School Community

The AJC has a good piece on how the loss of accreditation could affect students’ prospect for colleges.

Tied to Atlanta’s probationary status by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the news story cites the experiences of Clayton parents when that system lost its accreditation. (It has since regained it.) The reporter also interviews APS parents concerned over their children’s futures.

The story quotes admissions officials at UNC, UGA and Emory.

Among their comments:

“Most [colleges] will look at an applicant, especially if the circumstances are explained,” said J. Lynn Zimmerman, the senior vice provost for undergraduate education at Emory University.

Similar advice came from Nancy McDuff, the director of admissions at the University of Georgia.

“If a student comes from an unaccredited school, we have other ways to evaluate that student,” she said. “And here in Atlanta, we are certainly aware of the circumstances (at APS), and we won’t hold that against the student.”

At the University of North Carolina, a popular out-of-state option for metro Atlanta students, applicants are required to come from an accredited school. But admissions director Steve Farmer said that there is a path for a student from an unaccredited school to gain entrance, such as taking additional tests.

I have received several well informed e-mails over the last few months from Dennis Brown, a former high school headmaster, who wonders whether students really are in jeopardy of being turned down from colleges when systems lose accreditation.

While the AJC has spoken to admissions offices for all of its articles on the impact of accreditation loss, he suggests that what is really needed are hard numbers from the schools. Yes, he says the schools often tell us it could be a factor but has it ever been a cause to reject a student? That’s a great point.

Brown writes:

In my over 30 years as a head of school at the high school level, including college counseling and recommendation-writing responsibilities, I found that college acceptances lost because of attending a non-SACS accredited school or being home schooled, was a paper tiger. Why not survey a cross-section of public and private post-secondary schools in the SACS region asking: 1) how many students who do not have high school diplomas from SACS accredited schools are attending your institution, and 2) how many students lost acceptances to your program because they are not graduates of SACS accredited programs?

Oh you’ll get many subjective narrative answers as your AJC has printed before. Requiring additional testing and other means of verifying ability of the applicant, etc.  But it seems to me that before the AJC gets parents and students riled up by printing it as fact, substantiating it with stats not narrative, would be doing the public a service.

I also put the question to our higher ed reporter Laura Diamond who responded: I spoke with Morehouse, Spelman and Clark Atlanta about this during the Clayton situation. Because they were all aware of it, there were no problems of students getting admitted. Same thing when students applied to colleges out-of-state. Guidance counselors included a note and college admissions officers are aware of these issues and rarely hold it against students for admission purposes.

So, bottom line for APS parents, it makes sense to call the colleges that your teens are interested in attending before you panic and pull your children out of schools where they are doing well and where they are near completion. It does not seem remotely possible that APS will lose its accreditation as the school board has made every indication that it will do everything possible to retain it.

(As to extra testing to be admitted when you are from a non-accredited high school, I wonder myself if that would be waived if a student had good grades and strong SAT scores.)

–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog

We found this weeks Featured Lesson Plans on The Hot Chalk Valentines Day Lesson Plans Page! This valuable online resource features over 4,000 free lesson plans, free online teacher tools and thousands of additional teacher resources!

• Explain to students that they are going to create a mailbox for their valentines that looks like a robot.
• Ask students to bring in anything that they think could be used to create robot mailbox.
• Students can cover their supplies with colored tissue paper, bulletin board paper, paint, color, etc.
• Help students hot glue their chosen supplies in whatever way that they wish to create their robot.
• Remember to make a slit to put their valentines inside the robot, and remember to create a way to remove the valentines.
• Set up inside the room or in the hallway so the robots can receive their valentines.

• Small or large index cards, white with blue lines, or even colored cards.
• A pen or a pencil,
• glue or scotch tape,
• wrapping paper or material,
• 1/4 to 1/2 inch ribbon on a roll,
• one piece of construction paper to make a gift card for the box,
• and crayons, colored pencils or markers.
• A box that can be purchased at the dollar store, a shoebox or a cigar box.

