CHS' National Art Honor Society celebrated its inductees, seniors and new officers on Monday evening in a spirited ceremony in the school's art gallery.

Advisor Marie Adamo welcomed back 2018 alum Julia Kester, who plans to pursue a career in art education, as a guest speaker.

The ceremony then honored inductees Olivia Espinoza, Sophia Efthymiou, Charlie Gilmartin, Juliet Jackson, Jordana Kofler, Via Luo, Hasibullah Safi, Mollie Young and Michael Zagon. 

All students are eligible to earn the Commack Achievement Award each year they attend CHS. It might be more attainable than you think, so don't overlook it.

Completed point sheets are due to Mr. Biagi by Friday, May 10.

The CHS Spanish Honor Society enjoyed a field trip on Tuesday to see the show, “La gringa” at el Repetorio Español in Manhattan. The group then headed to Hudson Yards to have lunch in Little Spain.

Commack varsity student-athletes are well-represented on Newsday’s top 100 lists of the best prep players on Long Island in their respective spring sports.
 
 Girls lacrosse midfielders Amelia Brite and Liliana Pettit and defender Kate Hearns, boys lacrosse attackmen Brandon Berozi and James Pagano, baseball infielder/pitcher Evan Kay and pitcher Ryan Krzemienski and softball catcher Rachel Abzug and pitcher Kayla O’Boyle all made the newspaper’s top-100 lists.
 
 Brite and Pettit, both juniors, are Stony Brook commits, while Hearns, a senior, is headed to Bucknell.
 
 Berozi, a senior, will play lacrosse at Binghamton, while Pagano, a junior, will play at Brown.
 
 Both seniors, Abzug will play at Rutgers-Newark and O’Boyle at Southern New Hampshire next academic year.
 
 Kay and Krzemienski, both seniors, will play at Stony Brook and St. Thomas Aquinas, respectively.

Commack students have received lessons in combatting hatred and bullying this school year in conjunction with the Holocaust Memorial & Tolerance Center, heard firsthand from Holocaust survivor Meir Usherovitz and watched a play from Theatre Three recounting the descent into the Holocaust.

 

Six Commack High School students chose to fully immerse themselves in the topic.

 

Noah Caplan, Izzy Karten, Jordana Kofler, Hannah Krinsky, Michael Wagner and Sammy Weinstein have completed a year-long project in which they interviewed local Holocaust survivors for the film, "Names, Not Numbers."

The film, produced by the Suffolk Y JCC, premiered Sunday evening at Stage 74 in Commack.

The six Commack students and a dozen students from other districts who contributed to the film as well as Holocaust survivors Rachel Epstein, Manny Korman and Rosalie Simon — who are featured in the film — attended the showing.

So too did a bevy of Commack School District officials to support the students' endeavor, including superintendent Dr. Jordan Cox, assistant superintendent Timothy Russo, Board of Education trustees Gus Hueber and Susan Hermer and district clerk Debbie Virga.

"Person to person is so different than learning through books," CHS junior Izzie Karten said.

Harold Teller wanted to find a way to help those in the community confronting mental health issues. So Teller, now a ninth grader at Commack High School, started a basketball tournament for friends and classmates.
 
 Two years later, the annual event has raised nearly $13,000 for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
 
 Teller on Wednesday received a visit at the high school from Ann Morrison-Pacella, the foundation’s executive director for the Long Island Chapter.
 
 With his family, principal Carrie Lipenholtz and other high school administrators on hand, Morrison-Pacella presented Teller with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s Community Service Award.
 
 “I really felt that it was important for you to understand how what you did is really making a difference,” Morrison-Pacella told him. “I truly believe that your generation is going to change the stigmas with asking for help and for talking about mental health. To have a young person like yourself do something like this to raise awareness is really making a difference.”
 
 Said Lipenholtz: “We’re so incredibly proud of you. Your efforts are so meaningful.”
 
 Not only does Teller intend to continue the annual 3v3 basketball tournament held in Holbrook — which annually has attracted 150 participants — he also is planning to host a capture-the-flag event at Short Beach in Nissequogue on May 5 to raise additional funds for the foundation.
 
