By Tommy Hallissey
“The original excitement I felt while opening up a new high school has stayed with me all these years,” DeLuca said.
DeLuca was born in Flushing, then moved to Long Island to attend New Hyde Park Memorial High School. After graduating from college, he returned to the high school, where he taught math for two years. “I pretty much always wanted to be a teacher since senior year in high school,” DeLuca said.
Early on DeLuca discovered that math was his calling. “I found out I enjoyed explaining math to my friends and other students,” he said. “It was a natural career choice.”
In 1971 DeLuca learned about the construction of a school in Queens and was immediately intrigued.
“I was interested in transferring to the city because in my first two years all the new developments and publications came from New York City,” he said. “I wanted to be at the forefront of education and being in the city would afford me that opportunity.”
Along with a group of young teachers, DeLuca spent the summer of 1971 preparing for the opening of Hillcrest High School. The entire staff worked the whole summer. Together they prepared curriculum, set up school policies, discussed the schedule, arranged guidance policies, ordered supplies and made decisions as basic as whether to label the restrooms with “boys” and “girls” or “ladies” and “gentlemen.”
“When you start from scratch there is nothing to build on,” DeLuca said. The school “is created by that staff who starts the school.”
Hillcrest High School, at 160-05 Highland Ave., was set up to give students choices in their curriculum. Instead of the established curriculum there was a variety of electives. In math, for example, the choices covered courses such as Chance and Changeability and Math for the Consumer. The day was arranged to have class periods of different lengths, and the school year ran in four nine-week cycles.
“If they had the ability to choose, they would be more interested in what they were doing and would learn more,” DeLuca said.
The school also offered specialized fields of study, such as the School of International Studies, pre-med, nursing and theater, programs that still are available in an expanded form.
Four years ago Hillcrest added a pre-teaching institute to its curriculum in order to provide students with experience in professional education. Under the supervision of DeLuca, students took courses in the foundation of education, lesson planning, educational psychology and classroom management.
The pre-teaching program is linked with the St. John's University School of Education. St. John's students come to Hillcrest and serve as mentors to pre-teaching students.
“It enables us to have access to a pool of college students who are potential teachers at Hillcrest High School,” DeLuca said. And many St. John's students have been hired by Hillcrest as a result of the program.
After all these years, DeLuca, assistant principal of math, remains popular among the student body.
“He's a good teacher. He stops for questions and answers them,” said Pooja Swaminarayan, an 11th-grader. “His technique as how to solve certain math problems are very helpful.”
Despite retiring, DeLuca will continue to teach math part time at Queens Borough Community College.
“I would really feel useless if I wasn't teaching math,” DeLuca said. “I'll teach as long as I can hold a piece of chalk in one hand.”
Reach reporter Tommy Hallissey by e-mail at news@timesledger.com, or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 155.
