On February 4th, 2016, the CHAH Girl's Basketball Team said goodbye to nine senior players. Mirtha Santos, Mildiana Batista, Tiara Rivera, Diana Del Monte, Naydelin Veras, Nicole Paredes, Ashley Garcia, Jaylene Valenzuela and Karil Guerrero participated on the girls Varsity Basketball team this year.
Good luck, girls! Thank you very much for your participation, support, and enthusiasm over the years. You will be sorely missed!
The CHAH Boys Basketball Team made their annual trip to Syracuse this past weekend, January 22-24.
On the trip, the boys saw Syracuse University, went to Destiny USA and played a basketball game against the state ranked Westhill Warriors.
The players were graciously hosted by Westhill community members and at the homes of several Westhill players.
As always, everyone handled themselves with grace and respect and were lauded for both their basketball skill and behavior.
We all look forward to next year's trip!
January 27th was Senior night for the CHAH Boys Basketball Team. CHAH's four seniors, Chris Tejada, Erick Valdez, Jorge Pereya and Derick Geronimo were honored for their achievements on and off the court.
This group of seniors have led the team to a third consecutive play-off appearance and have handled themselves with class throughout their entire career.
The parents of the four boys were very proud and happy to be able to watch them play. The family members were honored with flowers and hugs from the players.
The underclassmen and coaching staff are grateful for their leadership!
11th and 12th graders attended an 8-week program with Columbia University's Urban Studies graduate workshop.
The Urban Studies Workshop engages students with a studio-based approach to the issues and discourse of the contemporary city by exploring a variety of conceptual, analytical and design tools for understanding and operating within urban contexts through focused individual or collective research and design projects.
Basically, CHAH students studied ways in which public spaces in New York City could be opened up to foster community gathering and engagement.
Britney Quezada, an 11th grader in the program, said "We were paired up with graduate students and made a video about Inwood Hill Park and how we could potentially remove some parking lot space and put a greenhouse in. Or hold some after-school activity in the parking lot in the short term."
She added, "Now when I walk around my city, I think about ways it could be improved. I'm trying to raise our village up here in Washington Heights!"
This year the Urban Studies workshop focused on Inwood, and came up with policy and urban design suggestions on how to improve the area, based on things like improving health, or increasing accessibility to the waterfront, or increasing available jobs in the area. Our students met with the graduate students from Columbia, most of whom were international students, and our students gave their thoughts, critiques and suggestions on the policies and designs the grad students were creating. Our students then helped film in certain sections of inwood to add to the grad students presentations. Finally, our students went to Columbia university this past Friday to see the final presentations and give their final thoughts.
This past weekend, many of our 7th and 8th grade students got to watch “The Hip Hop Nutcraker” at United Palace Theatre here in Washington Heights.
A student who attended, Linet Mercedes, was pleasantly surprised. She said "You'd think that going to school on a Saturday would be dreadful. To be completely honest it completely is, but this trip was fun. We watched as "The Nutcracker" was portrayed in a modern version. Actors danced to classic music, and instruments such as the piano and violin. The play itself was fascinating, and it was as if the 20th century merged with this era. The play completely changed my perspective on "The Nutcracker".
The show is a contemporary take on the popular ballet The Nutcraker. Eighth grader Yhara Ozuna said, "To be honest, showing up to school at 12:45 seemed to be the worst thing that could ever happen. That is, until I found out that it was one of the best Saturdays of my life. The Hip-Hop Nutcracker has to be one of the best performance I've ever seen. It mixed the typical Nutcracker with one of the most common genre of music in this generation. The least that could be said is that "The Hip-Hop Nutcraker" should be seen by everyone. I'm so glad to have had this opportunity"
Students were chaperoned by their teachers, Ms. Lazala, Ms. Mayberry, and Ms. Werner. Everyone had a wonderful time at this cultural event in the community!
