Check out the full article on HPMUNC's second Best Delegation award this year! https://hs.hpschools.net/o/hs/article/1551098 - Kudos to the whole team and Mr. Gold and Mrs. Soler, their advisors!
Yesterday, March 3, 2024, the robotics team competed in the First Tech Challenge (FTC) Regional tournament. Our team was chosen to compete with the winning alliance for the day and we moved on to the semifinals and then the finals where we won! Our Highland Park Owls are going to States!!! This is new for our team. We also won 2nd place for the Motivate award at the regional competition. This is because we share our knowledge of robotics with our community any opportunity we get!
Congratulations goes out to the team members pictured here. Some of our members were at the DECA competition and are not in the photo. The States competition will be on March 17 at Hillbourough High School. Good luck to our Bionic OWLS and kudos to Mrs. Keisha Stephen, the club's advisor, for helping to prepare our students for this amazing accomplishment! Go OWLS!
Yesterday, February 29th, our Mock Trial team defeated the Somerset County Champion and then the Monmouth County Champion to advance to the regional finals for the first time in the school’s history. Now in the top 6 out of more than 215 teams, Highland Park High School will be competing for the state championship in the quarterfinal round on March 12! Kudos to our OWLS Mock Trial Team and to Mr. Adam Gold for preparing them for this amazing accomplishment! Go OWLS!
Congratulations to junior, Vanessa Kohler on scoring her 1,000th point! Vanessa is the 11th player in Highland Park High School history to join the 1,000 point club.
Last night, our HPHS mock trial team defeated defending champion East Brunswick High School at the Middlesex County Courthouse to claim our second county championship in the past five years! Next, our team will compete against other county champions for the state championship! Please wish good luck and congratulations to the team members:
Lawyers:
Yaya Hang,
Ana Juricic,
Hugh Pemberton,
Michael Volpert,
Witnesses:
Haia Elmoghani,
Ben Esteves,
Zoe Herzog,
Elliot Li,
Ethan Ross,
Finn Voorhees,
A big shout out to their advisor, Mr. Adam Gold, for preparing the team for competition! Thanks!
The Highland Park Girls Basketball team are Clem Santy Holiday Tournament Champions! The girls defeated Middlesex on Wednesday, December 27, 2023 by a score of 54-45 and next defeated Manville in the final game of the tournament on Friday, December 29, 2023 by a score of 45-39! Vanessa Kohler was named tournament MVP. Congratulations to our Girls Basket ball Team and Coach O'Sullivan and Asst. Coach Copperthwaite for this impressive tournament win!
Congratulations to the High School's Governor's Educators of the Year! This year's recipients are Ms. Lori Szentgyorgyi, our Educational Services Professional of the Year, who has worked at HPHS since 1999 in various capacities supporting our students and coaching them in Softball, Soccer, and Basketball as well; and Mr. Christopher Broadfoot, our Teacher of the Year, who joined the Social Studies department at HPHS in 2012 and has served as a Class Advisor numerous times and most recently as a Student Congress Advisor who continually contributes positively to our school culture for our students and staff. Both of these educators are highly deserving of this recognition and are "Golden OWLS" at Highland Park High School!
Congratulations to our Honor Roll OWLS! 96 students achieved High Honor Roll with no grades lower than an "A-" and 157 students earned Honor Roll recognition with no grades lower than a "B-"! Combined this equates to 50% of our student body achieving Honor Roll status for the first Marking Period! Go OWLS!
This weekend our Model UN club competed successfully at Rutgers Model UN. They represented the school well with one of the youngest teams in our club history. Numerous students also took home individual awards including Hugh Pemberton, Ana Juricic, and Sophie Huttner who won best delegate awards. In addition, Maxwell Fan and Eva Prendini won outstanding delegate awards and Yaya Hang won the best position paper award. Together, the group debated international issues for 20 hours with 1000 high school students from more than 30 schools to develop new solutions related to human rights, international law, and social justice. For our next trip, we plan to attend a Model UN conference in Mexico City once the trip is approved. Kudos to the club's advisors, Mr. Adam Gold and Mrs. Raysa Soler for preparing the HPHS delegation and making these conferences possible for our students!
Check out the article from the Asian Cultural Club about our Diwali Celebration! https://hs.hpschools.net/o/hs/article/1344868
Congratulations to Coach Harrison and the football team for snapping the streak and beating Point Pleasant Beach last night 44-29.
Congratulations to all of the coaches and players of our fall teams who just wrapped up excellent seasons!
The Boys' Soccer team finished 14-7 and tied for the GMC Division title.
The Girls' Soccer team finished 17-4 and won the GMC Division title.
The Girls' Tennis team finished 16-3 and won the GMC Division title.
The Girls' Cross Country team won the GMS Division title and placed 4th in the State Section.
The Boys' Cross Country team placed 3rd in the State Section.
The Girls' Volleyball team finished 8-11 and 6-6 in their division for varsity.
Go OWLS! Fantastic Fall Season by all our teams!
Congratulations to all of our AP Teachers and our Class of 2024 for achieving the AP Honor Roll at the Silver level! We have not achieved the AP Honor Roll since 2017. This year, because 57% of the Class of 2024 have taken at least one AP course during their high school career, 45% of the Class of 2024 earned a 3 or higher on one AP Exam, and 14% of the Class of 2024 have taken 5 AP courses since their 9th or 10th grade years, we were able to accomplish this amazing achievement! Kudos to our Faculty and student body and particularly, the Class of 2024's academic efforts!