• Choose someone special in your family to write about.
• Take an index card and title it. An example might be Christmas at Grandmas House by (you are the author of this story, so write or print your name after the title).
• Next, choose an approximate date or the year of this event and print or write it below the authors name.
• Now the fun begins. Start writing about your special event. When you are finished, place the card into the box.
• Your goal is to write a card for each day of the month, so that when you are finished, you may present this box to someone special who can read one event or special occasion per day. This will include 28 days for a leap year, or 30 or 31 days depending on the month.
• After completing all of your cards, tie a ribbon around the entire stack of index cards.
• Next, you can decorate your box with wrapping paper or material using your glue or tape, but be sure not to wrap the box. This means to be sure to wrap the lid separately or glue the material so that the box can be opened without tearing off the paper or cloth.
• Now take the construction paper and design a card to go with the special memories box.
• This can be given to someone special for a birthday, graduation, as a get well present, etc.

16 Point Lead Evaporates in Second Half

SAINT LEO, Fla. – The Saint Leo men’s basketball team saw a 16-point advantage with just eight minutes left disappear as the Lions dropped a 70-66 decision to Nova Southeastern on Saturday afternoon in Sunshine State Conference action from the Marion Bowman Activities Center.

After a back-and-forth start, the Lions rallied from a seven point hole late in the opening half to turn the tables on the visiting Sharks, managing to take a seven point lead into the halftime break.  The half ended on a high note for the Lions as Quentin Cullop drained a jumper just as the period expired.

The Lions came out of the break and extended their lead over the visitors from Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. to as much as 16 points with just 8:15 on the clock as SLU looked to try to finish the game in their favor.

Just as in their contest against Lynn earlier in the week, the Lions’ hot shooting would cool in the final minutes while NSU would catch fire, outscoring the Lions 33-13 during that span.

As Nova Southeastern cut into the lead, the Lions had opportunities at the free throw line to widen the narrowing margin, or to tie the score, but each time Saint Leo came up short on the free shots and Nova Southeastern stole the win away.

In the loss, the Lions outshot NSU in every aspect, but Saint Leo’s 19 turnovers hurt SLU in the end.

Two Lions scored in double-digits in the loss as Cullop finished with 19 points and freshman Nate Johnson added 11.

Defensively, Walter Perkins pulled down 14 rebounds.

For Nova Southeastern, Teddy Tassy’s game-high 24 points helped spark the Sharks to the come-from-behind win.

Despite the dramatization associated with the never-ending, struggling, suffering economy, its really not that bad after all! So middle-aged adults, Congressmen and Governors alike, have no fear.

Do you remember the 80s? Well, I dont.

The moral of the story is that according to data released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, things are twice as great now than they were then, back in the 80s that is.

No kidding! I can think of an abundance of reasons why things are better now. But I dont just mean that the picture on your TV is more clear and your car has an automatic starter. What the Bureau of Economic Analysis is analyzing, actually, is that economy is doing better today than it was back in the day when my parents were still living in their youth.

In 1980, the average annual income was $24,079 in inflation-adjusted dollars, according to Gawker.com and USA Today. Last year it was twice that amount, totalling in at around $40,454.

So if we have the numbers to prove that were all getting by just fine, twice as fine as a matter of fact, then whats the problem here?

Obviously there are a lot of problems. A war, foreign affairs, our oil supply, unemployment, the list goes on. Personally, however, there may just be another way to look at it.

Is there any way that maybe, just maybe, that things were just a bit simpler back then? When we didnt have iPhones, Netflix, or heated seats? (Gasp!)

What happened to board games and The Breakfast Club? Oh wait, now were into imax theaters and Jersey Shore night!

Are we taking too much for granted these days? Can we not afford to flourish in this economy just because of the increasing amount of stuff we want rather than need? Just a penny for your thoughts.

Starting in February, Board of Education members will provide opportunities to meet with community members who would like to share a cup of coffee and conversation with a Board member. Join Dave Zuro and Patti Engelman on Wednesday, February 2, at Penera from 7:30 a.m. until 9:00 a.m. to ask questions and share information. Board members will take turns hosting the coffees. The future times and location will be announced on the web and in the Hudson Hub-Times.