Ossining High School is public high school

High school

High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....

, located in Ossining

Ossining (village), New York

Ossining is a village in Westchester County, New York, United States. The population was 25,060 at the 2010 census. As a village, it is located in the Town of Ossining.-Geography:Ossining borders the eastern shores of the widest part of the Hudson River....

, New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, colloquially known as OHS. Its building is located within the boundaries of the Downtown Ossining Historic District

Downtown Ossining Historic District

The Downtown Ossining Historic District is located at the central crossroads of Ossining, New York, United States, and the village's traditional business district known as the Crescent. Among its many late 19th- and early 20th-century commercial buildings are many of the village's major...

, added to the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 in 1989.

Mission statement

This is the mission statement of OHS as written on the school's official website.

Ossining High School provides an academically and socially adaptive environment, emphasizing an academically stimulating surrounding with quality instruction. In addition, all students will come away with a sense of respect and appreciation for individual and cultural diversity and for an equal educational opportunity for all.

Student body

The most recent demographics for OHS are as follows
Ethnicity:

• 44.6% White/Caucasian
• 32.7% Hispanic
• 18.3% Black
• 4.4% Asian

Gender:

• 52.2% Male
• 47.8% Female

District Graduation Rate: 81%

Faculty

• Number of full-time principals: 1
  • Joshua Mandel
• Number of full-time assistant principals: 3
  • Lorraine Longing
  • Dean Parker
  • Chris Olson
• Number of full-time professional staff other than teachers, principals, and assistant principals: 15
• Number of full-time teachers: 101

Daily Routine

Ossining High School has 9 periods, each 41 minutes long. A normal school day begins at 7:45am and ends at 2:26pm. The school offers optional extra help time from 2:30-3:00pm. Classes run on an A/B day schedule, so that days alternate and some electives or labs may occur every other day. There is no set period for lunch time, the students go to the cafeteria or eat their lunch whenever they have a period with no scheduled class. Freshmen may not leave campus during school with the exception of excused early departures verified in advance by a parent/guardian. All upperclassmen, however, may leave the premises during a free period.

Academics

General education classes and electives are offered that fall under these categories:

• Art
  Art
  Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
  
  
• Business
  Business
  A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...
  
  
• College Prep
• Computer Science
  Computer science
  Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
  
  
• English
  English language
  English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
  
  
• ESL
  ESL
  ESL is a common abbreviation for English as a Second Language, see English language learning and teaching.ESL may also refer to:-Companies:...
  
   (English as a Second Language)
• Foreign Language
  Foreign language
  A foreign language is a language indigenous to another country. It is also a language not spoken in the native country of the person referred to, i.e. an English speaker living in Japan can say that Japanese is a foreign language to him or her...
  
  
• Guidance
  Guidance
  Guidance may refer to:*Guidance *Guidance system*Guidance Solutions, an eCommerce development company*"Guidance", an episode of Death Note...
  
  
• Health
  Health
  Health is the level of functional or metabolic efficiency of a living being. In humans, it is the general condition of a person's mind, body and spirit, usually meaning to be free from illness, injury or pain...
  
  
• Math
• Modern Language
  Modern language
  A modern language is any human language that is currently in use. The term is used in language education to distinguish between languages which are used for day-to-day communication and dead classical languages such as Latin, Attic Greek, Sanskrit, and Classical Chinese, which are studied for...
  
  
• Music
  Music
  Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
  
  
• Physical Education
  Physical education
  Physical education or gymnastics is a course taken during primary and secondary education that encourages psychomotor learning in a play or movement exploration setting....
  
  
• Science
  Science
  Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
  
  
• Social Science
• Social Studies
  Social studies
  Social studies is the "integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to promote civic competence," as defined by the American National Council for the Social Studies...
  
  
• Special Education
  Special education
  Special education is the education of students with special needs in a way that addresses the students' individual differences and needs. Ideally, this process involves the individually planned and systematically monitored arrangement of teaching procedures, adapted equipment and materials,...
  
  
• Life Skills
  Life skills
  Life skills are problem solving behaviors used appropriately and responsibly in the management of personal affairs. They are a set of human skills acquired via teaching or direct experience that are used to handle problems and questions commonly encountered in daily human life...
  
  

All the programs ensure that the students have a variety of courses available to their individual interests in order to complete the requirements for earning a High school diploma

High school diploma

A high school diploma is a diploma awarded for the completion of high school. In the United States and Canada, it is considered the minimum education required for government jobs and higher education. An equivalent is the GED.-Past diploma styles:...

.

• Special Programs

Science research program

Science teacher Angelo Piccirillo started OHS’s science research program in 1998 with three students, who all dropped out. Twelve years later it had 90 students, with Piccirillo and a second teacher, Valerie Holmes, working on the science research full time. The program includes guidance on research topics, mentors, and help with writing papers and presenting them. It accepts 30 freshmen yearly out of more than 100 applicants. Ossining’s semifinalists in the 2010 Intel Science Talent Search

Intel Science Talent Search

The Intel Science Talent Search , known for its first 57 years as the Westinghouse Science Talent Search is a research-based science competition in the United States for high school seniors. It has been referred to as "the nation's oldest and most prestigious" science competition. In his speech...

 included Jessica Brill’s Development and Function of Extrathymic T-Cells in Athymic Bone Marrow Transplantation Recipients and Hayley Zullow’s Ecat11 Plays a Role in the Epigenetic Regulation of Retrotransposons.

