Staten Island Technical High School, commonly called Staten Island Tech, SITHS, or Tech by Staten Islanders, was founded in 1988. Located in

Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is the southernmost of the boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County and situated at the southernmost point of New York (state), New York. The borough is separated from the ad ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, the

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 sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...

specialized high school is operated by the

New York City Department of Education The New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) is the department of the government of New York City that manages the city's public school system. The City School District of the City of New York (more commonly known as New York City Publ ...

. Admission to SITHS is determined through an applicant's score on the

Specialized High Schools Admissions Test The Specialized High Schools Admissions Test (SHSAT) is an examination administered to eighth and ninth-grade students residing in New York City and used to determine admission to eight of the city's nine Specialized High Schools (SHS). As of 20 ...

History

The school's website states that SITHS is “A highly competitive New York City public high school, established in 1988, providing a demanding and challenging college preparatory curriculum emphasizing mathematics, science, computers, engineering, humanities and athletics. Facilities include state-of-the-art engineering and computer laboratories.” SITHS is designated as having a specialized high school status. SITHS is one of the schools established under

New York State New York, also called New York State, is a state in the northeastern United States. Bordered by New England to the east, Canada to the north, and Pennsylvania and New Jersey to the south, its territory extends into both the Atlantic Ocean and ...

Law 2590 Section-G to serve the needs of gifted New York City students. SITHS was originally the engineering program from Ralph McKee Vocational and Technical High School.

New Dorp High School New Dorp High School, commonly referred to as New Dorp or NDHS, is a public school on the East Shore of the New York City borough of Staten Island in the New Dorp neighborhood. The school is administered by the New York City Department of Edu ...

had moved to a new campus in 1982 due to the growing student population. John DePalma was the Assistant Principal assigned to bring the engineering program to the former New Dorp campus so that the building would not be abandoned or used for other purposes. Through DePalma's leadership, teachers Alan Bailey, Irv Berson, and others made unauthorized renovations to the building, creating laboratory space for the engineering classes. In 1987, the program was nearly shuttered because of a lack of enrollment. Nicholas M. Bilotti was named the Program Director as DePalma retired. Bilotti began a program of increasing enrollment, changing the course away from a strict engineering program, and targeting female students. His renovation of DePalma's foundation is the base that Tech lives on today.

Curriculum

The curriculum at SITHS is purely

college preparatory A college-preparatory school (often shortened to prep school, preparatory school, college prep school or college prep academy) is a type of secondary school. The term refers to public, private independent or parochial schools primarily design ...

, focusing on science and engineering. Electronic devices, like

iPad The iPad is a brand of tablet computers developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple that run the company's mobile operating systems iOS and later iPadOS. The IPad (1st generation), first-generation iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010. ...

s, tablets, and laptops are mostly integrated into classroom instruction to enhance lessons. The mandatory engineering classes taken by students include Intro to AV Engineering and TV Studio and Intro to STEM Engineering and Robotics. Students can also choose from 16 (15, not including Russian)

Advanced Placement Advanced Placement (AP) is a program in the United States and Canada created by the College Board. AP offers undergraduate university-level curricula and examinations to high school students. Colleges and universities in the US and elsewhere ...

courses offered at the school.

Athletics and extracurricular activities

Athletics

SITHS's sports program operates in partnership with McKee High School, and their shared teams are known as the MSIT Seagulls. The MSIT teams play various sports including

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

softball Softball is a Variations of baseball, variation of baseball, the difference being that it is played with a larger ball, on a smaller field, and with only underhand pitches (where the ball is released while the hand is primarily below the ball) ...

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

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 Summ ...

wrestling Wrestling is a martial art, combat sport, and form of entertainment that involves grappling with an opponent and striving to obtain a position of advantage through different throws or techniques, within a given ruleset. Wrestling involves di ...

fencing Fencing is a combat sport that features sword fighting. It consists of three primary disciplines: Foil (fencing), foil, épée, and Sabre (fencing), sabre (also spelled ''saber''), each with its own blade and set of rules. Most competitive fe ...

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, such as saltwater or freshwater environments, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Swimmers achieve locomotion by coordinating limb and body movements to achieve hydrody ...

badminton Badminton is a racquet sport played using racket (sports equipment), racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net (device), net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per s ...

tennis Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...

table tennis Table tennis (also known as ping-pong) is a racket sport derived from tennis but distinguished by its playing surface being atop a stationary table, rather than the Tennis court, court on which players stand. Either individually or in teams of ...

, and track. The MSIT Football team won the 2010 and 2011 PSAL Cup Championship. MSIT's Boys' Track team made multiple cross-country state appearances from 1996 to 2000, and again from 2006 to 2010. The MSIT Boys' Volleyball team won 4 consecutive PSAL city championships in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019. Tech offers several co-curricular options for physical education, including weight training, yoga and aerobics, dance, volleyball, basketball, and marching band.

