Pascack Valley High School

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Pascack Valley High School (PVHS) is a four-year regional public high school located in Hillsdale in Bergen County, New Jersey, one of two high schools in the Pascack Valley Regional High School District. Pascack Valley High School serves the residents of both Hillsdale and neighboring River Vale, while its counterpart Pascack Hills High School serves the communities of Woodcliff Lake and Montvale. The principal of PVHS is Dr. Barbara Sapienza. The school is often noted for its 1:1 eLearning Initiative, in which the school provided a laptop to every student, teacher, and administrator for educational use.

Enrollment of Pascack Valley High School for the 2005-2006 year was 1,062 students.^[1]

Pascack Valley High School was the 23rd-ranked public high school in New Jersey out of 316 schools statewide, in New Jersey Monthly magazine's September 2006 cover story on the state's Top Public High Schools.^[2]

1 History
2 Campus
3 Extracurricular Activities
4 Student government
5 Future Of PVHS
6 Assorted facts
7 References
8 External links

[edit] History

The school was originally founded in 1955 with 650 students enrolled. As enrollment and faculty size increased, educators realized that both the curriculum and the facilities were in need of expansion. Double-session scheduling was used as a remedy for the problem in 1963. The next year, Pascack Hills High School opened and promptly became Pascack Valley's rival.

In 1970, Pascack Valley's capacity was again full and it became necessary to perform another expansion. A new cafeteria was provided as well as expanded areas for each department, new classrooms, a new gymnasium, and a new library.

[edit] 1997 walkout

In 1997, in an act of support for the proposed school budget which was up for voter approval, up to 700 students (much of the student body) walked out of the school. In the past three years, the budget had been voted down and this had caused major setbacks for the school. Fearing the loss of popular teachers due to budget limitations, students staged a walkout and the local media were called to attend the event. Originally, the principal had planned to let students walk only to the back, but students took matters into their own hands when the leader of the group impulsively decided to take the walkout to the front, where it could be noticed. Half of the instructional time allotted for the day was missed, but students eventually had to return to class. In the end, the budget passed.

[edit] 2004 Mascot Controversy

The school's mascot is an Indian. In 2004, there was a major controversy at the school about the appropriateness of the mascot. The school took up the issue after researching high schools and colleges around the U.S. with similar nicknames that had decided to change their mascots. Many of these schools had received complaints from Native American groups about the stereotypes that the mascots reinforced. The student council also discussed rumors that New Jersey would be banning Native American-related mascots eventually, and it was decided that taking up the issue by choice rather than force was the right thing to do. After months of public debate and an official symposium in which students voiced opinions from both sides of the issue, a vote was held among the students and faculty and the motion to keep the Indian was overwhelmingly affirmed, 67% voting in favor of keeping the mascot.

[edit] 1:1 eLearning Initiative

In the fall of 2000, it was proposed to provide a laptop to every student and teacher for educational purposes. A wireless network environment for the school part of a referendum project. As the concept evolved, school representatives visited districts where such a program was already in place. The school's Steering Technology Committee was responsible for the logistics of the plan from 2000 to the present.

Corporate partners for the district included Sony, Promedia Technology Services, Inc., McAfee, Nexus Consortium, Stewart Industries, Motion Systems, ScanSoft, Minitab, Questia Media Inc., and Quia.

For the 2004-05 school year, the school finally issued all its students laptops, the first public school in the state to do so. The laptops were issued by the Sony Corporation and were put under a contractual lease for a period of 4 years. The lease will expire in 2008. The laptops were hailed as a success by the administration, but the students largely differed in their opinion. Soon after the issuing of the computers, many of them promptly began to break and malfunction. In response, the school debuted the so-called "Laptop Hospital," where students could drop off their laptops for repair.

Against the wishes of the administration, students downloaded games and various other applications for personal use. In early 2005, the networked multiplayer game Halo in particular caused a major problem for the school's limited bandwidth. An increase in personal student-to-student e-mail was noted. Concerns regarding a possible drop in academic performance due to non-academic use of the laptops during the school day were expressed.

