The committee met and discussed the following methods to better educate our community about the Scholars Academy:
- need to obtain a list of contacts at all K-8 Centers, all K-5/6 schools and Nautilus Middle School
- need to obtain a list of contacts for ALL private schools, Cushman, Country Day, Ransom, Lehrman, Hebrew Academy
- need to IDENTIFY current Beach High students who would be willing to go out to schools to do a “dog and pony” show along side the adult members of this committee
- EACH of the above referenced schools should be provided with Scholars Academy brochures that can be left in their main offices
- EACH of the above referenced schools should be provided with a POSTER sized version of the brochure which will hang in their main office
- Representatives of this committee/school administration will go to each of the above referenced schools during the year to speak with the students and their parents beginning with grades 4 and 5
- need to IDENTIFY a teacher at each of the MDCPS in our feeder pattern, who could be trained to “push” the Scholars Academy to all appropriate students
Each of us will review the current brochure. We had consensus that the current brochure does not address concerns that parents will have about the program, nor does the sample schedule noted in the brochure seem realistic given our current student curriculum status. Additionally, the photos depicting typical students should actually BE typical Beach High students
- BEFORE we can go out into the community, our committee will need more concrete information about the program vis-a-vis the AP vs. IB classes. These are the types of questions that parents and students are likely to ask:
- Can a student be in Scholars but choose NOT to participate in the IB track in 11th and 12th grade? If so, what does Scholars Academy really mean?
- Can you opt into the IB program in 11th and 12th grade if you are NOT in Scholars Academy beginning in 9th grade? If so, what additional coursework will be required to bring students up to pace?
- Can students in the IB track take AP courses?
- How set is the IB schedule noted in the current brochure?
- Why aren’t all of the incoming Scholars Academy 9th graders in the same section for the 4 core classes? They seem to be spread out among a number of sections thereby losing the cohesive factor of an “academy”.
