WantaghMiddle School

Wantagh High School’s Class of 2027 is beginning a new and important chapter in September, one that will prepare them for life after high school. Likewise, the Class of 2030 also is beginning a new journey with the start of middle school.

Although they will work across all five buildings, the 22 new teachers who gathered in the Wantagh Middle School library on Aug. 28 will always share a special bond. Their careers in the Wantagh School District began together in 2023.

After finishing up eighth grade, Wantagh Middle School’s newest graduates won’t have to go very far next year for high school. The bus will take them to and from the same street next year, but their experiences will be vastly different.

Eighth graders were measuring, mixing and decorating in Ultimate Chef classes at Wantagh Middle School for the annual Cupcake Wars competition. Students worked in teams to create elaborate displays for the year-end challenge that tests their culinary knowledge from the year.

Three Wantagh students were recognized for their achievement on the National Italian Exam, an annual contest offered by the American Association of Teachers of Italian. Students took the exam in April and results were recently announced.

A significant part of the middle school experience for students is developing social skills and positive relationships with others. Wantagh Middle School’s new recess program aims to do just that.

Fifth graders at Wantagh Elementary School got a glimpse of the future on May 8 when they met with student ambassadors from Wantagh Middle School. As the transition to middle school nears, fifth graders received advice and guidance from those who best know what the student experience is like there.

The word on the street was that if you went to Wantagh Middle School on April 4, you would catch some amazing poems. That was in fact the case as the English department hosted its eighth celebration for National Poetry Month.

A group of Wantagh Middle School students learned a dual lesson about entrepreneurship and community service. They used their profits from running the school store to donate to the John Theissen Children’s Foundation. On March 22, students from the eighth grade Business Management class boarded a bus and made the trip a mile south to Theissen’s headquarters on Wantagh Avenue.

High academic achievement, a positive school climate and a commitment to growth are a few of the reasons why Wantagh Middle School was recently named an Essential Elements School to Watch, an initiative of the National Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform. Following an extensive application process and a two-day site visit by experienced educators, the school was granted the prestigious designation.

Wantagh Middle School students want everyone to have a healthy heart. That’s why they collectively raised more than $9,000 for the American Heart Association in the annual Hoops for Heart competition.

Based on the popular Disney Channel Original Movies, the Wantagh Middle School Drama Club will present “Descendants: The Musical” from March 3-5. A cast of 50 students will delight the audience with comedy, adventure and hit songs during four shows.

It’s hard to stump Wantagh Middle School sixth grader Max Mihalik about his knowledge of the world, and that’s why he emerged as the winner of the school’s annual Geography Bee on Jan. 12.

Creative Minds, a sixth grade elective at Wantagh Middle School, is filled with hands-on challenges that teach students about the engineering design process. Recently, students had to build a car that could keep an egg from breaking as it traveled down a ramp.

Parachutes were falling at Wantagh Middle School on Nov. 1 as seventh graders explored the principles of aerodynamics. As the culminating activity in the forces and interactions unit, students in Ashley Azzata’s and Elyse Longo’s science classes built parachutes.

The Wantagh School District showcased two newly renovated art rooms at its middle school during a visit by New York State Sen. John Brooks on Oct. 4. Sen. Brooks secured $684,000 in state municipal grant funding for the district.

Perseverance was a major theme at Wantagh Middle School’s crossing-over ceremony on June 10, which celebrated the hard work of the district’s 209 eighth graders. When they start high school in September, they’ll just be on the other side of the connecting overpass, and will have to get up a little earlier each morning. Middle School Principal Anthony Ciuffo is confident that they will succeed.

Young artists are adding their creative touch to Wantagh’s schools with the addition of new several new murals. Wantagh Elementary School and Wantagh Middle School are both being beautified with student masterpieces.

The microphone was on, and more than 30 Wantagh Middle School students and staff stepped in front of it on the evening of April 12 for the seventh annual Word on the Street literacy celebration.

Students at Wantagh Middle School are all about heart health, whether it is getting exercise for themselves or raising money to help others. This year, the school continued a long-standing fundraiser by participating in Hoops for Heart, to benefit the American Heart Association.

Wantagh Middle School’s theater students are ready to showcase their talents for the community with the upcoming musical production of “Matilda." The show, with four performances from March 4-6, is based upon the book by Roald Dahl.

Acceptance, empathy, respect and tolerance are among the core values of Wantagh Middle School, which reinforced those principles during No Place for Hate day on Feb. 17. This year’s theme was “Be Inclusive.”

When Wantagh Middle School eighth grader Paul McHale correctly answered “Vermont” as the lone New England state that doesn’t border the Atlantic Ocean, he was crowned the winner of the annual Geography Bee.

Team-building was the goal as Wantagh Middle School hosted a series of competitive events for eighth graders on Nov. 22 and 24. Students were divided into two teams, Skittles and Starburst, and could earn points in different challenges.

