Superintendent Dr. Kathleen Mooney, Principal Mr. Ira Pernick, Assistant Principal Dr. Brad Fitzgerald, senior Caitlin Ferris, social science research teacher Dr. David O’Connor, and social studies department chairman Mr. Lawrence Schultz are photographed to recognize Ferris as an Intel semifinalist. Ferris worked with a Columbia professor and is the only student to progress to a semifinalist in all three researches. Her project is titled “The Trajectory of the New York State Achievement Gap: Possible Factors and the Results of No Child Left Behind.” It  used existing data collected from No Child Left Behind to determine the poverty of school districts. She then analyzed the racial backgrounds of the districts and their correlation with the poverty in those schools in an attempt to determine which factors have the greatest influence on the achievement gap. There are only 300 Intel semifinalists out of over 1,800 entries.