James E. Allen—1977/78

This page was last updated on June 28, 2003.

 

Winds of change were blowing at James E. Allen during the 1977/78 school year. Here are highlights from JEA-Dix Hills during the 1977/78 school year:

• James E. Allen-Dix Hills' Junior High level program, which included only thirteen-year-olds (8th grade) from 1975 to 1977, was expanded to include twelve-year-olds (7th grade) and fourteen-year-olds (9th grade).
• The 300s Intermediate Cluster's "Cluster Buster" literary and newspaper was discontinued and merged with the 600s Intermediate Cluster's "Cluster Happenings." (This seemed to make sense, especially since the two Intermediate Clusters’ lunch periods were merged that year.)
• Hearing-impaired students were taken out of JEA-Dix Hills.
• JEA-Dix Hills got a new assistant principal in charge of the Primary and 300s Intermediate Clusters. Mrs. Josephine Viaggio retired and was replaced on Dec. 1, 1977 by Mr. George Bouklas.
•   Because there were fewer high school-aged students at JEA than in past years, Primary and Intermediate level classes started filling classrooms in the 400s (Secondary) Cluster (i.e. the Primary class of Mr. Mercado and the Intermediate Contained classes of Mr. Dotson and Mrs. Shotwell).
• The JEA-Dix Hills Parent Teacher Association began a Creative Arts Workshop program covering sports, music (including guitar lessons), art, and cooking. Several high school level students served as aides who assisted the Primary and Intermediate students. Supervising the program was PTA President Mrs. June Minor.
• JEA also conducted a "Smile for BOCES" dental health poster contest.
•  A couple Intermediate and Junior High level classes took part in SCOPE-sponsored bi-weekly field trips to the Connetquot River State Park to learn more about the environment of Long Island.
•  Also, Mr. Nelson’s Junior High level classes had weekly skateboarding trips.
• New to JEA-Dix Hills' junior high school level program was a course called "Family Living," which dealt with personal hygiene, family relationships, and sex education.  The teachers for that program were Mr. Frascino (boys) and Mrs. Rostin (girls).
•  Student government-sponsored Great Adventure field trip is described below.

 

One of the things I enjoyed most about my final year at JEA—Dix Hills was the field trip to Great Adventure.  (BTW, the web address for Six Flags Great Adventure is www.sixflags.com/greatadventure.) Actually, there were two Great Adventure field trips: the rain-aborted trip on Wednesday, May 24, and the make-up trip on Thursday, June 1.

 

Obviously, I enjoyed the June 1^st make-up trip more since it was a beautiful, sunny day.  In addition to riding the log flume and enjoying other attractions, I also met a very tall blonde named Diane, who was there with two girlfriends.  Diane, who was about 6 feet 3 inches tall and between the ages of 17 and 24, was wearing a blue and white tank top and white Smith’s painters’ pants.

 

Finally, I attended JEA-Dix Hills’ senior graduation ceremony on Friday, June 16, 1978.  Click here to read about it.

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