New Trier High School

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New Trier High School

Image:Ntrierlogo.gif

Motto To commit minds to inquiry, hearts to compassion, and lives to the service of humanity
Established 1901
School type Public
Principals Debra Stacey (Winnetka),
Jan Borja (Northfield)
Locations Winnetka, Illinois and
Northfield, Illinois
Enrollment 4,094 (as of 2005)
Campus Suburban
Nickname Trevians
Mascot Trevius Maximus
Colors Blue, green, and gray
Website www.newtrier.k12.il.us

New Trier High School (NTHS) is a nationally recognized comprehensive high school located north of Chicago, Illinois. It is widely considered to be academically the best non-selective public high school in Illinois. Due to the size of the student body, the students are split across two campuses. The Northfield campus was built in 1965 as a separate school, was closed in 1981 due to reduced enrollment, and reopened in 2001 as a freshmen-only campus. The Winnetka campus opened in 1901, and has served the community continually since then. The Winnetka campus currently houses sophomores, juniors, and seniors. It is located approximately sixteen miles north of Chicago. The school serves Chicago's North Shore suburbs of Wilmette, Glencoe, Winnetka, Kenilworth, Northfield, and parts of Glenview and Northbrook. [1]

Contents

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History

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The high school was founded in 1901 in Winnetka, Illinois with seventy-six students and seven faculty members. In 1912, New Trier became one of the first high schools in America to have an indoor swimming pool. In 1918, New Trier became a training ground for World War I soldiers. A fundraising drive by students led to the purchase of an ambulance. In the mid 1920s, New Trier began the adviser system that is still in place today. In the early 1930's, students sold tax warrants door to door to keep the school operating as the flow of property tax funds was disrupted by the Great Depression. In the 1940s, students raised enough funds to finance the purchase of a B-17 bomber ("The Spirit of New Trier") and a B-29.

In 1962, voters approved a referendum for New Trier to purchase forty-six acres in Northfield through a bond issue. Enrollment was over 4,000 at the time. New Trier West opened for freshmen and sophomores in Northfield in 1965. In 1967, New Trier dedicated the New Trier West campus as a four-year high school. Among those in attendance were Education Secretary John Gardner, Senator Charles Percy (alumnus, 1937), and Congressman and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (alumnus, 1950).

In 1972, there was an all-time high enrollment of 6,558 students. But by 1981, enrollment had dropped so significantly that the school board decided to combine the East and West schools back into one, and convert the Northfield (west) buildings into a freshmen-only campus for the combined school. The resulting arrangement (freshmen at the "west campus" and upperclassmen at the "east campus") lasted from September 1981 until June 1985, when enrollment had declined enough for the board to close and convert the entire Northfield campus to a community recreation space. The campus later housed a senior center, corporate dormitories, a public swimming pool, and an alternative high school program known as West Center Academy.

In 2001, the Northfield campus was reopened as a freshmen-only campus due to increasing enrollment. The decision to make it a freshmen-only campus was a compromise from a stalemate between plans to either increase capacity at the Winnetka campus or reopen the Northfield campus as a separate school.

The Northfield campus also houses the administrative offices of the New Trier Township High School District.

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Subject-level grouping, GPA, and class rank

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New Trier has practiced subject-level grouping for over forty years. Up to four different levels of difficulty are offered for each academic subject, and Advanced Placement classes provide a fifth alternative for upperclassmen. Level 1 is considered a general level. Level 2 is college preparatory. Level 3 is accelerated. Level 4 is honors level. Level 5 is reserved for Advanced Placement classes. Students may work at different levels in different subjects.

New Trier offers both unweighted and weighted grade point averages (GPA). Plus and minus grades are reported on transcripts. However, only decile rank (as opposed to class rank) is reported. For weighted GPA, the maximum score (an A) in a 1-level course is a 3.33 out of 4.00. In a 2-level course, it is 4.00 for the same grade. In levels 3/9, 4, and 5, the maximums are 4.67, 5.33 and 5.67, respectively.