 The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention uses the funds in the local community for education and to support those who are struggling or have lost someone.
 
 “I know people who have struggled with mental health, and I wanted to help,” Teller said.

 Said Morrison-Pacella: “It’s not a comfortable topic to talk about, and it should be. Doing events like you are having and raising awareness and letting people know that it’s OK not to be OK, and that when we talk about our struggles that we can get help, that helps other people understand they are not alone.”

Commack Athletics made history on Monday. And it won in convincing fashion to boot.
 
 In the first-ever varsity flag football game in school history, the Cougars defeated visiting Bay Shore 22-0 on Monday afternoon.

 

Commack converted on a pair of fourth downs and scored a touchdown on the first drive in program history en route to the shutout victory.
 
 The county began sponsoring flag football as a varsity sport a year ago, and Commack joined in this season.
 
 “We have really smart girls and really athletic girls,” said head coach Augie Contressa, a former Stony Brook football standout. “They showed it today.”

Commack High School student leaders impressed their state representatives and Education Department administrators with their command of issues affecting students and the district during a visit to the State Capitol on Tuesday.
 
 Twenty-two CHS students from the Legislative Advocacy Committee accompanied superintendent Dr. Jordan Cox and his cabinet as well as Board of Education vice president Steven Hartman and committee co-chairs Eric Biagi and Dr. Jennifer Santorello on the advocacy trip to Albany.
 
 The group met with state senators Mario Mattera and assemblymen Keith Brown and Michael Fitzpatrick. They then crossed Washington Avenue to meet with New York State Education Department deputy commissioners Angelique Johnson-Dingle and Jason Harmon as well as a dozen senior staff members from throughout the department.
 
 The politicians and education officials both praised the students’ effective lobbying on behalf of the Commack School District with respect to policy and funding requests.
 
 “We love the fact you’re becoming young advocates,” Assemblyman Brown told the students. “It keeps our finger on the pulse.”
 
 Said Harmon, the Education Department’s P-12 operational support deputy commissioner: “This is critical for our work being able to hear from all of you.”
 
 The students’ presentations focused on six general topics: school funding, environmental sustainability, safety, mental health, local governance and technology.
 
 The specific proposals included requesting funding for a wellness room for mental health breaks, the expansion of security badges to younger students in the district to improve safety, and assistance developing educational opportunities at the six-acre farm that had been bequeathed to the district. The students also advocated for increased practical learning opportunities such as state-sponsored financial literacy coursework and the freedom to do internships as part of the academic coursework.
 
 Students from the district annually have traveled to Albany for nearly a decade to meet their representatives as well as Education Department officials. In fact, current social studies teacher Crystal Curcio — one of the chaperones for Tuesday’s trip — had visited Albany as a CHS student leader several years ago.
 
 The officials clearly listened. Johnson-Dingle and Harmon took copious notes and pledged to stay in touch with the students to get further feedback as the state looks to reexamine how students experience school.

CHS' Future Business Leaders of America hosted its annual Spring Fun Day on Saturday afternoon. Children in kindergarten through fifth grade participated in carnival-type games and Bingo. The Easter Bunny even made an appearance.

Commack students scored big in the annual Reflections contest sponsored by the New York State PTA.
 
 Six students from the district won state-wide awards for their “I Am Hopeful Because … ” submissions. The entries came in forms including literature, music composition and photography.
 
 The district’s state-wide winners: CHS’ Bianca Awerman and Alessandra DeStefano, Burr’s Max Niebling and Ryan Scarola and Sawmill’s Benjamin Lopes and Mylo Trinagel.
 
 Ryan Scarola and Benjamin Lopes’ submissions will advance to the national competition. Commack will have two of only 30 New York State entries.
 
 (Pictured: award-winning rainbow photo submitted by Max Niebling)

Commack High School welcomed representatives from 150 colleges and universities as well as professionals in assorted fields, military academy reps and local businesses to its annual College and Career Fair on Wednesday night.

 The event is particularly special not just because of the volume of higher education institutions that attend, but also because of the alums and Commack residents who come to answer questions about their careers.

 Wednesday's fair was welcome to all Commack students and staff members and their families.

