The Wheatley School

This article is about a high school in New York. For a high school in Texas, see Wheatley High School (Houston) .

For other uses, see Wheatley School (disambiguation).

The Wheatley School is a public high school serving grades 8 through 12 located in Old Westbury, Long Island, New York and part of the East Williston Union Free School District. The school district encompasses all of East Williston and parts of Mineola, Albertson, Old Westbury, and Roslyn Heights.

Opened in 1955, Wheatley recently completed an extensive refurbishment and celebrated its 50th anniversary. In spite of its small size, Wheatley has a very competitive athletic program including the state championship in boys' soccer in 2005 and the runner up in girls' soccer in 2006. School spirit is reflected in the fact that over 65% of students play on at least one sports team. Recently Wheatley's football team has joined with Carle Place.

The Wheatley School is consistently ranked among the top 98 high schools in the nation by Newsweek's "America's Top Public High Schools" survey, http://www.newsweek.com which is published every year. In 2008, it was ranked #67. It also ranks highly in the US News and World Report "America's Best High Schools" list, at #88 in 2009. Also in 2011 Newsweek's "America's Top Public High Schools" it rated at number 55 out of 1,000.

In 1966, Wheatley introduced an innovative program called "Freedom of the Grounds", or "FOG". This was a privilege given to certain students allowing them to leave study halls and other free periods at will, unsupervised and on their own recognizance. Issued as an actual card carried by a student, it was a universal hall pass as well. This was considered a very modern idea, breaking with traditional high school tenets that all students should be locatable at all times.

The Wheatley School Alumni Association, *www.wheatleyalumni.org, was founded in 2007 by Art Engoron,'67. The association has a project underway to create a suite of class histories, year by year.

Alumni

• Carol Alt - Model/Actress
• Rick Hoffman - Actor
• Nicole Krauss - Writer
• Carol Leifer - Seinfeld writer, comedian
• Shep Messing - Soccer player
• Todd Strasser - Writer
• Stephanie Klein - Blogger and writer
• Sean Gallagher - Entrepreneur, Lifesaver (4/4)
• Reza Jarrahy - Plastic surgeon, husband to actress Geena Davis

External links

• Web site for The Wheatley School
• Long Island High School Soccer Information
• East Williston Union Free School District