Rye High School (Rye, New York)

History

The school is accredited by the New York State Department of Education and the Middle States Association. The school is ranked the 96th best high school in the U.S according to Newsweeks Ranking of the top 500 high schools in the US as of 2015.

Due to the abundance of garnets discovered during construction of the school, the precious gem became the adopted mascot.

Campus

The High School itself was built during the great depression, as part of a public works project aimed to giving people work. Rye High School is designed in the style of Gothic architecture, constructed with dark stones, small recessed windows, and sloping roofs.

Recently, there has been a 17 million dollar initiative to modernize the school by constructing an entirely new science wing adjacent to the auxiliary gym on the north end of the campus. The new building will contain twelve labs, workrooms, and numerous new facilities, among other things. The project is slated to be complete in 2015,.

As for now, the construction is causing a large amount of headaches between the students and the faculty, as they now have to fight for parking spaces because most of the available parking has been overtaken by the construction. To alleviate this problem, the high school has constructed a faculty parking lot off of campus, next to the main road that runs through the city of Rye.

The high amount of dust and debris caused by the construction is also beginning to raise health concerns regarding the air quality around the school, as well as whether students with health problems should be in school while construction goes on.

The campus hosts a football stadium with an outdoor track and spots for field evens to be conducted, a baseball/softball field, practice fields for various sports (including lacrosse, soccer, field hockey and cross country), a small brook separating the field from the rest of the school, parking lots, lots of grass, and a few trees.

Curriculum

A graduation requirement of 60 hours of community service was implemented in 1989.

Though not a curricular requirement, as much as 89 percent of the student body will participate in Advanced Placement (AP) courses. During the month of May, the school will essentially shut down while AP's are administered to students, and afterwards, students will receive a five-day break from classes for their efforts. Unlike many other high schools, AP World and AP European History is offered to people in the tenth grade, as opposed to being offered in the eleventh grade. This distinction allows students to essentially "try out" AP courses so they may see how they fare with the harsh workload.

At graduation, many students will have taken at least one Advanced Placement course, with some students taking in upwards of fifteen of these courses.

In addition, several honors courses and one college credit class are offered to students who wish to challenge themselves academically.

Extracurricular activities

The school hosts a multitude of extracurricular activities, including but not limited to: Gender Equality Club, adopt a grandfriend, entrepreneur club, jazz band, pep band, weight lifting club, Zephyr art and literary magazine, Junior States of America and the LGBTQ club, among many others. (Note: This is not intended to be a complete list of clubs at the School, but rather, a partial list of clubs that gives a general idea of the activities that students participate in)

Athletics

Rye High School fields teams in baseball, softball, basketball, cheerleading, cross country, crew, field hockey, football, rugby, golf, gymnastics, ice hockey, lacrosse, soccer, swimming, tennis, track and field, volleyball, and wrestling. The football team has won 3 state championships including 2 in a row (2007, 2008), and the basketball team won its league with a 17–6 record in 2009 and went to the Westchester County Center.

The annual Rye-Harrison football game has been played for eighty-three years and is a top rivalry in Westchester County. The Rye High School team has defeated Harrison for a record nine consecutive games, until they broke the streak in 2012, losing 21–0. This year, Rye won 42-12.With that victory, the all-time series is tied with a record of 42-42-3. The game is an extremely popular event in town, drawing thousands of spectators. Along with the football and cheerleading teams will be the school's bands. Generally the Harrison High School band is more marching oriented, with their halftime show consisting of a very tightly choreographed marching number. Rye High School chooses to be slightly unorthodox in their choice of performing. Instead of having a stereotypical marching band uniform, the band is outfitted in dark black T-shirts with the word "BAND" written in all capitals in red with a white outline. The band will generally play in the stands for the entire game, with third quarter off. For their halftime show, a smaller group of students will perform three songs, always ending with "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd. The solo in the song is generally played by the senior (or most experienced) guitar player in the group.

In general, if and when Rye wins their game, they will go into the brook that runs adjacent to the school (dubbed by natives as "Blind Brook") and splash around to celebrate.

Hazing

Rye High School students have an underground tradition, well known by students and alumni, known as "Freshman Friday." In mid-2012, three Rye High School students were charged with kidnapping three freshmen, taking them to a remote location and hazing them, with one student requiring hospital treatment. The school repeatedly denied any knowledge of the event, despite the fact that many teachers interviewed about the incident did admit that they had knowledge of the event well before the proceedings occurred. After several adjournments, in October 2012 the felony assault charges against the three students were reduced to misdemeanor counts of hazing and unlawful imprisonment, with subsequent proceedings closed.

Notable alumni