In the 2005-2006 academic school year, computer use was for the first time restricted for all students. As of now, students no longer have access to student email during the school day and are limited to a restricted screen with a single window full of shortcuts to the various needed applications within the computer. The situation is not likely to change as the administration has not budged on the issue thus far. The school email also features a spam-block program. This has its advantages but the one cited disadvantage to this, is that many incoming replies from university emails have been blocked; thus complicating the process of applying to a university online if the student uses a school issued email address.

The 1:1 in the name of the program probably refers to the ratio of students to computers that it sought to attain.

[edit] Campus

Pascack Valley High School is well endowed with a wide range of facilities and a large campus. It is complete with one track (with new surface as of Spring 2006), surrounding a new turf football field. The school grounds also have four tennis courts, a softball field and one baseball field. The school has two levels and is mainly arranged in a rectangular fashion.

The campus is currently undergoing major renovations, with the addition of several wings and a total overhaul of the track and field areas.

[edit] Extracurricular Activities

Like most other area high schools, Pascack Valley offers a wide range of co-curricular and extracurricular activities. Included are the Academic Decathlon, the Animal Rights Club, the Art Portfolio Club, the Audiovisual Club, the Marching Band and Concert Band, the Computer Club, the Debate Team, the Flag Squad, Fall Drama, the French Club, the French National Honor Society and Spanish National Honor Society, the National Honor Society, HOPE (Helping Other People Every Day), the Human Rights League, the Interact Club, JAC (Just About Caring), a Literary Magazine, a Mathematics League, the Spring Musical, and the Yearbook. Pascack Pi-oneers is the school's US FIRST robotics team, operated together with its sister school, Pascack Hills High School (team 1676). The school recently began to cut its German program and it will be phased out in two years.

In athletics, the Pascack Valley High School Indians participate in the twelve-member North Bergen Interscholastic Athletic League. Sports offered include cheerleading, dance, cross-country, football, boys' soccer, girls' soccer, tennis, volleyball, gymnastics, basketball, bowling, ice hockey, swimming, wrestling, Winter Track, baseball, softball, and lacrosse. The school has had considerable success, most notably in girls' basketball and in football.

The school newspaper is the Smoke Signal, published on a quarterly basis.

[edit] Student government

Pascack Valley High School is governed by the Pascack Valley Regional High School District Board of Education in consultation with the PVHS Executive Student Council. The Executive Council recommends appropriation of funds for student activities, with the approval of the Board, for the school. It is also very deeply involved in organizing activities and events for the school. Each year there is a special student representative to the Board of Education. The next step down the ladder of the student government consists of the four class councils, which participate in the running and operations of the school with the Executive Council, but represent and are responsible to the electing class.

Elections to the class councils are held at the end of every year for various positions, and in the fall for the freshman class. There are two positions to which candidates must be appointed. The Executive Council, which is separate from the constituent class councils, holds elections in the spring.

[edit] Future Of PVHS

From 2005 to 2007, the school will undergo a major renovation to add a new gymnasium and auditorium, expand upon the science/mathematics wing, and refurbish existing construction. The future classes have met this arrangement with many reservations, including concerns about limited parking space and a general state of disarray.

[edit] Assorted facts

There are 10 boys interscholastic sports activities and 7 girls interscholastic sports activities.
Nearly 100% of the senior students of the past year received a diploma.
92% of the seniors planned to attend college.
4 world languages are currently offered - Spanish, French, Italian, and German. However, the 2006-2007 school year is the last year that a student can sign up for German as there are not enough students taking the class.
14 Advanced Placement Program (AP) classes are offered: AP Computer Science, AP Biology, AP Calculus AB, AP Calculus BC, AP Chemistry, AP English Language and Composition, AP English Literature and Composition, AP European History, AP French Language, AP United States Government, AP Physics B, AP Spanish Language, AP Statistics, and AP United States History.
Pascack Valley participates in the Honors program.
The girls' basketball team, coached by Jeff Jasper, has won 29 consecutive league titles, and several county and state titles as well.^[3]
Allison Torres (graduate of the class of '05) became the Coed of the month for Playboy in the month of June, 2006 [1]
The football team, coached by Craig Neilsen, has enjoyed recent success, including state playoff berths in 2004, 2005, and 2006.
Pascack Valley Regional Gymnastics Team recently was selected by The Record as Team of the Year after only its second year as a team.