Unfair Depiction Of North Shore

The Jewish Week’s article “Day School World Gauging Fallout from SAT Scandal” (Dec. 2) is misleading, and it abandons the American principle of “innocent until proven guilty.”

The North Shore Hebrew Academy High School prides itself on honest achievement. Consistently at the forefront of Torah learning, chesed and academic success, the students of North Shore compete and achieve in the spirit of self-motivation and integrity.

The alleged mistake of a minute few is no warrant to demean the character of an entire student body and to implicitly purport that the culture of the school condones, or does not do enough to combat, intellectual property theft. The value of honesty is both preached and lived by the administration, the faculty, and the student body through continual interdisciplinary programs, class discussions, and personal relationships. It is also important to understand that none of the impropriety in question took place in our school.

The mounting of our entire school as an effigy and scapegoat by The Jewish Week and other institutions is an insult to all of the 400 plus students at NSHAHS who truly embody Jewish values. Among these students are research competition winners, Torah Bowl champions, community activists and overall upstanding young men and women, who have been inappropriately and unfairly slandered by the mainstream media and this article.

The article portrays the mission statement of our school as hollow words, but to anyone familiar with the students and teachers at our high school this is acutely untrue. We encourage everyone to come see for himself what our school is all about.

Students of North Shore Hebrew Academy High School

Editor’s Note: Our article noted, factually, that two North Shore Hebrew Academy students and a graduate have been charged in the SAT scandal. The article also quoted a statement from the headmaster and from the school’s mission statement. There were no negative comments made about the school, its faculty or students.