Extracurricular activities

SITHS maintains an active theater program, including productions such as

SING! To sing is to produce musical sounds with a voice. Sing may also refer to: Film * ''Sing'' (1989 film), an American musical drama film following a fictional SING! production in New York City * ''Sing!'' (2001 film), a 2001 American documentary ...

and a spring musical. The theater program is directed by drama teacher Heather Brown in coordination with the school's Tech Crew, a group of students tasked with maintaining the theater and operating sound and lighting for the school's auditorium. In 2011, the school installed a new television studio that works closely with the Tech Crew and provides a different aspect of technical operations. SITHS's robotics team is a fairly developed team. The team competes in the

FIRST Robotics Competition FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) is an international high school robotics competition operated by ''FIRST''®. Each year, teams of high school students, coaches, and mentors work to build robots capable of competing in that year's game. Robots c ...

as Team 375, or "''The Robotic Plague''", and regularly manages to advance into the semi-finals. In the 2006 season, they were the Regional Winners. They also won the Chairman's award for their robot, the "''Rambo''". and won the

Autodesk Inventor Autodesk Inventor is a computer-aided design extension application for 3D mechanical design, simulation, visualization, and documentation developed by Autodesk. Features Inventor allows analyzing 2D and 3D CAD models by creating a virtual rep ...

Animation Award at the New York City Regional. However, it has since been disbanded. Tech also hosts more than eighty clubs. These include:

Junior State of America The Junior State of America (formerly the Junior Statesmen of America), abbreviated JSA, was an American non-partisan youth organization. The purpose of JSA was to help high school students acquire leadership skills and the knowledge necessary t ...

Key Club Key Club International, also called Key Club, is an international service organization for high school students. Key Club International is the high school branch of the Kiwanis International family, classified as a Service Leadership Program ...

Model United Nations Model United Nations, also known as Model UN (MUN), is an educational simulation of the United Nations, which teaches students about diplomacy, international relations, global issues, and how the United Nations is run. During a model UN confe ...

, Do Something, Chess Club, newspaper, literary magazine, Strategic Fighting Game Club, HIV/AIDS Awareness Team, Anime Club, Celtic club, Asian American Club, Christian Seekers, Jewish Club, and

Muslim Students' Association The Muslim Students Association, or Muslim Student Union, of the U.S. and Canada, also known as MSA National, is a religious organization dedicated to establishing and maintaining Islamic societies on college campuses in Canada and the United Sta ...

. Tech also has a chapter of the

National Honor Society The National Honor Society (NHS) is one of the oldest, largest, and most widely recognized cocurricular student organizations in American high schools, with 1.4 million members. The purpose of the NHS is to create enthusiasm for scholarship, to ...

and

Tri-M Tri-M Music Honor Society, formerly known as Modern Music Masters, is an American high school and middle school music honor society. A program of the National Association for Music Education (NAfME), it is designed to recognize students for thei ...

, which both inducts members after a selective process in their junior year. Tech also has a GSA, called the True Equality Alliance (TEA) Club. The academic teams of SITHS are strong contenders in various regional and state-wide competitions. The Science Olympiad Team consistently places second in the NYC Regionals and consistently places in the top ten for NY States competition. Many students on the Math Team qualify for AIME, and the Freshmen Math Team earned 1st place out of all teams (most of which consisted solely of seniors) competing at the Staten Island Mathematics Tournament in June 2019.

In popular culture

SITHS was used in the production of 1998 film '' Joe the King''. SITHS was mentioned during the introduction to ''

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart ''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The ...

''. The school's 2012 SING! winner was announced by ''Saturday Night Live'' cast member

Andy Samberg Andy Samberg (born David A. J. Samberg; August 18, 1978) is an American comedian, actor, musician, writer and producer. He is a member of the comedy music group the Lonely Island, along with childhood friends Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone. ...

, who recorded a short clip to reveal the winner. The school's 2013 SING! winner was announced by singer/songwriter and tech alumna

Ingrid Michaelson Ingrid Ellen Michaelson (born December 8, 1979) is an American singer-songwriter. She is best known for her 2006 single "The Way I Am (Ingrid Michaelson song), The Way I Am" and her 2014 single "Girls Chase Boys", both of which achieved success ...

, who similarly recorded a short clip to reveal the winner. The school's 2014 SING! winner was supposed to be announced by the

Impractical Jokers ''Impractical Jokers'' is an American hidden camera comedy and reality show with improvisational elements. Produced by NorthSouth Productions, ''Impractical Jokers'' premiered on truTV on December 15, 2011, starring the members of The Tenderlo ...

, with another short clip, but was never played due to technical difficulties.

Notable alumni

, Class of 1997, musician * Brian Esposito, Class of 1997, baseball player * Andrew Kozak, Class of 2000, meteorologist *

Jamie Lynn Macchia Jamie Lynn Macchia (born October 24, 1991) is an American beauty pageant titleholder from Eltingville, Staten Island, New York, who was crowned Miss New York 2015. She competed for the Miss America 2016 title in September 2015. Pageant career ...

, Class of 2009, Miss New York 2015

References

External links

* {{authority control Public high schools in Staten Island Specialized high schools in New York City Magnet schools in New York (state) 1988 establishments in New York City Educational institutions established in 1988