Newton North High School

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Newton North High School
Animi Cultus Humanitatis Cibus - Learning Sustains the Human Spirit
Location
360 Lowell Avenue
Newton, Massachusetts
02460
Information
School district Newton Public Schools
Principal Jennifer Price
Enrollment

2,200
Faculty ~425
Type Public
Grades 9th through 12th
Mascot Tiger
Color(s) Orange and Black
Established 1859
Homepage http://www.nnhs.net

Newton North High School is the larger and longer-established of two high schools in Newton, Massachusetts with more than 2,000 students. It is located in the village of Newtonville. The other high school in the city is Newton South High School.

The school is currently undergoing a controversial reconstruction that will make it the most expensive high school ever built in Massachusetts, with a price tag of nearly USD$200 million.[1][2]

Contents

[edit] Physical Plan

At the center of Newton North High School is a main hallway called "Main Street" which stretches for about 150 meters (415')[3]; it is the center of life at Newton North. The school is divided into four houses distinguishing each class year. Classes stay with one house for all four years. Color schemes are used to distinguish each house. Coloring extends to lockers and classrooms, but is not used to distinguish class years.

Newton North has a student-run restaurant (the Tiger's Loft) and art department located on the fourth floor as well as the SOA (Simulated Outdoor Area) gym; the third floor holds the photography room (with an extensive darkroom) and TV studio; the second floor (Main Street) has the Little Theater, library, dance studio; the first floor holds the pool and gyms, the Graphic Arts department (which supplies the school with nearly all of its posters and flyers, as well as all of the teachers' photocopies), Auto Shop, Drafting, Carpentry, the theatre and music departments (see below for more information on Theatre Ink), the Lasker Auditorium, and Plowshares, the preschool (where Child Development students spend some of their class time).

[edit] Reconstruction plans

The current Newton North building is approximately 35 years old and is built with red bricks. The school district plans to replace this at a cost of $197.5 million, making this the most expensive high school ever built in the state. A project consultant has explained that the project's relatively high cost is partly due to such unusual elements as glazed roofing over the cafeteria and a bermed embankment along the school's Hull Street property boundary.

The plan, for which foundations have been poured, is for a new building oriented on a north-south axis in the center of the current lot with athletic fields to the east and west. A new main entrance would be accessible from Walnut Street. The proposal would place the school office in a more accessible location and ensure that most classrooms have natural light and windows to the outside.[4]

At a public hearing in June 2006, community residents criticized the plan for its cost and for creating a dangerous new four-way intersection at Walnut Street and Trowbridge Avenue. Others claimed the proposed north-south orientation and lack of a basement level would waste energy as compared to the current structure.[5] Nonetheless, after a public referendum and vote in January, 2007, Newton residents approved the current plan for a new building. A May 2008 petition drive to repeal the school's funding gathered over 1,500 signatures but failed to reach the level necessary to make funding repeal a citywide ballot initiative.[6]

The new building will be the most expensive new school in Massachusetts, and one of the most expensive in the country.[1] Architect Graham Gund designed the new building, however he pulled out of the project and it was taken over by Dore and Whittier Architects. Dimeo Construction Company is acting as the construction manager for the project.[7]

[edit] Academics

Newton North offers classes ranging from regular academic courses to technical and vocational training. Non-standard courses range from video production to architecture to automobile repair. Recent budgetary constraints led to the cutting of Russian language classes.

It currently holds the 18th position on Boston Magazine's annual rankings of high schools, behind Newton South High School, which holds the 11th position on the rankings chart.[citation needed]

Newton North's Science Team has entered National and Regional competitions. Starting in the 1990s, the team's Science Bowl team won the State, placing 3rd nationally in 1993. In recent years, they won the Science Olympiad State competition in 2004, 2007 and 2008.

[edit] Partnerships

The Newton-Beijing Jingshan School Exchange Program is the oldest exchange of public secondary school students between the United States and the People's Republic of China. The city of Newton hosts students and teachers for four months each fall and sends students and teachers to Beijing each spring.

Other international exchange programs include trips to France, Spain, and Italy. The North students typically go overseas in February, while the international students come to the US the next September.

[edit] Athletics

Newton North competes in the Bay State league with other suburban Boston public schools.

Since 1894, the boys' football team has played rival Brookline High School in the traditional Thanksgiving Day Game. This is one of the oldest high school football rivalries in Massachusetts.

The boys' indoor track team won the state championship for 2001-02, 2003-2004, and 2004-2005. The boy's outdoor track team won the state championship for 2004 and 2005. In 2004-05, the team won a "triple crown" taking the cross country, indoor, and outdoor state titles; the Newton North girls' indoor track team won the state title as well.

The boys' basketball team won the Division 1 State Championship in the 2004-05 and 2005-06 seasons. According to schoolsports.com, it was ranked 12 in the nation for the '05-'06 season.

In the spring of 2002, the tennis team won the Division 1 State Championship. The following year, they lost in a heartbreaking semifinal match against Lexington.

The boys' lacrosse team won three state championships from the years 1992-1996, ranking as one of the top teams in the country.

The boys' soccer team played in the state finals in 2001.

In 2006, the boys' volleyball team won the South Sectional Title and made it to the state-semifinals.

In 2005-06, the boys' football team won the Bay State league championship and went on to the division 1A state championship super bowl.

