New Rochelle High School

School Announcements / Latest News

• Forrest, Manns Sign with Holy Cross, UMaine

  Huguenot running back Jordan Forrest had already announced that he would attend College of the Holy Cross next year, but teammate Khairi Manns kept followers in suspense until the signing ceremony.  

   

  On Wednesday - National Signing Day - Manns, the football team's defensive end, revealed that he will attend the University of Maine. They held a ceremonial signing in the New Rochelle High School library, applauded by family, friends, teammates and supporters. Several reporters captured the event.

   

  Forrest, Manns and the entire team have spent much of the year in the spotlight, mainly when they fought their way to the New York State Public High School Athletic Association state championship in the Carrier Dome in Syracuse in November. Ultimately, Aquinas Institute - a private school in Rochester - won the game, but the Huguenots' performance captured the hearts of New Rochelle.

   

  Last month, Forrest was named Player of the Year for Class AA by the New York State Sportswriters Association. Last week, he was named one of the "Golden Dozen" by the Westchester Chapter of the National Football Foundation for his excellence on the field and in the classroom.

  City School District of New Rochelle

• NRHS AP Government Class Visits Washington

  New Rochelle High School's AP Government class, led by teacher Debbie Minchin, took a four-day trip to Washington D.C. to learn about the workings of our government.  

   

  Also accompanied by teachers Timothy Kuklis and Timothy Orlando, they toured the Capitol and met with U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel, whose Congressional district includes New Rochelle. They visited the U.S. Supreme Court, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Library of Congress and the United States Holocaust Museum.

   

  They also took a nighttime tour of the monuments and placed a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. The trip included a performance of "Twelve Angry Men" in Ford's Theatre, where President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865.

   

  "Sitting in the gallery of the House of Representatives made me tear up," said senior Dylan Klein. "I want to be there as a legislator one day."

   

  Student Alexander Gonzalez said; "The trip was a wonderful opportunity to learn and explore in an exciting new environment, and to enjoy being with my friends to experience a place where many of us have never been before."

  City School District of New Rochelle

• Food Ed Students Serve Schoolmates 'Mindful' Lunch

  Forty New Rochelle High School students were treated to healthy dishes including beet bruschetta with hummus and sweet potato and parsnip soup served by their schoolmates recently. The student cooks in the Science of Food class whipped up dishes from their own recipes with farm-to-table, sustainable ingredients as the culmination of a semester-long "Food Ed" program with the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture. They studied personal and cultural connections to food as well as topics of sustainability. The lessons focused on many facets of agriculture, even caring for the soil itself. "They studied how to maintain healthy soil, how to restore depleted soil and how the foods that you choose to grow have an impact on that living skin of the earth," teacher Julia Chillemi Kouyoumdjian said. For the lunch event, Chillemi Kouyoumdjian's 30 students prepared, cooked and served the meal to two other classes in Room 207. The focus was "mindful eating," which "increases your awareness of the positive and nurturing opportunities that are available through food selection and preparation," their menu explains. It continues, "Eating mindfully is a practice that uses all your senses in choosing to eat food that is both satisfying to you and nourishing to your body." They chose ingredients from the Stone Barns farm; others were sustainably sourced. In addition to the bruschetta and the sweet potato soup, there was kale risotto, "classic farm soup" and a seasonal salad. With each course came a story about how people can share their cultures by sharing foods, how food can be a form of medicine and how healthy soil leads to more nutritious ingredients. Students who took the class said they planned to eat healthier and to spread the word about the connection between how we grow food and the world around us. "I commit to eating healthy foods and staying away from bad foods that may be detrimental to my health," Gillian Okaiteye wrote in an action plan questionnaire. Several said they would start their own gardens or join a community garden. Nick Calderone said he would like to help his mother cook and perhaps even make the family dinner on his own. Colin Logan, like many others, said he would let others know what he had learned. "I will spread awareness about issues with the food system, such as unfair distribution and non-ethical production practices," Logan said.

  City School District of New Rochelle

• Jake Logan Wins Con Edison Athlete of Week

  New Rochelle High School senior wrestler Jake Logan won last week's Con Edison Westchester Scholar Athlete of the Week. Logan won the County Championship on Jan. 19, going 3-0 and being named Most Outstanding Senior at the event. He also had a victory in a dual match win vs. lona Prep.

   

  Logan won the Eastern States Wrestling Tournament's 182-pound class on Jan. 12. It is the second year he has won that tournament. He also won the Shoreline Tournament earlier in January.

  
  

  His record for the season is 26-0. He has a career record of 161-29 and is 67-0 the last two years. As a junior, he went 41-0 and won the state championship in the 182-pound class. He has not given up a takedown since his sophomore year.

  
  

  He has earned a scholarship to Lehigh University, one of the top Division I wrestling programs in the nation.

  
  

  "Jake has outstanding character and leads by example in every practice," Wrestling Coach Eddie Ortiz said. "He consistently demonstrated a positive attitude and work ethic that the younger kids on the team look up to.  It is for these reasons that he was named captain of the team his junior year."

  
  

  Listen to an interview with Logan on 100.7 WHUD.

  City School District of New Rochelle

• Meteorologist Teaches Students Science of Weather

  While many of us complain about bad weather, the third-graders at Daniel Webster Magnet School can talk about it more knowledgably, thanks to meteorologist Erica Grow of NBC TV's Storm Team 4.

   

  Grow and a team of helpers stopped by the school on a recent (very rainy) day to teach the students about hurricanes, tornadoes and flash floods.

  
  

  "Flood water, when it's in motion, is more powerful than a tornado," Grow said. "Just six inches of water can knock you right off your feet if it's moving fast enough."

  
  

  With a can of shaving cream, Grow sprayed depictions of clouds on the arms of students who had volunteered to help with the demonstration. She created horizontal stratus clouds, puffy cumulous clouds, tall cumulonimbus clouds and, finally, high-in-the-sky cirrus clouds, which are "very thin, delicate, wispy even."

  
  

  "Our approach is to get students excited about science, to create lifelong learners," Grow said before the lesson. "It's important to bring STEM education to students in a way that they might not get otherwise, and that will hopefully spark a newfound interest."

  
  

  Principal Melissa Passarelli added, "This fits perfectly with our strategy of offering inquiry-based learning centered on real-world applications."

  
  

  Consider that interest sparked.

  
  

  "It's fun to explore what it feels like to be in that weather," said student Addison Kurtin.

  
  "When it's over," schoolmate Clara Garcia-Gallet added, "you can see what's left from the bad weather and you can study it."

  City School District of New Rochelle