Since the late 1990s, the Board of Education has been examining how to encourage students to pursue a strong academic career without having them focus too much on their class rank. The first step taken by the administration was to eliminate the process of reporting class rank and switch to decile ranking. Around the same time, the scale for weighted GPA calculations was modified, and plus and minus grades were implemented. Previously, an A in a 4-level course was considered a 6.0 in the weighted GPA scale. Presently it is weighted at 5.33. In late October of 2005, Superintendent Hank Bangser revealed that the school board is seriously evaluating whether the school should eliminate the practice of class (decile) ranking altogether (see Strategic Planning below). Bangser stated to a reporter from the Pioneer Press, "What we really want to do is eliminate it because it makes it harder and harder for really good students who are in the middle of the class to be selected by competitive schools because they won't select kids in the middle of the class."

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Sports and organizations

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New Trier's mascot is the Trevian, named after soldiers from the city of Trier, Germany during the Roman Empire, and recognizing that the Grosse Pointe area of Wilmette was laregly settled by immigrants from Trier, Germany. From 1901 to 1965, the school's sports teams were known as the Indians. When the new campus in the western part of the district, New Trier West, opened in 1965, the new school's sports team was known as the Cowboys. In 1981, when the two schools merged, the school's teams adopted the name of Trevians. During the 2004-2005 school year the mascot was named "Trevius Maximus" after conducting a poll among the students.

New Trier's biggest public/conference rival is Evanston Township High School. The rivalry between their swim teams is said to be the oldest in the history of high school sports, dating back to pre-1920. Both schools compete in the Central Suburban South conference. The two annual basketball games New Trier plays against Evanston draw so many people that since 2001 they have been held at Northwestern University's Welsh-Ryan Arena. New Trier's biggest non-conference/private rival is Loyola Academy, which is located in Wilmette, just down the road from the Northfield campus.

There are over 100 different co-curricular organizations at New Trier. Some notable organizations include:

  • New Trier News
    The weekly student newspaper is the New Trier News, published since 1904. The News has won the All-American citation from the Scholastic Press Association and the George Gallup Award from Quill and Scroll. In 2006, IHSA added a Journalism division, which the NTN staff plans to compete in.
  • Freshman Focus/Sophomore Journal/View From the Garden Window They also have Freshman and Sophomore newspapers, the Freshman Focus and the Sophomore Journal, the former which has been a Silver Medalist in each of the past two years in the Columbia University contest for high school newspapers. The Focus is run by Tim Dohrer and the Journal is run by Sharon Weiner.There is a fourth paper, View from the Garden Window, formerly called News and Views, run by a cross-section of students in all grades, which publishes poems and cartoons in addition to articles.
  • New Trier Scholastic Bowl
    New Trier has an outstanding Scholastic Bowl team that has been to 4 state championships, and last won IHSA sectionals in 2006. The coaches are David Reinstein, Benjamin Yang and Carolyn Gerhardt. It is through practice and excellent coaching that NTHS has secured these victories.
  • New Trier Debate
    New Trier has one of the best debate programs in the country, with over 100 students competing in 5 different forms of debate and as many as 30 Individual Events. The current coaches are Doug Springer and Linda Oddo, the latter of whom is also the Chair of the Speech and Theatre Department.
  • WNTH Radio
    WNTH is the school's radio station that broadcasts throughout the New Trier community. It is one of the oldest high school radio stations in the country and not to mention one of the most well respected. WNTH also has had famous guests on show, which include Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, White Sox Assistant General Manager Rick Hahn (alum) and makeup artist Bobbi Brown (alum). The award-winning show "SportsLife," which aired from 1996-2000 with hosts Jack M. Silverstein, Brad Meyers, Dan Schor, Sam Vangelovski, and Jonny Corwin, featured interviews with former Northwestern University All-American linebacker Pat Fitzgerald and Chicago sportswriters Rick Telander, Bill Gleason, Bill Jauss, and Lester Munson, as well as a live interview with Chicago Tribune basketball writer Sam Smith, which aired the night before Michael Jordan announced his second retirement.
  • Student Alliance
    Student Alliance is a student government body at New Trier High School. It serves as a liaison between the students and the administration. Student Alliance meets every day during 9th period and serves as the "head club" by voting to charter or reject new clubs at the Wednesday parliamentary procedure meetings.
  • Girls Club
    Girls Club is a school and community service organization for girls.
  • Pep Band
    Pep Band plays at the football and basketball games. They pump up the crowd and incite the fans before, during, and after the games
  • Intramural Sports
    Intramural Sports provides opportunities for student groups to play athletic games against each other.
  • Lagniappe/ Potpourri
    Lagniappe/ Potpourri is the student-produced musical comedy revue, presenting skits and songs satirizing student life. The name derives from two similar productions that merged in 1981 when the two campuses reunited, Lagniappe having been New Trier East's production, and Potpourri having been New Trier West's. As of 2005, this former club is now included in the Performing Arts division.
  • Kinesis Dance Company
    Kinesis Dance Company prepares for and performs dances at their yearly concert in January and dance festivals in March, April, and May.
  • Pep Club
    Pep Club promotes school spirit.
  • Social Service
    Social Service, the largest club at New Trier, is a very popular community service organization.
  • Soundtraks
    A student-run, 48-track digital audio recording studio, and an 8-camera video production facility that records student musical ensembles and presents all school concerts live on the Internet, local cable television and WNTH radio.
  • Trevia
    Trevia is New Trier's print yearbook. Members of Trevia are responsible for putting the yearbook together.
  • TriShip
    TriShip is a school and community service organization for boys. It organizes a wide variety of activities every year. Its name stems from the values of sportsmanship, citizenship, and fellowship.
  • Science Olympiad
    New Trier has the 6th ranked Science Olympiad Team in the country because of their performance last year. Every year, the team works to prepare for the events through studying general material and taking practice tests, or building various contraptions for the events at the tournament. The coaching staff includes Janice Leonhardt (Physics/General), Tom Senior (Physics/Building), Tony Harper (Biology), and Katie Kralik (Chemistry).
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Traditions

