Forest Hills High School (New York)

Forest Hills High School
Forest Hills High School
	File:FHHSseal.jpg
Address
	67-01 110th St.; Forest Hills, Queens, New York, New York; USA
Information
Type	Public secondary
Established	1937
Principal	Stephen Frey
Grades	9–12
Enrollment	approx. 3600
Color(s)	Blue and gold
Mascot	Rangers
Newspaper	The Beacon
Yearbook	Forester
Website	www.fhhsweb.org

Forest Hills High School (FHHS) is a public secondary school in Queens, New York City.

FHHS was dedicated in 1937^[1]. It educates students in grades 9-12 and is operated by the New York City Department of Education. The School serves the Forest Hills and Rego Park sections of Queens. However, many students come from nearby neighborhoods such as Kew Gardens, Woodside, and parts of Jamaica. FHHS is located near Flushing Meadow Park, site of two World's Fairs.

The United States Open tennis championship has long been held nearby, first at the West Side Tennis Club in upscale Forest Hills Gardens and later at the USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadow Park.

FHHS frequently has been extremely overcrowded throughout its history, sometimes running three overlapping sessions. In past years, administration has found that many prospective students often present false information regarding their permanent residence in order to fall within zoning boundaries and successfully gain admission into the school. Traditionally, a very large fraction of FHHS graduates have gone on to attend college^[2].

FHHS was shown in the motion picture The Basketball Diaries (1995), starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Wahlberg. The school's facade, boys gymnasium, and boys' locker room, are used to portray^[3] a private Catholic High School in the borough of Staten Island where the main characters go to play a rival basketball team. The scene showcasing the game used FHHS students as extras to portray the students watching from the bleachers.

As of 2006, Stephen Frey is the principal administrator of the school.

Location

Forest Hills High School is in the Forest Hills neighborhood in Queens. The school is near Rego Park.

Feeder patterns

There is zoning to high schools in New York City, but 8th graders may apply to schools of their choice.

Academics

Special programs offered in the school include Intel Science Talent Search, Law and Humanities Honor Program, Medical Biology (year-long program where students intern at a local hospital for one semester), Part Time Co-op (Business), Pace (Business), Academicy of Public Service, Carl Sagan Advancement of Science and Math (where students also compete in Westinghouse), Richard A. Brown Law Program, Gilder Lehrman Academy, College Now, and the Performing Arts Academy. In the 2006-2007 school year, FHHS offered Advanced Placement classes in Art History, Biology, Calculus AB, Calculus BC, Chemistry, Computer Science A, English Literature and Composition, Environmental Science, European History, French Language, Government and Politics: United States, Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, Physics B, Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism, Physics C: Mechanics, Psychology, Spanish Language, Spanish Literature, Statistics, United States History, and World History.

Notable alumni

Many of FHHS's most famous students have gained recognition in entertainment fields. These include childhood-TV veteran Captain Kangaroo (Bob Keeshan), perennial TV-serial star Michael Landon, TV freak-show host and one-time mayor of Cincinnati Jerry Springer, "easy listening" songwriter Burt Bacharach (Class of 1946), folk-rockers Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, rock guitarist Leslie West (the band Mountain), and punk-rock pioneers The Ramones (The Ramones' hit song "Rock and Roll High School" is believed to be about the school). Graduates who went on to become entertainment producers include network-TV's Fred Silverman, Emmy-nominated Neil Moreno^[4]. and Hollywood's Leslie Urdang^[5].

Court of Appeals judge Robert Katzmann is a member of the Class of 1970. Former NBA player and current Washington Wizards' General Manager Ernie Grunfeld also attended FHHS.

War-time dropout^[6] Art Buchwald, Class of 1943, won the Pulitzer Prize twice. Key organizer and executive of NASA, George Low, Class of 1943, served as chief of manned space flight. After retiring from NASA, he served as president of RPI until his demise in 1984. The first space tourist, ex-NASA engineer and millionaire investment fund manager Dennis Tito, graduated FHHS in 1958.

In June 1998, US President Bill Clinton cited FHHS's "academic and extracurricular excellence" and it became one of only 124 "Blue Ribbon" schools nationwide.^[7] In 2000, US First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered the commencement address.. Jacob J. ("Jack") Lew, a 1972 graduate of FHHS, was then the Clinton administration's Director of the Office of Management and Budget, having been elevated to the post two years earlier.

An elusive billionaire whose 'Cinderella-midnight' pardon by outgoing President Clinton caused a furor, commodity trader Marc Rich, attended FHHS for a while in the 1950s, until he was enrolled in an exclusive prep academy, the Rhodes School. The crimes for which Rich was forgiven by Clinton include the largest tax-evasion case ($48 million) in history.

SING!

The annual theater competition known as SING! pits seniors, juniors, and "sophmen" (freshmen and sophomores working together) against each other in a race to put on the best performance. Started in 1947 at Midwood High School in Brooklyn, SING! is a tradition at many New York City high schools. At Forest Hills, SING! was well-established by the end of the 1960s; the aforementioned Leslie Urdang was Chairman (sic.) of Senior Sing 1972, which class had participated in Sing since "entering" in fall 1969. (In those times, nearly all students entered as sophomores, 9th grade graduates of "junior high schools".) It is now a huge school-wide event — in 2005, nearly 200 students participated. The production is largely written, produced, directed and funded by students. Their involvement ranges from being members of the production's casts, choruses, or tech crews to Irish Jig, Step, Russian, Bollywood, or Latin dance groups. SING! begins in late September and culminates in final performances in early February.

External links

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FHHS93/ FHHS Class of '93 Yahoo Group Template:New York City DOE Region3