HAFTR Highlights: Spring sports, Pesach prep

As three quarters of the school year has past and students gear up for Advanced Placement exams and finals, pressure to succeed has become even more apparent.

Although the end of the academic year is in sight, there are still so many goals to be accomplished. With a change in season, the spring sports, including softball, soccer, volleyball, and tennis, have commenced tryouts as well as competitive matches against other high schools.

The soccer team has already defeated the Rambam Mesivta soccer team by a score of eight goals to six. HAFTR’s academic teams have also been very successful. The Junior Varsity college bowl team qualified for the wild card position in the playoffs with an admirable record of 8 wins and 2 losses.

With the onset of spring, Pesach is right around the corner, and HAFTR’s Judaic Studies classes have shifted gears to focus on the halachot of the holiday. Classes have begun to learn halachot pertaining to Pesach in the Shulchan Aruch, the Mishna Berura, as well as Masechet Pesachim.

A large group of HAFTR students are attending Model Congress at the University of Pennsylvania this weekend. Another important event for many of HAFTR’s students is the Science, Math, and Engineering Fair, which is hosted and judged by the science department.

Over 60 students prepared for months through experimentation and observation on topics ranging from the efficiency of fuel in certain conditions to psychological characteristics of righties and lefties.

Other amazing topics researched by our students included the possibility of using magnets to separate ions from seawater. The projects were judged by HAFTR’s science teachers as well as alumni and several of our seniors who conducted science research last summer.

As academics become more challenging as the year progresses, HAFTR students still find the time and recognize the importance of chessed.

On May 2, a joint HAFTR-Five Towns youth group basketball tournament will be held to raise funds for the youth group. Students from HAFTR and students from other schools in the Five Towns area will participate.