Ossining High School (OHS) is a comprehensive

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichk ...

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

located in Ossining, New York, United States, along the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

in northern

Westchester County, New York Westchester County is located in the U.S. state of New York. It is the seventh most populous county in the State of New York and the most populous north of New York City. According to the 2020 United States Census, the county had a population ...

. Serving grades 9 through 12, it is the sole high school within the

Ossining Union Free School District Ossining Union Free School District is a school district headquartered in the Village of Ossining, Town of Ossining, New York. The district includes sections of the towns of Ossining and New Castle. Included within the portions of the school ...

. The school serves the entirety of the village of Ossining, portions of the Village of

Briarcliff Manor Briarcliff Manor () is a suburban village in Westchester County, New York, north of New York City. It is on of land on the east bank of the Hudson River, geographically shared by the towns of Mount Pleasant and Ossining. Briarcliff Manor inc ...

, Town of Ossining, and Town of New Castle, as well as a very small southern portion of the Town of Yorktown. Its building is a historical contributing property within the

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 ...

, which was added to the U.S.

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1989.

History

The present Ossining High School building was designed by James Gamble Rogers in a Collegiate Gothic style, with a warm-toned blend of brick and stone. Construction began in 1928 and was finished the following year; the school was built to replace the smaller

Washington School (Ossining, New York) The former Washington School is located on Croton Avenue (New York State Route 133) in the village of Ossining, New York, United States. It was built in 1907 in the Beaux-Arts style, one of two in the village to use it.The other Beaux-Arts school ...

, which then became an elementary school for the district. The school was built by Rafael Paiva. The school building has been substantially enlarged in the years since. Between 1968 and 1974, the town of Ossining experienced a string of four race-related disturbances. The final one, on March 13, 1974, began in the school's cafeteria and resulted in several days of school closure, 15 student suspensions, and 19 injuries (including one to a school administrator); a student at the time recalls being locked in a biology classroom for hours, and a curfew for Ossining was implemented for days as a result. This disturbance took place just days after the district's announcement of a plan to redraw elementary school boundaries; at the time, one elementary school was over 60 percent Black, while two others were under 10 percent Black. Many believed this elementary school segregation to be an underlying cause of these racial disturbances. This eventually resulted in the implementation of the "Ossining Plan" for elementary school desegregation in 1981, which assigned each elementary school within the district by grade level instead of neighborhood.

Service area

The district that operates the high school includes sections of the towns of Ossining and New Castle. Included within the portions of the school district in Ossining Town are Ossining Village and a section of

. About 28% of Briarcliff Manor is in the Ossining District, including Chilmark.

Academics

Ossining High School has 9 periods, each 41 minutes long. A normal school day begins at 8:04am and ends at 2:45pm.Ossining High School - General Information
Retrieved 4-13-2010 The school offers optional extra help time from 2:45-3:15pm. Classes run on an A/B day schedule, so that days alternate, and some electives or labs may occur every other day. The school operates an open campus for students above the ninth grade; these students are allowed to leave school supervision during school hours, and often take advantage of food establishments in surrounding Downtown Ossining. The school's current full-time principal is Stephen Hancock, and the school's three full-time assistant principals are Tiffany Bergen, Latoya Langley, Clara Reyes.

Enrollment

As of the 2016–2017 school year, the school had an enrollment of 1,378 students and 97.8 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 14:1. 135 students (9%) were classified as English Language Learners, 217 (15%) were classified as Students with Disabilities, and 775 (54%) were Economically Disadvantaged. The school graduation rate in 2016 was 76%. Roughly half of the student population is

Hispanic or Latino ''Hispanic'' and '' Latino'' are ethnonyms used to refer collectively to the inhabitants of the United States who are of Spanish or Latin American ancestry (). While the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, for example, by the United States ...

, with large

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White o ...

and

Black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ...

minorities and a smaller

Asian Asian may refer to: * Items from or related to the continent of Asia: ** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia ** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia ** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...

minority.

Awards

In 2012, OHS was named a School of Distinction finalist by

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

in the High School Science category; of those schools, it also received the top "Star Innovator" award from the company. The award, only one of which was granted annually, came with a prize of $100,000. The award recognizes K-12 schools that "provide a rich, rigorous science or mathematics curriculum by incorporating hands-on investigative experiences that prepare students for future jobs." OHS was recognized on the basis of the success of its long-running Science Research program, as well as the surprising success of the school's robotics program, founded that year. In 2016, the school was named a " School of Opportunity" by the

National Education Policy Center The National Education Policy Center (NEPC) is a non-profit education policy research center located in the School of Education at the University of Colorado at Boulder. It was founded in 2010 and is funded by a variety of governmental organizati ...

