Located in Fresh Meadows, or "Queens", New York, Francis Lewis High School is a secondary level public school that opened in 1960. It is home to approximately 4,600 students, has a large catalog of academic programs, and hosts 30 sports. It has about a 80 percent graduation rate, and over a 90% attendance rate. According to the school's mission statement, it seeks to promote life long learning, challenge students academically, and motivate students to set high expectations for themselves.

Upon admission, the school offers some special academic programs, like the Jacob K. Javits Law Institute, the University Scholars Program (a program dedicated to help prepare gifted students for acceptance into competitive colleges and universities), a Math and Science Research Program, and as of 2009, a forensics program. Additionally, the school hosts a JROTC program that is funded by the United States Army. In 1978, the school was the first high school in the nation to receive certification to the International Baccalaureate which allows students to take Advanced Placement courses while in high school that will also serve as college credit. Students may also choose to study from a wide variety of languages. Aside from the Romance language that are typically offered in high schools, students may choose Hebrew, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, modern and ancient Greek and Italian.In addition to the academic programs and sports, the school also offers a variety of extracurricular activities, such as a theater department, a school newspaper entitled "The Patriot", a boy's Step Team, the school's own chapter of "Arista" (a duly chartered member of The National Honor Society) and the Honors Orchestra.

The school has several famous alumni as well, such as Tony award nominee Rick Elice, New York Mets player and athlete Mike Jorgensen, and renowned academic and author Deborah Holdstein.