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Philanthropy

Each of the four official class governments (Sophomore and Junior Steering Committees and the Freshman and Senior Senates) makes significant annual donations to various philanthropic causes throughout the community, state, country, and planet. Each school year since 2001, the Senior Senate has fully funded the construction of a house in conjunction with Habitat for Humanity of Lake County, Illinois, a non-profit organization that fights homelessness and substandard housing. Members of the senior class have the opportunity to help build the house. Countless fundraisers contribute to this and various other causes over the course of the academic year. In 2005, the Senior Senate alone donated nearly $125,000 to Habitat for Humanity and other charities. In recent years, the TriShip/Girls Club food drive has generated the Greater Chicago Food Depository's single largest annual donation of food, weighing in at over 56,000 pounds in 2005. The New Trier Tsumani Relief Committee donated more than $55,000 to the victims of the Indian Ocean Tsunami in December, 2004.

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Homecoming/Spirit Week

Homecoming consists of a semi-formal dance, a football game, and various contests. It occurs in October. Like in the other formal dance of the year, Turnabout, the upperclassmen choose to go in groups with "themes" instead of the formal dress that the Freshmen and sophmores wear. Some often-used themes used are, "Firefighters", "Noah's Ark", "Disney Characters", "Construction workers" and things of a similar nature.

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Frank Mantooth Jazz Festival at New Trier High School

This internationally-known jazz festival began in 1982 and takes place on the first Saturday of February. The soldout event brings to the school fifty high school and junior high jazz ensembles from all over the Great Lakes region and even Canada to perform during the day, and professional jazz groups that perform in the evening concert. Past performers include the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Maynard Ferguson, Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band, the Bob Mintzer Big Band, and many others. The entire event is webcast live on the Internet at ntjazz.com. The festival was renamed after jazz musician/educator/composer Frank Mantooth in 2003 when he passed away just days before that year's festival.

