Eighty-one South High School students were recently recognized by the Great Neck Public Schools Board of Education for contributing to the quality of life at their school.
Student honorees, in alphabetical order, are: Kareem Allen-Austin, Sara Bedoya, Jacob Blancher, Daniella Brancato, Heather Cai, David Carbone, Theodore Chang, Rena Chen, Ryan Chen, Christina Chung, Annabel Cohen, Ryan Concha, Annie Dai, Valerie Deligiannis, Derek Delson, Maggie DeMartin, Alexander Dembner, Paolo DePaulis, Paden Dvoor, Grace Yao Fang, Brett Figelman, Reid Fleishman, Michelle Foo, Katie-Ann Fu, Josselyn Fuentes, Scott Goodman, Samantha Grenard, Andersen Gu, Kelly Herrera, Kristin Hon, Xuan Hong, Alyssa Hui, Kiele Hwee, Sara Jhong, Ethan Jiang, Sebastian Kaczor, Hannah Kareff, Mona Kim, Nicholas Langel, Andy Lee, Joyce Lee, Joyce Lee, Katelyn Lee, Christopher Lei, Jolie Lenga, Allison Liman, Jay Lin, Stefan Lungu, Gloria Moon, Julia Motchkavitz, Alexander Mustakis, Luqing Ni, Joyce Omolayo, Politimi Papadoniou, Shin Young Park, Hannah Pei, Patrick Rau, Maggie Roach, Benjamin Rossen, Rachel Sakol, Ballonet Sanguinetti, Dylan Schmid, Cecelia Schnall, Miriam Shamash, Sarah Shamash, Noah Sheidlower, Shehreen Siddiqui, Cole Someck, Jiang Jiang Song, YiHe Tang, Lorna Wade, Jennifer Wang, Trinity Wang, James Weng, Sophie Williams, Ethan Wu, Jenny Ye, Ashley Yu, Ann Zhang, Sherman Zheng, and Erick Zizic.
Honorees are photographed with Board of Education President Barbara Berkowitz, Vice President Donald Ashkenase, and Trustees Donna Peirez, Rebecca Sassouni, and Jeffrey Shi; Superintendent of Schools Teresa Prendergast and Assistant Superintendent Stephen Lando, South High School Principal Christopher Gitz, and Assistant Principals Sharon Applebaum and John Duggan.
Are all the 81 students in special education classes? I don’t think that’s really an achievement considering these students are the ones likely to opt out of tests when they were in elementary and middle school. What’s even more pathetic is that they will earn high school diplomas for not passing the regents exams! But it all comes back to haunt them when they go to college and have to take remedial classes. And then they realize how stupid they really were in school.