(NEPC) for its efforts in closing the

achievement gap Achievement may refer to: *Achievement (heraldry) *Achievement (horse), a racehorse *Achievement (video gaming), a meta-goal defined outside of a game's parameters See also * Achievement test for student assessment * Achiever The Enneagram o ...

. OHS has also been recognized by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools as a School of Distinction for its programs in music, school counseling, and world languages.

Classes

As of the 2018–2019 school year, Ossining High School offers 41 college-level classes, mainly in partnership with the

University at Albany, SUNY The State University of New York at Albany, commonly referred to as the University at Albany, UAlbany or SUNY Albany, is a public research university with campuses in Albany, Rensselaer, and Guilderland, New York. Founded in 1844, it is one ...

(SUNY) and

Westchester Community College Westchester Community College (WCC) is a public community college in Valhalla, New York, in Westchester County. It is part of the State University of New York (SUNY) system. History New York Institute of Applied Arts and Sciences becomes Westc ...

(WCC), although a few are also offered in partnership with

Iona College (New York) Iona University is a private Roman Catholic university with a main campus in New Rochelle, New York. It was founded in 1940 by the Congregation of Christian Brothers and occupies a campus of in New Rochelle and a campus of in Bronxville, Ne ...

, SUNY at Oneonta, and Syracuse University. Labeled the "SUNY Early College Program," they allow OHS students who plan to attend SUNY or WCC schools to complete a significant portion of their college curriculum at OHS. A notable SUNY class offered is "SUNY Racism, Classism, and Sexism," started in 2005 with the intention of drawing more nonwhite students to advanced courses; it has achieved success in doing so, although more rigorous AP classes are still disproportionately White. The school also offers 14 Advanced Placement classes, which include

AP English Language and Composition Advanced Placement (AP) English Language and Composition (also known as AP English Language, APENG, or AP Lang) is a course and examination offered by the College Board as part of the Advanced Placement Program. When AP exams were first impleme ...

, English Literature and Composition, Spanish Language and Culture, Studio Art levels 1 and 2, U.S. History, U.S. Government and Politics,

World History World history may refer to: * Human history, the history of human beings * History of Earth, the history of planet Earth * World history (field), a field of historical study that takes a global perspective * ''World History'' (album), a 1998 albu ...

Biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

, Environmental Science,

Calculus Calculus, originally called infinitesimal calculus or "the calculus of infinitesimals", is the mathematical study of continuous change, in the same way that geometry is the study of shape, and algebra is the study of generalizations of arithm ...

AB and BC,

Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includi ...

, and Statistics. For the 2014–2015 school year, 38% of 12th-graders took at least one AP exam at any point during high school, and 57% of AP exams taken were passed (received a score of 3 or higher). OHS offers foreign language classes in Spanish, French, and Italian, as well as American Sign Language classes. 9% of the OHS student population were English Language Learners in 2017, and the school has received acclaim from the

(NEPC) for its academic programs to help this population. These students are taught using an Integrated Co-Teaching Model, in which an English as a New Language Teacher and a content area teacher collaborate to teach and aid ELL students participating in full English-language classes. In addition, OHS runs an Emergent Literacy Program for students with interrupted education or low literacy skills. The school has also been noted by NEPC for its co-taught classes for students with disabilities, in which these students are similarly aided by the collaboration of a special education teacher and content area teacher. The school offers specialized

vocational education Vocational education is education that prepares people to work as a technician or to take up employment in a skilled craft or trade as a tradesperson or artisan. Vocational Education can also be seen as that type of education given to an i ...

instruction through the Putnam/Northern Westchester

Board of Cooperative Educational Services The Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES //) is a program of shared educational services provided to school districts by the New York State Legislature. History BOCES owes its origin to a state legislative enactment authorizing the ...

(PNW BOCES) in

Yorktown Heights, New York Yorktown Heights is a census-designated place (CDP) in the town of Yorktown in Westchester County, New York, United States. The population was 1,781 at the 2010 census. History Yorktown Heights is in the town of Yorktown, New York, in northern ...

; interested eleventh- and twelfth-graders can complete some vocational courses for high school credit within a two-hour class at the BOCES Tech Center.

Science Research Program

Science teacher Angelo Piccirillo started OHS's science research program in 1998 with three students. 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 approximately 30 freshmen yearly out of more than 100 applicants. The science research program was nationally recognized in 2012, when it had eight semifinalists in the

Intel Science Talent Search The Regeneron Science Talent Search, known for its first 57 years as the Westinghouse Science Talent Search, and then as the Intel Science Talent Search (Intel STS) from 1998 through 2016, is a research-based science competition in the United Sta ...

, more than any other program in the country. Since 2001, this program has produced 83 STS semi-finalist scholars and 6 finalists.

