Teens create school app for their classmates
Syosset High School seniors Jeremy Weiss, left, and Ryan Lefkowitz, right, have developed a mobile app for their student body. With them is John Chae, the school's Introduction to Programming teacher. Credit: Syosset School District
Two Syosset High School seniors have created a mobile app to help meet their classmates’ needs.
Ryan Lefkowitz and Jeremy Weiss included three primary tools in the app, called SHS Mobile: a grade calculator, a period/bell schedule that also accounts for delayed openings, and a notification function that tells users whether it is a “red day” or a “white day” in the rotation of class schedules.
The app is free and available to Android and iPhone users.
Lefkowitz and Weiss, both 17, said they began working on SHS Mobile during the 2016-17 school year after the Student Government expressed interest in it. Teacher John Chae, instructor of the Introduction to Programming class, targeted the pair for the project.
“It came out pretty much how we expected it to,” Weiss said. “This is particularly helpful to freshmen and sophomores who are still learning their way around the school.”
The app’s grade calculator enables students to determine final grades in any given course by factoring together their quarter grades and midterm and final exam grades, Lefkowitz said. That allows students to figure out their final grade before it is posted on the school’s Infinite Campus portal.
Lefkowitz is a member of the school’s a cappella group and vice president of the website Development Club, while Weiss is an officer and web manager in the National Honor Society.
Michael R. Ebert is an education researcher and has worked for Newsday in various capacities since 2003. He was part of an 11-person team named as 2008 Pulitzer Prize finalists for investigative coverage of the LIRR's platform safety issues.