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Senior pranks

The senior class has a long tradition of elaborate pranks. Some have included:

  • Letting loose three pigs within the halls bearing the numbers 1, 2, and 4
  • Sending the master key to every fourth student, June 2000 (The cost to replace the locks was $100,000. The actors confessed after being threatened with an FBI investigation, resulting in disciplinary actions taken against the two students.) This was featured on MTV a few years later. [2] [3]
  • Placing a Yugo on the roof
  • Six girls riding topless in a convertible while a seventh is driving the "getaway car" past New Trier, May 24, 2001 (The students were caught, suspended for three days, asked to issue a written apology, and ordered to serve community service by appearing at the school the following fall to speak about the inappropriateness and consequences of senior pranks.) [4] [5]
  • Making and distributing a directory of administrators and paraprofessionals (security guards), listing their addresses and phone numbers, October 1994 (The list, entitled Halloween Havoc, contained a disclaimer that the author was not responsible for anything that would result from that list being distributed. Rumor has it that the author was caught and disciplined for using a school computer to make that directory.)
  • Throwing miscellaneous liquids and other substances down the main staircase, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s (A popular prank was to throw some kind of liquid, powder, or other items down the main staircase from the fourth floor. The substance would hit students who were on the staircase, including the ones who were on the first floor. Whenever this occurred, the paraprofessionals would have to close the staircase and prevent students from using it until it was cleaned up.)
  • Filling the paraprofessionals' office with raw meat, mid 1990s (The paraprofessionals discovered this when the meat had rotted and were forced to clean it. The students who filled the office with meat were never caught.)
  • The graduating class of 2002 let loose half a dozen chickens in the student cafeteria.
  • In 1982, a student placed a tape recorder in his locker that played sounds of him pounding on his locker door and screams of "let me out of here!" This prank is a personal favorite of some of the school administrators.

A recent article [6] in the New Trier News featured senior pranks.

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Accolades and accomplishments

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National recognition

New Trier Township High School has been included in the "top ten" and "most successful" lists of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and PARADE magazine. The school was also identified as "quite possibly the best public high school in America" by Town and Country. Life also recognized New Trier as one of the best high schools in America with cover stories in 1950 and 1998.

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Academic accomplishments

Approximately 98% of the Class of 2005 enrolled in college. 801 students took 1,855 Advanced Placement exams in 2005. The average score was 4.0 (out of a possible 5.0). Of the 977 students in the Class of 2005, 12 were National Merit Scholarship Winners, 32 were National Merit Semifinalists, and 68 received Letters of Commendation.

For the class of 2005, the mean SAT I Verbal score was 623, and the mean SAT I Math score was 641. The mean ACT composite score was 26.8. [7]

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Athletic accomplishments

New Trier High School currently has the most state championships of any high school in Illinois with 88, and most Boys State titles in Illinois, and most Girls state titles in Illinois, while Boys Swimming and Diving (18), Boys Tennis (18), Boys Fencing (15) (Midwest Championships), Girls Swimming and Diving (10), Boys Golf (9), and Girls Tennis (8) lead the way. [8] However, New Trier has yet to win a state title in football, basketball, or chess (though they did place 2nd in the IHSA state championships in the 2004-2005 school year). In May 2005, New Trier was ranked #12 in Sports Illustrated's list of the Top 25 High School Sports Programs in America, and first in Illinois. New Trier Girls Soccer finished the two seasons 2002-2004 first in the nation, with a combined record of 59-0-1.

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Boys and Girls Ice Hockey

Although ice hockey is officially suported by neither the school nor the IHSA, the independent New Trier Hockey Club—which currently fields three varsity, one junior varsity and two girls teams—has enjoyed 9 varsity state championships, 2 junior varsity state championships and 3 girls varsity state championships since the two campuses were joined in 1981.

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Boys and Girls Swimming and Diving

The New Trier Boys Swimming and Diving Team is the top swim team in the state with eighteen Boys IHSA State Titles (1942, 1944, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1961, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1966, 2004 and 2006).

The New Trier Girls Swimming and Diving Team has the most Girls IHSA State Titles in Illinois with 10 currently (1979, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 2000, and 2001).