To honor a classmate who died of a rare form of cancer, students at Wantagh Middle School are doing their part to boost funding for pediatric cancer research. In his seven years, James Lodato made a huge impact on everyone around him, including his classmates at Forest Lake Elementary School.

Wantagh Middle School nurse Hildi Dzigas will receive the Excellence in School Nursing Award for Zone 1. The honor is bestowed by the New York State Association of School Nurses and recognizes members who excel in their practice of school nursing.

They clapped, they cheered and they even did the wave. Students from Wantagh Middle School gathered on the bleachers at the end of the school day on Oct. 1 for a pep rally to recognize the fall sports teams.

From their shirts to their shorts to their shoelaces, students at Wantagh Middle School found many ways to incorporate yellow and gold into their wardrobes on Sept. 24. The school participated in the Go Gold initiative for Childhood Cancer Awareness Day.

“Bringing back the joy” was the purpose of the Wantagh Olympics, a series of team events for Wantagh High School and Middle School teachers during Superintendent’s Conference Day on Aug. 30.

The recent graduates of Wantagh’s three elementary schools are coming together for the first time this year as sixth graders at Wantagh Middle School. Making way for them are the recently departed eighth graders, who are starting the final leg of their educational journey at the adjacent Wantagh High School.

A co-curricular project at Wantagh Middle School resulted in eighth grade students deeply exploring human rights violations which occurred during World War II and sharing their findings with peers during a Humanities Project Gallery Walk through history.

The Wantagh School District’s Department of Fine and Performing Arts is pleased to announce that 24 students represented the district in the annual Art Supervisors Association All-County Art Exhibit from their respective schools. Additionally, Wantagh High School senior Francis Peretti was selected as one of 42 ASA All-County Senior Scholarship winners.

For the second consecutive year, Wantagh Middle School students paused on March 26 to imagine a world without hate during No Place for Hate Day. Throughout the school day, students participated in content-based activities where they ruminated and discussed tolerance, acceptance and kindness toward others in school and the global community.

Live music has been hard hit during the 2020-2021 school year, but Wantagh Middle School strings students finally had the opportunity to perform as an ensemble on March 16 and March 17.

Through various photography assignments, Wantagh Middle School eighth grade digital photography students in Jaclyn Gentilesco’s class have observed objects from various perspectives and have learned to “love where they live,” capturing the unique treasures that lie within the community borders. The Wantagh Train Museum was the subject of a recent assignment in which students captured the lines, shapes, texture, value and space of a well-lit location and immortalized a popular landmark. The photographic compositions were recently hung for two weeks in Starbucks for community viewing.

Wantagh Middle School seventh grader Isabel Madison and eighth grader Madeline Lehrer were first-place winners in the Daughters of the Revolution 2020-2021 American History Essay Contest. The American History Essay Contest was established to encourage students to think creatively about the nation’s history and to learn about important historical events from a different perspective and personal point of view.

Each year, Wantagh Middle School students compete in the highly competitive, school-level National Geography Bee, with the winner advancing to the state level bee. The competition was canceled this year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but social studies supervisor Dr. Christopher Widman explained that the middle school decided to take a different approach.

Wantagh Middle School students participated in the #WalkAgainstHate, sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League and held during the nationally held Walk Week from Oct. 12-18. ​ Typically, students would have attended a scheduled event, but took to the middle school track during physical education classes and to their neighborhood streets and trails to demonstrate the school’s culture of kindness and acceptance. Walkers were also asked to photograph themselves carrying a sign that said #WalkAgainstHate.

Wantagh Middle School eighth grade students are learning to look at the world from a different perspective through the lens of a digital camera and to tell a story through the images they shoot. Teacher Jaclyn Gentilesco said that the half-year elective has been so successful that even she has become inspired by her students’ photography.

In celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month, Wantagh Middle School sixth grade art students studied the popular Mexican holiday Dia de Los Muertos or Day of the Dead. Observed on Oct. 31-Nov. 2, the holiday signifies the remembrance of the deceased souls of friends and family. In addition to reading about this significant celebration, students in Joanna Osman’s class designed and painted sugar skulls, decorative skulls which represent the departed.

With an upbeat spirit and a drive to make students feel welcome, Wantagh Middle School principal Anthony Ciuffo and assistant principal Dr. Stephanie Scolieri welcomed incoming sixth graders during an annual orientation program, held on Sept. 3, which looked different from those in past years.

Wantagh Middle School Principal Anthony Ciuffo has published an article, “Rethinking Conventions: Keeping Gender-Diverse Students Safe,” in the October 2019 edition of Educational Leadership Magazine. Based on five years of research for Mr. Ciuffo, who was formerly principal of Forest Lake Elementary School in the Wantagh School District, the article addresses his research and suggestions for keeping gender diverse students safe, while promoting tolerance and acceptance on campus.