Haynes Academy

History

Haynes Academy for Advanced Studies was established in 1909 by the Jefferson Parish School Board and named Metairie Ridge School. By 1912, the wood-framed, one-room schoolhouse had grown to an enrollment of 54. By 1929, grades 1 through 12 had been established and the school was renamed Metairie High School. After East Jefferson High opened in 1955, it was converted to a junior high school and Vernon C. Haynes became the principal.

During the 1968–69 school year, the two-story school building, which had been used for 44 years, was torn down and replaced with the present single-story building. In 1969, it became Metairie Middle School.

On November 22, 1974, the school’s name was once again changed to the Vernon C. Haynes Middle School in honor of the former principal.

Haynes Middle School became Haynes Middle School for Advanced People in October 2004, and then became Haynes Academy for Advanced Studies in May 2006 after adding one high school grade each year. The class of 2010 was the first class to graduate from Haynes Academy for Advanced Studies.

Though the school’s name has changed many times throughout the years, the mascot has stayed the same. The Haynes Academy for Advanced Studies’ mascot is the Yellow Jacket.

Academics

Haynes is a Magnet School that focuses on a particular curriculum set up by the state. Magnet Schools emphasize a particular vocation, such as science, the arts, or mechanics. The admissions process is often very competitive.

The application process occurs in three steps: application submission, the screening phase, and the testing phase. Potential students must first submit a general application online, at any school in the district, or at the Jefferson Parish Public School System offices. Each application will be screened by a panel of three central office administrators. Those who meet the screening criteria will move on to the testing phase of the process. Group paper and pencil tests are administered to potential students. Scores will be reported in the district percentile format and students will be admitted based on those scores.

Haynes offers courses in English, Business, History, Math, PE & ROTC, Science, and Social Studies. Every grade in the school ranks higher in English, Math, Science, and Social Studies than the rest of Jefferson Parish Public Schools and schools in Louisiana in general. The Haynes Academy also offers Special Education programs, as do the other Jefferson Parish School District schools.

Arts

The Haynes Academy has programs for band, music, and drama. The performing arts department has put on productions such as The Little Mermaid and competed in the JPPSS Band Festival.

Athletics

The Haynes Academy offers boys football, basketball, baseball, soccer, track, and cross country along with girls soccer, golf, swimming, track, softball, cheerleading, and basketball. Boys Varsity Football was ranked 230th in the state in the 2012–2013 season.

Internet safety programs

The Haynes Academy has multiple programs for promoting Internet safety including NSTeens, Internet Safety Articles, and SafeKids. NSTeens is an interactive, educational program of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. It works to provide age-appropriate resources to help teach children how to be safer online.

SafeKids is one of the oldest sites for Internet safety. The founder and editor, Larry Magid, is the author of the original National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s 1994 brochure, “Child Safety on the Information Highway.” Haynes also provides students with many Internet safety articles about sites like Facebook.

Awards and achievements

In January 2011, January 2012, and January 2013 Haynes Academy won the state “We the People” championship. The “We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution” competition takes the form of simulated congressional hearings where groups of students testify as constitutional experts before panels of judges. The program began in 1987 and, since then, more than 30 million students and 90,000 teachers have participated. Winning the state competition qualified the Haynes Academy to participate in the national finals.

Jordana Williams, a senior at the Haynes Academy at the time, was one of two winners of the 2010 Siemens Award. The Siemens Foundation, administered by the College Board was created to encourage students to participate in the STEM fields.

The U.S. Presidential Scholars Program is based on academic achievements, SAT, and ACT scores. In 2011, two Haynes Academy students, John Campos and Benjamin Bartolome, were selected as candidates for this program. There are about 3,000 academic candidates named and narrowed to 141 winners each year.

Also in 2011, Brittany Salvaggio, a Haynes Academy student, was one of the recipients of the Oschner Medical Center Academic Outreach Awards. She won the Ochsner & Jefferson Dollars for Scholars Scholarship which aims to expand access to educational opportunities for Jefferson Parish Public School students.

In 2012, the Haynes Academy had more students who achieved National Merit Scholar semifinalist recognition than all other public, private, or parochial schools in Jefferson Parish combined. This allowed them to rank 4th in the state in its number of semifinalists, exceeded only by much larger schools.

From 2007–2013, the school was also home to the JT Award for Exceeding in Excellence.