In 2006, the girls' volleyball team won the Central-East Sectional and made it to the state finals.

In the spring of 2007, boy's tennis doubles team Dan Razulis (junior) and Mike Greene (senior) won the MIAA State Doubles tournament.

During the 2007- 2008 winter season the boys swim and dive team went undefeated (5-0) in their dual meets, giving them the title of Bay State Conference Champions, but finished in second place in the 6 team BSC Conference meet 10.5 points behind Needham High School.

On 1997-2000, Newton North's boys gymnastics team won four consecutive state championships, with notable gymnasts Gingii Storer, Elliot Servais, James Northrup and Jacky Wu capturing State Gymnasts of the Year throughout that stretch.

[edit] History

In the 1850s, high school classes in Newton were conducted in buildings shared with grammar schools in the villages of Newton Center, West Newton, Upper Falls, and Newton Corner. In 1859, Newton's population topped 8000 residents for the first time, a threshold that required the town under Massachusetts state law to construct a separate high school. The first Newton High School building, located at the current site of Newton North High School, opened in September of 1859.

Newton High School's first principal was Mr. J. N. Beals, for whom the current Beals House was named. Beals also served as one of new school's two teachers along with Miss Amy A. Breck. Beals left the job for health reasons after only one year and was replaced by Mr. E. D. Adams, for whom the current Adams House was named. [8]

The school was renamed Newton North High School in 1960 when a second high school opened in the southern part of the city.

[edit] House System

The school has long been divided into administrative units called 'Houses'. In the period of its largest population (~3000 students in the 1960s and later), there were six Houses: Adams, Bacon, Barry, Beals, Palmer, and Riley. Each had its own office, staff, student commons room, teachers' lounge, and Housemaster - the equivalent of a Principal for that house. Houses were named for notable former principals, such as J. N. Beals and E. D. Adams.

The House system provided better communication, distributed administration, more personal attention to individuals, a smaller peer group for students, more practical social events, and even intra-house athletic teams. Today there are four houses; Beals, Barry, Riley and Adams.

House-specific students commons room and teachers' lounges no longer exist at North.

[edit] Adams House

  • Housemaster: James D’Orazio
  • House Secretary: Lorene Shapiro
  • Class of 2008

[edit] Barry House

  • Housemaster: Aaron Sanders
  • House Secretary: Karen Tobin
  • Class of 2009

[edit] Riley House

  • Housemaster: Mark Aronson
  • House Secretary: Maura Roberts
  • Class of 2010

[edit] Beals House

  • Housemaster: Michelle Stauss
  • House Secretary: Cheryl Stover
  • Class of 2011

[edit] Palmer House

  • No longer used

[edit] Bacon House

  • No longer used

[edit] Tiger Magazine

Tiger Magazine is Newton North's video production class' bi-weekly cable television program. The show - created by Lynn Rossman, Newton North's Video Production teacher - airs on Newton's NewTV local cable station.

The content of the program is generally a mixture of comedy pieces, news and community based documentary, as well as experimental and dramatic video works. Several Tiger Magazine alumni have gone on to pursue careers in the film industry, and numerous pieces originally aired on Tiger Magazine have won awards in local and national video contests.

[edit] Theatre Ink

 Please help improve this section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion.

Theatre Ink is Newton North's theatre department. A typical season is comprised of eleven productions:

  • approximately four to five student-directed shows, one of which is often a May musical
  • a "big" March musical in Lasker Auditorium (these have included Les Misérables, My Fair Lady, Chicago, West Side Story, and Grease)
  • performances by the school's improvisation troupe called Spontaneous Generation (nicknamed SponGen), which also competes in the Providence Improv Festival
  • performances by the Fingerpaint Players, the school's children's theatre troupe, which travels to elementary and after schools all over Newton
  • several teacher-directed plays
  • one Shakespeare collaboration with Newton South's theatre department, South Stage. The 2008 production will mark the 25th anniversary of this collaboration.

The current producer of Theatre Ink is Adam Brown and the current technical designer is Michael Barrington-Haber.[9]

Theatre Ink uses two performance spaces, the 699-seat Henry Lasker Auditorium, which is a standard proscenium theatre, and The Little Theatre, a roughly 200 seat theatre in the round. The Little Theatre was originally intended for use as a television production studio.

[edit] Notable alumni

[edit] References and footnotes

  1. ^ a b Newton, Mass., high school project needs extensive design changes to save money (2008-02-22).
  2. ^ Yardley, William. "Building Costs Deal Blow to Local Budget", NY Times, 2008-01-26. 
  3. ^ Public School Review.
  4. ^ Black, Daniel E.. "Site picked for new school", Newton Tab, 2006-05-11. 
  5. ^ Atkinson, Dan. "Newton North site plan vote unlikely before September", Newton Tab, 2006-07-06. 
  6. ^ Signature drive for Newton North funding referendum fails (2008-05-13).
  7. ^ Lebeaux, Rachel. "Gund: North "will be exciting"", Newton Tab, 2006-10-29. 
  8. ^ Student days at "A Pure High School". Newton History Museum. Retrieved on 2008-05-21.
  9. ^ Theatre Ink - Newton North's Teaching and Working Theatre

[edit] External links

Coordinates: 42°20′42.32″N, 71°12′40.06″W