Huntington High School Class of 2020 member Griselda Jimenez Contreras is this year’s recipient of the Judith Gleicher Mathematics Achievement Award, which is presented to the graduating senior who has “achieved the most growth in mathematics.”
Ms. Gleicher was a member of the high school’s math department faculty for three decades prior to her retirement. The $500 Judith Gleicher Mathematics Achievement Award is funded by the Math Honor Society to “encourage students to pursue math in a variety of ways.”
“Griselda started as an ENL (English as a new language) Basic Algebra student and finished her high school career with a 96 average in Algebra 2,” said Monica Racz, the Math Honor Society’s faculty advisor. “She completed advanced math extension for her Regents diploma. She worked so hard to earn this to make her eligible to go to college for nursing. Every math teacher that had her including myself commented on her work ethic in not only learning the more difficult math but the English that went with it.”
The teenager said that hard work, self-discipline and challenging herself have been the keys to her success and enabled her to stick by her decisions, follow her dreams and persevere through tough times.
Ms. Jimenez Contreras said she enjoys looking back at her time at Huntington High School and seeing how far she has come as a student and as a person. A certified nurse assistant, she captured first place honors in a student nursing competition.
Named Student of the Quarter in the Western Suffolk BOCES-Wilson Tech nursing program Ms. Jimenez Contreras has been inducted into both the National Honor Society and National Technical Honor Society, which is “for outstanding career and technical students of workforce vocational education institutions in the United States.”
Ms. Jimenez Contreras plans to study nursing at Suffolk County Community College.
