BY JENNIFER KOHLHEPP
Staff Writer
Sometime in the future SciCore students may look back upon this time as their alma mater’s big bang.
Founded in 2002, the SciCore Academy for Science and the Humanities is a private middle and high school for students in grades six through 12. Students from throughout the area, including Millstone Township, Upper Freehold Township, Allentown, Jackson and Manalapan, make up the student body at the facility in downtown Hightstown.
According to Arthur T. Poulos, of Upper Freehold, who is one of the founders of the academy and who teaches pre-algebra, logic and debate and chemistry at the school, the academy started with about a dozen students. In the fall, the school expects a student enrollment of about 90.
Because the school is dedicated to academic excellence within a college preparatory curriculum, Poulos said SciCore aims to keep its class sizes at an average of 16 students per class. Since it has quickly outgrown its Hightstown facilities, the school is in the midst of moving to a new location just a few miles away.
PHOTOSBY JENNIFER KOHLHEPP Clockwise from top- Matthew Varela, 17, of Millstone Township, and his lab partner make the liquid in a beaker glow with a black light in the lab of SciCore Academy in Hightstown. Arthur Poulos, founder of and teacher at SciCore Academy, sets up a science experiment. Sarah Livingston, 17, of Jackson, demonstrates what kind of problems she has been working to solve this year. SciCore will double its floor space when it opens its new facilities at 410 Princeton-Hightstown Road, according to Poulos. The new building will offer approximately 11,000 square feet of classroom and laboratory space, including an industrial design, computer and physical education facility.
According to Poulos, the school’s educational philosophy continues to be one of promoting the intellectual growth of students through an academically challenging curriculum in the sciences and the humanities, and to encourage a positive attitude toward learning that will last a lifetime.
SciCore’s core curriculum content standards are designed to ensure that students are well educated in a traditional sense so that they have the knowledge needed to function in society, communicate intelligently, and be fully prepared for the next level of education.
“Students should also acquire in-depth knowledge of the most important achievements of both modern and ancient civilizations,” Poulos said. “We strive to produce genuinely well-educated students by exposing them to the best that the great minds have discovered or produced.”
In nearly all courses, students are given assignments that exercise their writing and speaking skills, Poulos said.
Faculty are experts in their subject matter, and are drawn from schools, corporations, government, and nonprofits, according to Poulos. One of the most important aspects of the staff, Poulos said, is that all of the teachers have experience in the field they teach.
Christina Varela, 15, and her brother, Matthew, 17, of Millstone, are members of the first SciCore class.
Christina said she wants to be a doctor, either a veterinarian or an obstetrician-gynecologist. She said SciCore offers classes that put her on the right path toward both goals.
“SciCore offers classes like anatomy, earth science, chemistry physics, biology and biotechnology,” Christina said.
Matthew said SciCore helped him better focus an a career path.
“I planned to be an engineer, but then I took a physics class here and decided that it’s not for me,” Matthew said. “I now want to be a doctor.”
Christina said SciCore students use college-level textbooks and that overall the teachers at the academy cover every subject more in depth than other schools might.
Matthew added, “Here we actually get a chance to do experiments and dissect pigs. There are more hands-on opportunities here.”
Cooper Walsh, 13, is attending SciCore for the second year. He said he enjoys the small environment.
“Here, if I need help I get individual attention right away,’ Walsh said. “I don’t feel scared to ask my teachers to explain something to make it simpler for me to understand.”
Walsh said the student body is like a family.
“The middle school students interact with the high school students,” Walsh said. “So if I need help I can ask someone in another grade to help me.”
His mother, Debbie, said she likes SciCore’s learning environment.
“I think students learn more in a smaller class environment,” Walsh said. “I think it’s easier for teachers and students to communicate and lessons can be more hands on.”
Prior to attending SciCore, Walsh said her son “was weak in English.”
“His strong point was always math,” she said. “However, just being here for two years has helped him improve in English tremendously.”
Cooper has now excelled in some English lessons. His teacher recently submitted a poem he wrote for publication.
Walsh said the Pouloses have created a friendly atmosphere at the school.
“I feel like I can always come in and talk to them or call, even about the little things, and they will always have something to tell me because they are familiar with what’s happening with Cooper,” Walsh said.
Walsh said he particularly likes that SciCore offers computer programming.
“They’re not just using a mouse in the computer programming class,” Pools said. “They are actually learning the language of computers.”
Samantha Hayton, 17, of Jackson, said she decided to attend SciCore because she is currently working as a model.
“I model, and here they work with you and not against you in terms of scheduling and general understanding,” Hayton said. “I came here to get a better education.”
Maggie Mann, 11, a sixth-grader at the academy, used to attend public schools in East Windsor. She prefers SciCore because in public school she “didn’t experience subjects in depth.”
Mann said in her former school, teachers didn’t have the means or the time to provide all their students with individual attention.
“Here students are all treated like individuals,” Mann said. “If you need more help, you get it. If you know a little more, you advance to the next level.”
Mann aspires to become a microbiologist.
Although she does not take the same type of gym classes she used to in public school, Mann takes karate in SciCore.
“I like karate because you can use the skills you learn when you get older,” Mann said. “Karate also teaches you how to stay focused.”
SciCore does not offer after-school athletics, but during the school day students take karate or run during their activity class.
Mann said she also gets to take speech classes at SciCore, which she would not have taken in public school.
“The teachers here want all students’ speech up to date,” Mann said. “We focus on public speaking mostly and we learn a lot of different famous speeches, so when we are talking in public we can cross-reference the speeches and incorporate lines from them into what we are saying.”
The Valeras said SciCore also offers Latin, Greek as well as some of the same extracurricular activities that a public school does.
Tuition is approximately $6,700 per year. For further details, contact Poulos at (609) 426-8900.