Hello AP/IB Boosters!
Last week was a busy week. Monday was the "High School and Beyond" event. Tuesday we submitted #1,800 color JHS AP Courses brochures to be distributed as part of the preregistration packet to current 9th - 11th grade JHS students and 8th graders at Heatherwood and Gateway. Thursday was the JHS Spring Semester Curriculum Night event. Thursday was also the night for the Sno-Isle Skills Center Open House and Inglemoor HS International Baccalaureate Open House. A mini College Fair was held at Jackson on Saturday.
Next week, Tuesday the 11th, the preregistration packet (along with our lovely jointly developed JHS AP Courses Brochure) will be distributed to JHS students. 8th graders at Heatherwood and Gateway will receive theirs in a couple of weeks.
Half of the #300 8th graders at Gateway are slated for Jackson. The other half will go to Cascade. We are working with the Gateway and Cascade principals on developing a Cascade specific AP Courses brochure. Cascade is finalizing their course list and descriptions for us. Once we have that information, we will quickly design and produce the 150 Cascade specific brochures needed for Gateway. While 8th graders may not be able to take AP Courses next year, they can at least start thinking about them and take the proper pre-AP courses in their 9th grade year. Chuck Booth and Cathy Woods (principals at Heatherwood and Gateway) are both quite excited about "AP Vertical Teams" and ensuring students are being "tracked" to High School AP classes. It's one thing to have AP classes at Jackson High School, but we need leaders like Chuck and Cathy that understand successful completion of an AP class starts long before 9th grade. Our community is quite blessed to have these two leaders leading our middle schools!
Events coming up next week:
Feb 10 Mon 6:45 PM - 8:00 PM Gateway Middle
School Gateway Middle School PTA
Feb 10 Mon 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM Jackson High
School Junior Family Night
Feb 11 Tue 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM Heatherwood Middle
School Heatherwood Middle School PTA
Feb 11 Tue 4:30 PM 4730 Colby Ave
Everett School Board Meeting
Feb 12 Wed 2:15 PM - 3:15 PM Jackson High
School Curriculum Committee
We do not have a summary of the Sno-Isle Open House yet but the other events of last week are summarized below.
High School Event and Beyond
This event was an hour long
show for freshmen and sophomores and their families. It was a well attended
event, several hundred people, mostly parents. Debbie Cossey, the host, started
the show by having two of our members stand and be recognized for helping to
bring about more exciting opportunities for students. Debbie proceeded to
discuss electives, Sno-Isle, Tech Prep, Auto at Cascade, NJROTC at Everett,
Internship, College in the High School, Running Start, and the new and wonderful
AP program. Throughout the discussion, Debbie had several Juniors and Seniors
address the audience. The upperclassmen told the audience about their favorite
electives, their experience at Sno-Isle, their experience with AP courses, and
their advice to younger students. The common theme from Debbie and most of the
students was to take challenging classes. Many of the students were in the AP US
History course. They all said they loved learning about US History and the depth
of discussions they have. The students told the audience to take a chance at
hard classes. Choose a balanced high school experience. Try some new electives.
Remember to have fun. Go to sporting events. But work hard in your classes. The
senior class president, could have been the AP spokesman. He was not shy about
taking the microphone and telling students to take tough courses. And that it is
more important to take a hard class and earn a "B" than to receive an "A" in a
basket weaving course.
JHS Spring Semester Curriculum Night
Curriculum Night is
setup to mimic a mini day at Jackson. There are about 12 minutes per period (4).
Parents pick up their child's schedule at a table and walk through their child's
classes visiting teachers. The PTSA had a nice table at the front entrance of
the school. The PTSA shared this table with the AP/IB Boosters. We handed out
our brochures, business cards, and copies of the Bellevue AP/IB video.
Inglemoor HS International Baccalaureate Open House
Wow!! This event needs to be experienced by all 8th and 9th grade parents
and students. IB actually is a 2 year program beginning in the 11th grade. The
common thread from students and teachers . . . its the best High School
curriculum available anywhere private or public . . Paraphrased from one student
. ."if you want the best, its not Lakeside at $18,000 per year, its Inglemoor IB
. . I was accepted at Lakeside, but I turned the offer down . . I only wanted
the best and I determined Inglemoor IB was the best." This student turned down
Harvard's offer and will be attending Stanford next year.
Jackson HS College Fair
This fair was an informal way to
meet with many representatives of the Washington colleges. Colleges represented
included: Bellevue CC, Cascadia CC, Central Washington University, Eastern
Washington University, Edmonds CC, Everett CC, Henry Cogswell College, ITT
Technical Institute and Lake Washington Technical College. With a lot of help
from people such as Debbie Cossey, this event was primarily the work of one of
the JHS students as part of her Girl Scout Gold Award.
Todd A. Aagard
AP/IB Boosters Chairperson
P.O. Box 13317 Mill Creek,
WA 98082
Phone: 425 316-0522
Email: info@apibboosters.org