On Thursday, June 8, 2023, Highland Park Model UN Club and A.P. U.S. Government and Politics students worked with eighth-grade students from the Middle School and lead them through a simulation of the congressional legislative process. The 2023 Eighth Grade Model Congress was very successful as our high school students chaired a variety of Senate committees focused on important issues of domestic and foreign policy. It was great to see our eight grade students, next year's Class of 2027, involved in an authentic assessment of their debate and diplomacy skills along with their ability to compromise and create impactful bills that may have been more effective than our current legislative process! Thanks to Mr. Adam Gold, Mr. Craig Girvan, and Ms. Nikki Ferringo for organizing the day and preparing our students for this unit of study and culminating event!
On Tuesday, June 6, 2023, the High School and Middle School bands performed their spring concert in Robert Stevens Auditorium. The concert showcased the talents of all of our student musicians and both HPMS Band Director Mr. Thomas O'Hara and the HPHS Band Director Mr. Keith Presty led their respective students in their performances of challenging musical literature. The students were excellent and it was a wonderful experience for the staff and family in attendance that evening in the audience. The students crowned Mr. Presty for his leadership and guidance of many of them from 4th grade to return as their band director their senior year!
Thanks to the efforts of Sra. Raysa Soler securing a grant from the Highland Park Education Foundation and with Dr. Ignacio Esteban's support, students from the Spanish Cultural Group and Spanish Native Speakers classes attended the presentation of “En el Tiempo de las Mariposas” (In the Time of the Butterflies) at Repertorio Español in NYC. The play is based on Julia Alvarez’s book. It presents the story of the three Mirabal sisters who were assassinated by the dictator Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. In honor of these courageous women, November 25th was declared International Day of No Violence Against Women.
This is a comment from one of the students:
“Me gustó mucho el viaje, el teatro y la comida. El teatro estuvo genial y los actores hicieron un buen trabajo y sí, admito que lloré, pero aparte de eso, lo disfruté mucho.
“I loved the trip, the theater, and the food. The play was awesome, the actors did a very good job and I cried at the end but I enjoyed the experience”. Britanny
This weekend, our HPHS Mock Trial team participated in an international tournament of champions with schools from throughout the US, Korea, and China. One of our juniors, Michael Volpert, while representing the defense team, was the highest-ranking attorney in the entire competition and was selected as the best lawyer on every single ballot. Overall, the team won two of its trials and competed admirably with some of the best teams in the world. Congratulations to Michael on this stellar performance and to the whole team for their overall efforts!
On Tuesday, May 23, 2023, I had the honor to attend a luncheon with Christine Chen and her parents, as she represented HPHS and received the New Jersey Principal and Supervisor Association's Student Leadership scholarship award for 2022-23! Christine was selected as one of the 25 scholarship recipients from across the state who were honored at NJPSA headquarters. This is a significant honor due to the number of nominations NJPSA receives each year. Christine serves as the class president, The Fling's editor, an active leader in Model UN & Model Congress, and in various leadership roles in our school, but her work on Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr.'s Teen Advisory Committee sets her apart from our student body. Through her Global Citizenship project, she also worked to influence district efforts to make period products more readily available for students' menstral needs. Before her efforts, our nurses' office had products available for students upon request and in the restroom in the office. Now, through her initiative, multiple dispensers are installed in our bathrooms and she has helped to keep them stocked until we can transition this work to our custodial staff. I applaud her efforts, persistence, and all she has done to make our high school more responsive to student needs. Congratulations to her on this outstanding recognition of her leadership! She is one of our true Golden OWLS!
This year TWO of Highland Park High Schools' students qualified for the National Chemistry Olympiad test. Of the 471 students who took the qualifying test on April 1, only the top 15 students were chosen to move on to the next level of the competition on April 22. Noah Shapiro (Senior) and Henry Bilton (Junior) were among the top 15 students who attended an awards ceremony dinner in their honor yesterday evening at Fairleigh Dickinson University. This is Henry's 2nd year making it to this level in the competition. As their teacher,Mrs. Keisha Stephen was awarded a year's membership to the American Chemical Society and $50 to spend on classroom supplies. Congratulations to these two amazing science students and to Mrs. Stephen for preparing them and providing this opportunity for them to showcase their chemistry skills!
On Saturday, we had 25 schools and 250 students participate in our own annual debate conference at our high school called Central Jersey Model UN and Congress. The HP Model UN & Congress Club raised over $3000 for financial aid and scholarships to make their trips accessible to all students. We also invited a group of HPHS alumni to return to chair each of our debate committees. Thank you to Mr. Adam Gold, the club's advisor, and all of our HPMUNC club members, both past and present, for running such a successful conference again this year!
As the school year comes to a close, Mr. Gold want to personally thank all of the staff who go out of their way to ask our HPMUNC kids about their conference experiences, congratulate them on their successes, and celebrate them for challenging themselves academically by participating in the program. He also wants to thank the staff who donated to our Turkey Earthquake Relief Fund for Doctors without Borders, which raised thousands of dollars in aid to respond to that horrible crisis. I am very grateful for all this club and their advisor do to focus on global citizenship opportunities for HPHS!
Congratulations to our High School Band for their performance at Music in
the Park at Dorney Park on Friday, May 19, 2023. The Band under the direction of Mr. Keith Presty won 1st Place Superior and Best Overall High School Band! Kudos to all of our students and Mr. Presty!