Extracurricular activities

Athletics

Ossining High School offers a wide variety of sports throughout the school year, ranging from modified to junior varsity to varsity levels. Physical education (PE) is a requirement for all students to attend each semester. However, sophomores, juniors, and seniors who are on varsity teams are exempt from PE class while the sport is in season. These sport teams are open to all genders, though some are more dominated by a single sex: *

Baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

(predominantly male) *

Cheerleading Cheerleading is an activity in which the participants (called cheerleaders) cheer for their team as a form of encouragement. It can range from chanting slogans to intense physical activity. It can be performed to motivate sports teams, to ente ...

(predominantly female) * Cross country *

Field hockey Field hockey is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with ten outfield players and a goalkeeper. Teams must drive a round hockey ball by hitting it with a hockey stick towards the rival team's shooting ...

(predominantly female) * Football (predominantly male) *

Golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

Gymnastics Gymnastics is a type of sport that includes physical exercises requiring balance, strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, dedication and endurance. The movements involved in gymnastics contribute to the development of the arms, legs, s ...

(predominantly female) *

Ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...

(predominantly male) *

Softball Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...

(predominantly female) * Track *

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. It has been a part of the official program of the Sum ...

(predominantly female) *

Wrestling Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat ...

(predominantly male) Exclusive girls' and boys' teams exist for the following sports: *

Basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

Lacrosse Lacrosse is a team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game was extensiv ...

* Soccer *

Swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

Tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

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."A Fake Bird Dispatched, and ‘O’ Fills the Void"
''New York Times''. January 7, 2007. Retrieved 4-13-2010. The request to change American Indian symbols and mascots was part of the

Native American mascot controversy Since the 1960s, the issue of Native American and First Nations names and images being used by sports teams as mascots has been the subject of increasing public controversy in the United States and Canada. This has been a period of rising ...

. A new mascot, the Riverhawk, was then chosen. After opposition from the student body, the Riverhawk was dropped. The school's athletic teams are now called the Ossining Pride.

Clubs and activities

OHS has many clubs for learning, leading, socializing, empowering, and reaching out to the community.Ossining High School - Clubs and Activities
Retrieved 4-13-2010 * Art Club * Black Cultural Club * ''The Current'' (school newspaper) *

Drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...

Club *

Engineering Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...

Club * Environmental Club * Gay/Straight Alliance * Interact * International Club * Interval * JSA (Junior Statesmen of America) * Law Team *

NHS The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the " ...

(National Honor Society) * Peer Leaders * Performing Arts * Prestigious Ladies of Power * Programming Club * Project Earthquake * Radio Club (WOSS) * Republican Club * Safe Driving Committee * School Store * Student Council *

Video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syst ...

Club * Wellness Club *

Yearbook A yearbook, also known as an annual, is a type of a book published annually. One use is to record, highlight, and commemorate the past year of a school. The term also refers to a book of statistics or facts published annually. A yearbook often ...

Notable alumni

* Dan Coudreaut -

Executive Chef A chef de cuisine (, French for ''head of kitchen'') or head chef is a chef that leads Lead is a chemical element with symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead or The Lead may also refer to: Animal handling * Leash, or lead * Lead (leg), ...

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation is an American multinational fast food chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechristened their business as a hambur ...

* Peter Falk (class of 1945) - actor, best known for his role as Lt. Columbo in the television series '' Columbo'' *

Ken Horton Kenneth Horton is a television producer, and occasional writer and director, having worked on ''Dallas'', ''The X-Files'', ''Millennium'' and '' Smallville''. He was twice nominated for the Emmy Award for outstanding drama series for his work on ' ...

(class of 2007) - professional basketball player *

Jamie Loeb Jamie Loeb (born March 8, 1995) is an American tennis player. She has career-high WTA rankings of 132 in singles, achieved in February 2018, and 120 in doubles, achieved in July 2018. Loeb has won nine singles and nine doubles titles on the ITF ...

(born 1995), tennis player; won NYS championship as a sophomore at the school. *

Martha Quinn Martha Conrad Quinn (born May 11, 1959) is an American actress and radio and television personality, best known as one of the original video jockeys on MTV (along with Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, and J. J. Jackson). Early life ...

(class of 1977) - cable television and radio personality *

Saniya Chong Saniya Lynn Chong (born June 27, 1994) is an American basketball player who is currently a free agent. She played her collegiate career for the University of Connecticut, where she won three national championships for the Huskies. Prior to enroll ...

(class of 2013) - UConn and professional basketball player *

Obi Toppin Obadiah Richard Toppin Jr. (born March 4, 1998) is an American professional basketball player for the New York Knicks of National Basketball Association (NBA). A power forward, he played college basketball for the Dayton Flyers. A native of Ne ...

(Class of 2017) - New York Knicks forward

References

{{authority control Public high schools in Westchester County, New York School buildings completed in 1930 Ossining, New York Historic district contributing properties in New York (state) National Register of Historic Places in Westchester County, New York School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state) 1930 establishments in New York (state)