Athletics

Ossining High School offers a wide variety of sports throughout the school year, ranging in level from Modified to Junior Varsity to Varsity. Physical Education is a requirement for all students to attend each semester but students on a varsity team are exempt from their P.E. class while that sport is in season.

The Physical Education Mission Statement

The mission of the Ossining High School Physical Education Department is to provide a positive experience in a variety of Lifetime Fitness Activities and Leisure Recreational Activities, focusing on the establishment of a lifestyle that includes proven concepts of wellness and fitness. We present activities that result in improved muscular coordination, flexibility, strength and endurance. We challenge all students to grow in character, self-reliance and self discipline. We help students to improve their self image and to reach a higher level of health, vitality, and wellness.

The Mascot

For 73 years, Ossining teams were the "Ossining Indians". In June 2002, the school changed its mascot after a request from the state education commissioner. The request for changing American Indian symbols and mascots was part of the Native American mascot controversy

Native American mascot controversy

The propriety of using Native American mascots and images in sports has been a topic of debate in the United States and Canada since the 1960s.Americans have had a history of drawing inspiration from native peoples and "playing Indian" that dates back at least to the 18th century...

. A new mascot, the Riverhawk, was then chosen. After opposition from the student body, the Riverhawk was dropped and Ossining has participated in athletics with no mascot.

Co-Ed Sports

These sport teams are open to both genders, though some are more dominated by(or in some cases completely composed of) a single gender:

• Bowling
  Bowling
  Bowling Bowling Bowling (1375–1425; late Middle English bowle, variant of boule Bowling (1375–1425; late Middle English bowle, variant of boule...
  
  
• Cheerleading
  Cheerleading
  Cheerleading is a physical activity, sometimes a competitive sport, based on organized routines, usually ranging from one to three minutes, which contain the components of tumbling, dance, jumps, cheers, and stunting to direct spectators of events to cheer on sports teams at games or to participate...
  
  
• Cross Country
  Cross country running
  Cross country running is a sport in which people run a race on open-air courses over natural terrain. The course, typically long, may include surfaces of grass and earth, pass through woodlands and open country, and include hills, flat ground and sometimes gravel road...
  
  
• Field Hockey
  Field hockey
  Field Hockey, or Hockey, is a team sport in which a team of players attempts to score goals by hitting, pushing or flicking a ball into an opposing team's goal using sticks...
  
  
• Football
  American football
  American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
  
  
• Golf
  Golf
  Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
  
  
• Gymnastics
  Gymnastics
  Gymnastics is a sport involving performance of exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, and balance. Internationally, all of the gymnastic sports are governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique with each country having its own national governing body...
  
  
• Ice Hockey
  Ice hockey
  Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...
  
  
• Softball
  Softball
  Softball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of 10 to 14 players. It is a direct descendant of baseball although there are some key differences: softballs are larger than baseballs, and the pitches are thrown underhand rather than overhand...
  
  
• Track
• Volleyball
  Volleyball
  Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...
  
  
• Wrestling
  Wrestling
  Wrestling is a form of grappling type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. A wrestling bout is a physical competition, between two competitors or sparring partners, who attempt to gain and maintain a superior position...
  
  

Gender Specific Sports

Exclusive girl and boy teams exist for the following sports:

• Basketball
  Basketball
  Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
  
  
• Lacrosse
  Lacrosse
  Lacrosse is a team sport of Native American origin played using a small rubber ball and a long-handled stick called a crosse or lacrosse stick, mainly played in the United States and Canada. It is a contact sport which requires padding. The head of the lacrosse stick is strung with loose mesh...
  
  
• Soccer
• Swimming
  Swimming (sport)
  Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native...
  
  
• Tennis
  Tennis
  Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
  
  
• Baseball
  Baseball
  Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
  
  

Clubs & Activities

OHS has many clubs for learning, leading, socializing, empowering, and reaching out to the community.

• Art Club
• Black Cultural Club
• Computer Club
• Creative Writing Club
• Diamond Steppers
• Drama Club
• El Barrio
• Engineering Club
• Environmental Club
• Fed Challenge
• Gay/Straight Alliance
• Habitat for Humanity
• Interact
• International Club
• Interval
• JSA(Junior States of America)
• Latina Power
• Law Club & Law Team
• NHS(National Honor Society)
• OHS International Social Change Club
• Outdoor Club
• Peer Leaders
• Performing Arts
• Power of Peace
• Prestigious Ladies of Power
• Project Earthquake
• Radio Club (WOSS)
• S.A.D.D(Students Against Destructive Decisions)
• Safe Driving Committee
• School Store
• Student Council
• The Current (School Newspaper)
• Ultimate Frisbee
• Video Club
• Wellness Club
• Yearbook