area network, and a spinning room. Other special features include an all season track, a pool, an amphitheater in front of the school, a planetarium, and a wrestling room. Suffern also has a very advanced network of computers, with iMacs running Boot Camp with Windows XP and Mac OS X Leopard. There are also PCs running Windows XP.

Suffern High also offers many sports throughout the year that take place both on and off campus; the school sports team is the "Mounties". Some sports games are played at Suffern Middle School, located close to the high school. There are over 60 extracurricular activities, many of which take place during unit lunch. Some of these activities include a newly introduced videogame club [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffern_High_School_Gamers_Club] , a Jewish Culture club, known as the "Schmooze Club", Comedy Club, several honor societies, an A/V production team, two play productions per year, and a united student organization. There was once even a Grilled Cheese club, whose sole purpose was to serve grilled cheese sandwiches to its members.

Suffern High school students can take any type of class, if they have the appropriate grades, or parental consent. Many honors level classes, AP classes, and classes affiliated with the Syracuse University Project Advance program and SUNY Albany are offered as well. There are also two very special courses available to students. One is the "Peer Leadership" class for seniors, which aspiring juniors must be screened for. In this course, attendees are promise to set an example for younger students and are trained to help advise the incoming freshman at several meetings and they also practice skits they present to the freshman class that review issues that are common in high schools such as drug use, alcohol, and peer pressure. Suffern also has a 3 year scientific and engineering research program/class known as "S.T.I.R.", which stands for "Scientific and Technological Investigative Research"cite web|url=http://sc.ramapocentral.org/education/staff/staff.php?sectionid=1158|title=S.T.I.R. Homepage] . In this program, students, from their sophomore to senior years, study a topic by reviewing scientific articles, get a mentor, possibly work in a lab on a project, and present that project in multiple competitions. Notable contest winners from the past few years include Oren Brecher, a finalist in the Intel Science Talent Search in the 2006-2007 school yearcite web|url=http://www.societyforscience.org/sts/66sts/finalists.asp|title=Intel STS Winners 2006-2007] , as well Sheela Krishnan, a finalist in Intel STS as well in the 2005-2006 school yearcite web|url=http://www.societyforscience.org/sts/65sts/finalists.asp|title=Intel STS Winners 2005-2006] .

Rotating Schedule

Suffern High School also has a rotating schedule consisting of 5 different types of days; 8, A, B, C, and D. Students have 8 different periods on their schedule numbered 1-8, and on 8 days, they attend first period for 45 minutes, and periods 2-8 for 40 minutes, with a lunch break between periods 4 and 5. On all other days, students go to six of their classes for 55 minutes with a lunch break between their 3rd and 4th periods. The breakdown of these days is listed below. Also, students may have periods that switch every other day that they have that period, such as science lab switching with gym. Students have 5 minutes to travel between classes.

*A - day1 2 3 Lunch 5 6 7

*B - day 4 1 2 Lunch 8 5 6
*C - days3 4 1 Lunch 7 8 5

*D - days2 3 4 Lunch 6 7 8

*8 - days1 2 3 4 Lunch 5 6 7 8

Notable Alumni

*Walt Weiss - Former Major League Baseball player.Fact|date=September 2007

* Joe Lockhart - Press Secretary for President Bill Clinton Fact|date=December 2007

* Hendrick Hertzberg - Chief speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter Fact|date=December 2007

* Thomas Meehan (Writer) Tony award winner book writer of Annie and The Producers

External links

* [http://sc.ramapocentral.org/education/school/school.php?sectionid=6 Suffern High School]
* [http://www.ramampocentral.org Ramapo Central School District]