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Musical accomplishments

The instrumental music department has received 27 Downbeat awards in that magazine's annual student musician awards program. This is the most awards received by any public high school. More than 1,100 students participate in the music department by presenting 24 concerts a year with almost all concerts webcast live on the internet at ntjazz.com, live on local cable television, and in stereo on WNTH radio.

Furthermore, the music department is taking the Concert Choir and Symphony Orchestra to perform at Carnegie Hall on Tuesday April 4, 2006.

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Controversies

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Newsweek ranking

The school is ranked #293 on Newsweek's 2005 list of the "Best High Schools in America." Many students and faculty raised objections to this list's technique of evaluating a school based exclusively on the school's ratio of AP tests taken to the number of students in the graduating class. If based on test scores rather than participation, it was estimated that New Trier High School would be in the top 50 high schools in the country[9]. New Trier limits AP courses only to students who show academic excellence, reducing the number of AP tests taken, showing a concern for quality over quantity.

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Strategic planning

New Trier went through its first round of strategic planning in the early nineties, and implemented that plan from 1995-2003. The second round of strategic planning started in October 2003 and focused primarily on the less tangible issues of balancing increased opportunites for students with retaining a good, healthy, and ethical life. The first Strategic Planning committee identified their mission, belief statements, parameters, and objectives for the whole strategic planning process, and also laid out six strategies, areas for work by separate action teams. These action teams were as follows: Climate of Exploration, Connections Among Experiences, Ethical Conduct and Global Citizenship, Healthy, Balanced Life, Intrinsic Value of Learning, and Optimal Use of Time. These action team worked over the 2004-2005 school year, creating 41 action plans, or individual suggestions for improvement. The superintendent, Dr. Hank Bangser, brought these 41 action plans together into one strategic plan and presented them to the school board in the spring of 2005 for approval as planned, and they were approved, with a slight modification.

Prior to this approval, public hearings were held to allow for community input on the plan. The two greatest complaints (spanning multiple action plans in both cases) were against the suggestion that a lunch period be mandated (and an additional free period for those who took early bird), and the suggestion to remove the decile system and weighted grading completely (furthering a trend started when class rank was removed from consideration). There was no action on the resistance to the second idea, but the resistance to the first consideration has already had an effect. In the strategic plan Dr. Bangser presented to the School Board, he combined all action plans relevant to requiring a lunch period into one and included his own assessment of the situation, and has since weakened his public stance on insisting that lunch periods be mandated, and has shifted his attention to modifying the schedule in other ways.

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Drug use

New Trier Township High School was featured in the December 9, 1996 issue of Time in an article entitled, "High Times at New Trier High". [10] The article noted that approximate 60% of students were using marijuana compared with national averages at the time closer to 33%.

New Trier has made efforts to stop the drug use, including posting student-survey results. The school, however, stirred up controversy after putting up a poster claiming that most New Trier students do not smoke cigarettes, with a picture of a girl with the caption, "I'm one of them." This campaign has been criticised for many reasons, one being that the girl was not a student but rather a model.

Retiring superintendent Henry S. Bangser, was quoted as saying, "How could a school eradicate it? Schools have a responsibility to address the problem, but students didn't learn to do drugs here, and mostly they don't do it here."

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Tax referendum

At the beginning of 2002, the school faced a cash crunch, and the community responded by supporting a referendum. Due to a slight miscalculation, the school found that it had asked for $6,500,000 more than it had actually needed. All of the money was returned to the community.

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Pop culture references

  • The Breakfast Club
    The Breakfast Club is based off of the popular, from the administration's viewpoint, early morning punishment at New Trier. While filmed at Maine North High School (now closed), the reference is to New Trier's program.
  • Risky Business
  • Mean Girls
    The fictional "North Shore High," supposedly located on the north shore of Chicago, appears to be based heavily on New Trier both in its stereotypes and references.
  • Ferris Bueller's Day Off
    Based on the location of Ferris' residence, he would have attended New Trier.
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Notable alumni

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Notable alumni of New Trier High School include:

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External links

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