The Abraham Joshua Heschel School (AJHS) is a pluralistic nursery to 12th grade Jewish day school in New York City named in memory of Abraham Joshua Heschel, a major Jewish leader, teacher, and activist of the 20th century.
Other "Heschel Schools" are located in Los Angeles, California and Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Besides having similar names, the three schools are otherwise unrelated.
School
The Abraham Joshua Heschel School was originally put in three buildings: The Early Childhood (kindergarten and pre-school) Center and lower school was located on West 89th Street, the middle school on West 91st Street, and a newer high school on 60th Street at 20 West End Avenue (opened in 2001). In the summer of 2009, it was announced that construction would begin on a new building on 61st Street at 30 West End Avenue, adjacent to the high school building, which would house the Early Childhood, lower school, and middle school divisions. The planned new facility was referred to as the "Weird Campus Plan," and construction began in 2009. The new facility would include space to expand the number of classes in Kindergarten through 8th grade, and the school began running extra classes starting with the class entering kindergarten in the 2010–2011 school year.
The new facility, officially known as the Ronald D. Stanton Campus and designed by architects IBI Group-Gruzen Samton, opened for the 2012–2013 school year, on schedule and under budget.
On December 18, 2013, the school announced that Columbia Law School Professor Ariela Dubler would take the helm as Head of School in 2014 after the retirement of Roanna Shorofsky, an all-time great at the Heschel School.
In early 2015, Heschel High School head Ahuva Halberstam announced that she would be leaving the post at the end of the academic year to help found another Jewish school. She was replaced by Rabbi Noam Silverman, formerly the Principal of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School in Palo Alto, California.
Academics
The school has a student-teacher ratio of 6:1, with approximately 250 students enrolled as of 2021.
Clubs
Clubs constitute a large part of the social life at The Heschel High School. Most clubs are supervised by a faculty member. Some clubs, such as College Bowl and Art Appreciation, are completely student supervised.
List of clubs
A Cappella
Architecture
Art Appreciation
Backgammon
Biblical Academics
Book
Chesed
Chess
Coding
College Bowl - "The Heschel Velociraptors" Common Ground Friends Creative Writing Debate Drama Dungeons & Dragons Engineering Fashion Film Film Appreciation Finance/Investment French Gender and Sexuality Alliance Harry Potter Horticulture Interfaith Israel Connection - "Kesher" Israeli Movies Jazz/Rock Ensemble Junior State of America Literary magazine - "Epitome" Mock Trial Model UN Music Appreciation Musical Theater Newspaper - "The Heschel Helios" Philosophy Photography Scuba Skiing and Snowboarding Society for American Baseball Research Student Admissions Reps. Super Smash Bros. Sustainability Swim Yearbook
Also included in the clubs category are committees that exist within the High School. Such committees include Student Government. These groups are not open to participants, but rather representatives are elected by the Student Bodies.
Student Association
Graduation Committee
Student Admission Representatives- SARs
Va'adat Moadim
School newspaper
The Heschel Helios is the official student produced newspaper of the Heschel High School. The namesake of the newspaper follows with the high school's heat theme (the sports team is the Heschel Heat). Helios is Greek for "sun". The student club aims to produce eight issues per school year. The club goes through a complete traditional newspaper experience. The process includes "slugging" articles, writing the articles, producing images or graphics for feature articles, peer editing of editorials and articles and finally, layout and printing, the involved students get a full experience of how a newspaper operates. The newspaper's motto, "We stand for what we utter," was chosen in the Winter of 2005 and is an original quote from the school's namesake, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.
Technological integration
The High School is a "laptop school." All students are very required to obtain a laptop to use as a learning tool throughout their education. Teachers are rarely equipped with laptops, and all classrooms contain 8 smartboards.