South Side High School is the only public high school in the town of Rockville Centre, New York. South Side serves grades 9 through 12 and boasts a variety of academic, extra-curricular and athletic programs, including the International Baccalaureate (IB) Curriculum in junior and senior years. School district boundaries can be found in Rockville Centre and South Hempstead. Once again in 2008 at #47, South Side is ranked in the top 100 high schools in the nation by Newsweek's The Top of the Class: The complete list of the top 1,300 top U.S. high schools. Year after year, South Side has maintained this distinction, at #44 in 2007, #32 in 2006, #45 in 2005 and #65 in 2003.
The primary address for South Side is 140 Shepherd Street, Rockville Centre, New York 11570. Located further south in Rockville Centre is the "Greenhouse". Established in 1975, the purpose of this off-site school is to provide a different approach to teaching students with academic or personal troubles as well as different scheduling and academic programs. The main building has two floors. The school is currently being run by John Murphy.
As of the 2014-15 school year, the school had an enrollment of 1,092 students and 93.7 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student-teacher ratio of 11.6:1. There were 109 students (10.0% of enrollment) eligible for free lunch and 28 (2.6% of students) eligible for reduced-cost lunch.
Video South Side High School (Rockville Centre, New York)
School history
The school's name reflects its status as the first high school on Long Island's south shore, east of Jamaica. It has retained that name though most of Long Island's incorporated villages have established high schools named for their village.
The Shepherd Street address is the third location for the school, its first site (1892-1923) was on College Place, now the Municipal Building of Rockville Centre. Its second site (1924-1954) on Hillside Avenue is now South Side Middle School. The school has served grades 9-12 since 1982-83, having previously been a 10-12 institution with the freshman attending what was then South Side Junior High School along with the seventh- and eighth-graders. The switch occurred as the district's sixth-graders moved to the Junior High, with that institution becoming the Middle School.
The most prominent architectural characteristic of the current building is the colonnade adorning the entrance on the west side of the building. This feature gives its name to the school's annual yearbook, The Colonnade, but is unusual in that it is not associated with either of the school's grand entrances to the north and the south, which face the parking lots and athletic fields.
Maps South Side High School (Rockville Centre, New York)
Sports
South Side High School has a rich athletic history dating back to the 1920s. Three teams (Boys Lacrosse, Girls Volleyball, and Girls Soccer) have won New York State Championships. By far the most famous team is the 1971 Boys Basketball Team, captained by Beaver Smith, which won the last Nassau County championship contested in the Island Garden, a 5,200 seat Quonset-style arena formerly located in West Hempstead, which doubled as the home of the ABA New York Nets (New York State high schools did not hold a State championship tournament until the 1980's). Another successful team is the Lady Cyclones Soccer Team. In the past 20 years, the Lady Cyclones have won 17 State Championships including most recently in 2012, when the girls dominated their opponents, scoring 63 goals and only allowing 6, going 18-0-1. In 2013 the girls were ranked #1 in the State and #4 in the nation. At the end of the 2009 season, the varsity girls soccer team was ranked #1 in the nation.
In 2003-2004 the Boy's basketball teams captured the county championship for the first time since 1998, besting all Nassau County opponents. 2004 also saw the Boy's lacrosse program capture its first State Lacrosse Championship.
Red & Blue
Red & Blue is an annual competition held by South Side High School since 1916. "Red and Blue started when girls weren't allowed to participate in team sports".. Author and historian Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote extensively about Red & Blue in her autobiographical memoir "Wait Till Next Year." Since 1979 Title IX has mandated that girls have equivalent access to sports and other activities, but the tradition has lived on, with approximately 300 (mostly) female students participating each year. In recent years, the event has also raised money to benefit Breast Cancer research and support..
Critics have railed against the anachronism of having a (mostly) female competition centered around quasi-athletics, aesthetics, decorum and spirit; criticism effectively put to the sword by Kearns Goodwin, herself a pro-feminist.
Notable alumni
The following notable people graduated from South Side High School:
- Dave Attell, comedian, actor, 1983
- Whittaker Chambers, writer, editor, Communist party member, and spy for the Soviet Union who defected and became an outspoken opponent of communism, 1919
- Kevin Connors, sportscaster, 1993
- Ted Demme, film producer, director, 1981
- Crystal Dunn, U.S. Women's National Team soccer player, 2010
- Max von Essen, Tony Award-nominated Broadway actor, 1992
- Dan Mishkin, writer; co-creator of Amethyst and Blue Devil for DC Comics, 1970
- Martin Feldstein, economist, economic adviser to President Ronald Reagan, 1957
- Susan Fromberg Schaeffer, novelist ("Anya," "The Madness of a Seduced Woman," etc.), 1957
- Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, author ("Team of Rivals", "Wait Till Next Year," etc.), 1960
- Mel Gussow, theatre critic, 1951.
- Donald Holder, Broadway light designer, 1976
- Tim Holland, backgammon world champion, author, teacher, professional gambler, 1948
- Dean Kamen, inventor, entrepreneur, 1969.
- Mark O'Connell, drummer for rock band Taking Back Sunday, 1999
- Amy Schumer, comedian and actor, 1999
- Dean Skelos, New York State Senator, Majority Leader of the NYS Senate, 1966
- Beaver Smith, St. John's University basketball player, 1971.
- Howard Stern, radio personality, 1972
- Laura Stevenson, musician and songwriter, 2002
- Danielle Elizabeth Tumminio, writer, theologian, Episcopal priest, and life coach, 1999
- June Diane Raphael, Actress, 1998
References
External links
- The South Side boys varsity lacrosse team playing Cold Spring Harbor in Manhasset on 3-31-07
- South Side vs Garden City boys varsity baseball on 4-21-07
- Rockville Centre School District
- South Side High School
Source of article : Wikipedia
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