 Neighboring districts also send their students with special needs to Commack's event because a wide range of transition agencies, such as New York State's ACCES-VR, have booths at the event.

 Among the local officials who attended were representatives of the sixth-month-old Commack Chamber of Commerce.

 The wide range of professionals discussing career paths included the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and the Suffolk County Department of Civil Service.

With your help, our life skills students have collected and processed over $20,000 in coupons for our troops so far this school year. Please send in your manufacturers coupons to support this important and very helpful program. Only "Manufacturer's Coupons" can be used. They can be from the newspaper, dispensers in grocery stores, tear-pads, and elsewhere if they state "Manufacturers Coupons" on them. No assistance vouchers, no food stamps, no store coupons, no restaurant coupons, or internet coupons. The coupons can be expired but within two months of expiring.

Coupons can be dropped off in 145 or can be placed in Ms. Eisner's mailbox. Thank you for your ongoing support!  

CHS students in the Garden Club, led by Ryan McGrath, spent the mid-afternoon on Tuesday preparing a field at Marion Carll Farm for planting using rakes and shovels.
 
 The district's third graders soon will use the field to grow mammoth cabbage as part of the Bonnie Plants Cabbage Program.
 
 The younger students will compete with students at other schools to grow the largest cabbage while learning at an early age how to grow healthy food and to value the fun and hard work that goes into gardening.

Students will soon graduate from Commack High School with an essential understanding of real-world financial topics, including investing for retirement and the perils of credit card debt.

 

Superintendent Dr. Jordan Cox unveiled plans during Thursday night’s Board of Education meeting for an innovative partnership with Bloomberg that will include the conversion of existing space at the high school into a finance lab resembling the New York Stock Exchange trading floor — down to a stock ticker streaming across the walls.

 

Beginning with the Class of 2025, all seniors will be required to take a financial literacy course in the finance lab utilizing Bloomberg terminals that will be embedded into their social studies coursework.

 

The high school's staff is beginning to train on state-of-the-art Bloomberg terminals that will be installed in the school's soon-to-debut replica trading floor. The terminals are the same technology used at real-world financial institutions and contain modules for teaching subjects ranging from financial fundamentals to complex topics such as market concepts.

 

Other financial literacy topics students will learn include college loans, mortgages and checking, savings and investment accounts.

 

"This is so critically important," Cox said. "It is our vision to ensure that every senior who graduates from Commack is financially literate, and that they understand how money works in the world and how they run their lives financially."

 

The district has started its search for a financial literacy teacher.

 

Commack High School is transforming the traditional educational experience with real-life spaces, such as a mock courtroom that debuted this past September.
 
 The stock floor, courtroom and associated curriculum are part of a larger plan by Dr. Cox and the Board of Education to expose students to career pathways while still in high school.

 

"Students are empowered to make meaning of their learning by engaging in relevant coursework and applying their knowledge to real-world experiences," Cox said.

 

During Thursday night's board meeting, Dr. Cox announced that the district plans to implement specialized schools within Commack High School, including schools of Business, Education, Engineering and Applied Sciences, Fine Arts, Liberal Studies, Medicine and, in the near future, a School of Law. The schools are set to begin for the 2025-26 schoolyear.

 

Students will be presented with clusters of elective courses that will begin to prepare them for careers in those fields.

 

No specific courses will be mandated within a particular school. A student may take as many or as few of the elective courses as they want — while also receiving the benefits of invitations to attend presentations from guest speakers in that field, college admissions advisors and other programming.

 

Students may freely sample courses from other schools within Commack High School.

 

The School of Liberal Studies is intended to expose students to a wide range of courses and professions.

 

"This is an opportunity to ensure that all students graduate prepared to make the best decision for their college and/or career journey,” Cox said.

 

The PGA has taken notice of Commack High School senior Ian Fenster's amazing story of perseverance. Fenster was paralyzed from the neck down from December to March of his junior year due to Guillain Barre Syndrome. All the while, Fenster maintained his academics, and he returned to the CHS golf team this academic year. The PGA invited Fenster to meet favorite golfer Will Zalatoris at THE PLAYERS Championship in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. Read the full story here.