High School

Eastern Christian Expands College Credit Programs

Eastern Christian High School has announced the expansion of its roster of dual college enrollment partnerships to include the King's College in New York City. The King's College joins Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI and Seton Hall University in South Orange, NJ in partnering with Eastern Christian High School to provide courses which qualify for both high school and college credit. Under the partnerships, participating Eastern Christian students can graduate with as many as 22 completed college credits in disciplines as diverse as writing, history, physics, biology, calculus, Latin and economics. The college credits earned by Eastern Christian students are transferable to most other US colleges, allowing Eastern Christian graduates to complete their college degree requirements in significantly less time.

Eastern Christian's dual enrollment program began with Seton Hall University's Project Acceleration in 2005. Under this program, carefully selected Eastern Christian faculty members possessing specified academic credentials, including a masters degree within their field of study, are appointed adjunct instructors at Seton Hall. Students completing selected upper level courses approved by Seton Hall and taught by these instructors are eligible for credit toward both their Eastern Christian diplomas and a Seton Hall transcript.

During the current academic year, Eastern Christian expanded its partnerships to include Calvin College and the King's College, two leading Christian liberal arts colleges. The courses offered in conjunction with Calvin and King's are taught in a distance learning format by members of the colleges' faculties. Eastern Christian High School recently completed a major renovation of its N.H. Beversluis Media Center in order to fully support distance learning initiatives of this type.

Eastern Christian School Association was founded in 1892 and operates a high school in North Haledon, a middle school in Wyckoff and an elementary and preschool in Midland Park. The three schools serve 740 students from communities throughout northern New Jersey and southern New York. Information about the school, including its cutting edge technology, extensive college credit programs, and innovative extended learning options can be found at www.easternchristian.org or by calling 973-427-6244.

High School Media Center Update

While the students and faculty were enjoying their summer break, work began in earnest on the planned renovation project of the High School Media Center. All of the furniture and accessory equipment was removed and the task of taking up the old floor covering began. After weeks of scraping and preparing the original floor to meet the specifications of the new carpeting and entry way tile, the entire floor area was covered with high quality commercial grade floor covering.

New furniture has been ordered and will be in place before the beginning of the new school year as will several new pieces of state of the art technology such as MacBooks and Chromebooks to augment what was on hand from previous years.

We are grateful to the parents and alumni donors who made this all possible without adding any expense to the Association budget for this improvement.

Opportunity will be given to visit the refreshed Media Center as soon as school begins in September.

(Photo taken the week of August 13th)

Senior Awards

Each year, faculty members choose students to receive department awards for outstanding effort in various areas of their education.  Below is a list of this year's awards and award recipients. Congratulations to those who won awards and to the Class of 2012 on their graduation! 

HIGH SCHOOL DEPARTMENT AWARDS

ART DEPARTMENT AWARD – Joon Hee Han and Ashley Scott

BUSINESS DEPARTMENT AWARD – Luke Everson

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT EXCELLENCE IN WRITING AWARD – Cassie Chambers

EASTERN CHRISTIAN SCHOLASTIC WRITING AWARD – Natalie Rhoads

DRAMA AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN LIGHTING AND SOUND – Nick Onove

JOURNALISM AWARD – Heather Van Lenten

TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT AWARD – Nick Onove

FRENCH LANGUAGE AWARD – Natalie Rhoads

SPANISH LANGUAGE AWARD – Jake Shotmeyer

MATHEMATICS AWARD – Natalie Rhoads & Ameer Halim

MUSIC DEPARTMENT AWARDS

John Philip Sousa Award (Band Award) – Elizabeth Mulcock

Choral Award – Tania Avila and Josh Davidson

Overall Musical Achievement – "Arion Award" – Diana Kleinmanns

CLASS OF 2012 ATHLETIC AWARDS

New Jersey National Girls and Women in Sports Day - Morgan De Marco

NJSIAA Scholar/Athlete Award - Luke Everson

Passaic County Coaches Association Senior Scholar Athlete

Female Kristen Traub

Male Jacob Shotmeyer

Athletic Department Varsity Club Award

Female Kristen Traub

Male Jacob Shotmeyer

North Jersey Interscholastic Sportsmanship Award

Female Kristen Traub

Male Jacob Shotmeyer

Athletic Department Iron Eagle Award

Kristen Traub

Morgan De Marco

MSG Varsity Scholarship -Michelle Van Lenten

Paterson Old Timers' Athletic Association - Kristen Traub

ECHS Service Day

by Sarah Bruinooge - EC Times

On Friday, May 18, the high school held an all-school Service Day. Altogether, there were 19 different service projects that reached out in the community. Some of these groups stayed at the school, while most went out to various surrounding towns. Students signed up for the project of their choice.

Some groups went through Prospect Park and Goffle Brook Park picking up trash, others helped the EC elementary school students with their annual Field Day. There were students that helped landscape the front of school, and others that went to New York City with the Relief Bus that served food to people on the streets. One group went to the Memorial Elementary School in North Haledon to read to and play with the kids. Junior Vanessa Veenstra said that she loved it so much that, "it solidified my decision to be an elementary school teacher!"

The new student-led service organization Generation Hope helped the 5th grade students with their Habitat for Humanity project in Paterson. They received a lot of insight in witnessing the personal lives of the residents there. "It was a great learning experience and it put into perspective the things that we take for granted such as having a nice lawn," said junior, Tom Lacy.

Every group did something unique to reach out to others. At the end of the day, the students came back to participate in a chapel service, where every group had the opportunity to share what they did. It was easy to tell by the smiles on the students faces that everyone had a good day. Students said they were proud to be witnesses for Eastern Christian and to put their faith into action.