The Bellevue football team is still alive.
Sure, the Wolverines’ season ended more than a month ago, but the Class 3A state champions are still alive for a “virtual” title as one of the teams in the third-annual HighSchoolSports.net and USA Today Super 25 Virtual National Championship.
In this computer-generated contest, the Wolverines advanced through the first round, knocking off Westlake (Calif.). Bellevue’s next opponent is in this virtual tournament is Lake Travis (Texas).
The Hillsborough Education Foundation has a new leader.
After six months with an interim leader, the foundation announced this morning that Barnie Philip “Phil” Jones Jr. had been selected as president.
Jones was the founder of the Orlando-based Barnie’s Coffee & Tea Co., which grew into a 125-store retail chain before he sold it.
He has also been involved with the Central Florida YMCA and Habitat for Humanity International.
“I am a real believer in the importance of public education in helping to create the American democracy and economic prosperity that we know today,” Jones said in a news release from the foundation.
“It will be an honor to be a part of the foundation’s work to enable Hillsborough County Public Schools with its dedicated teachers to educate the next generation of leaders for our community and nation.”
The foundation is a charitable organization that has invested more than $75 million in public school programs, scholarships and other purposes since its creation in 1988.
Jones replaces Rebekah Hepner, the foundation’s interim president. She had taken over the reins of the organization after Bill Hoffman resigned in July of last year.
Jones begins his new position Jan. 17.
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Perfect isn’t good enough when it comes to getting into some of the country’s top colleges.
Last year, the average grade point average of an accepted freshman applicant at UCLA was 4.34 – well above the former gold-standard 4.0 for straight A’s.
The only way to push past a 4.0 and compete for a spot at Harvard, Yale, UC Berkeley or UCLA is to take Advanced Placement courses, college-level classes that offer a grade-point premium, which typically increases a grade by an entire point, making, say, a B look like an A on a transcript. Over the past decade, students increasingly have loaded up on those classes, sometimes juggling so many that they have little time for anything besides academics.
With four or more hours a day of homework, even sleep is often an afterthought.
At some of the Bay Area’s most competitive public and private high schools, teachers and counselors have started pushing for a cap on the number of Advanced Placement courses a student can take.
In Marin County, teachers at Tamalpais High School circulated a petition last year urging the school to restrict AP classes to juniors and seniors. The effort didn’t change policy but did promote discussions about student stress levels and the appropriateness of 14-year-olds doing college-level work.
Meanwhile, at some private schools, including Lick-Wilmerding in San Francisco, officials are eliminating AP courses entirely.
“I see kids in tears” from all of the stress, said Adee Horn, peer resource adviser at San Francisco’s top-tier Lowell High School, who supports a cap. “I feel like there would be a sigh of relief.”
But limits on AP courses, or honors courses, which are academically rigorous classes that aren’t sanctioned by the College Board, are opposed by many parents and students who want every opportunity to stand out on a college application.
“Some kids have the drive and ability,” said Lowell senior Kaz Lewis, who is taking AP statistics, calculus, biology and economics this year in addition to three other classes. “I just think it’s up to the student.”
The 17-year-old has applied to UCLA, UC San Diego, UC Davis, Yale and Stanford.
Lowell offers 28 AP courses out of the 37 nationally sanctioned by the College Board.
Students who enroll in AP courses typically take an AP exam at the end of the year. The exams cost $87 each. Financial aid is available for low-income students.
A high score on the exam can translate into college credit, depending on the university, an added incentive for students to pile on the AP classes.
At Lowell, 1,390 students – typically the sophomores, juniors and seniors – took 3,529 exams last year, nearly three per student.
A handful of students at the school make each of their seven classes AP, and many take five or six, counselors said.
Some students can accumulate enough college credits through AP exams to enter a university as a sophomore, potentially saving $25,000 to $50,000 in college costs.
But that’s rare, with most universities restricting how and when AP credits can count toward degree requirements.
Lewis, for example, said he plans to retake the AP courses in college anyway, but he believes he’ll be more prepared for them.
Research shows he’s probably right. Students who take AP courses do better in college than students who don’t, even if the students had similar high school grades or SAT test scores.
Jim Spellicy, Lowell AP economics teacher, doesn’t support a cap.
“How do you know if a student can do it or not?” he said. “I think the students should be given an opportunity.”
Counselor Marie Aguirre sees the other side when students come to her stressed out, overwhelmed and parent- or peer-pressured to pile on the AP classes.
“I think because they are kids, they need more structure,” Aguirre said. “They are not able to say no.”
Some may take two AP classes and an honors course and still not feel like it’s enough, she said.
“You see low self-esteem, feeling anything they do is not good enough, a feeling of failure,” Aguirre said.
Many public and private schools across the country do cap the number of AP classes allowed, a restriction they communicate to college admissions offices to ensure the students aren’t at a disadvantage.
And many universities want to see well-rounded students who balance academics with other activities.
“We want to be clear that this is not a case of ‘whoever has the most APs wins,’ ” according to Stanford University’s online admissions page.
The pressure to push APs doesn’t just come from parents and students. In public schools, AP classes are a money maker.
The College Board gives schools $8 for every AP test taken, but on top of that, Advanced Placement teachers in San Francisco and many other districts have a lighter teaching load so they have more time to plan and prepare.
It means schools like Lowell offering more AP classes get more teachers than schools with the same number of students and fewer APs.
Capping the number of AP classes would result in staffing cuts.
“It’s a position-maker,” Spellicy said. “We definitely have a divided faculty on the question.”
At Lick-Wilmerding, officials severed ties with the AP system this year, saying the curriculum was too rigid and too focused on the tests.
Lick now offers honors courses, but caps the number at five per year. Colleges consider those classes to be on an equal footing with AP courses, said Eric Temple, head of school.
“We can have as rigorous if not more rigorous classes that are much more interesting without being tied to the AP curriculum,” Temple said. “We have a lot more freedom over our curriculum.”
Are the complaints that have come in about the new feeder patterns worth the consequences of delaying their implementation in Wake Countys new student assignment plan?
As noted in todays article, the Democratic board members cited all the complaints theyve received to suggest a one-year delay in implementation. But the Republican board members and staff warned that could pose major problems to the plan.
If the feeder patterns are delayed, staff thinks that will require all rising sixth- and ninth-graders to have to apply for a school this year. The students currently in middle school and high school would be grandfathered with transportation but could apply to go elsewhere.
Democratic board vice chairman Keith Sutton was the first to propose delaying implementation so staff could study it.
Superintendent Tony Tata said parents like the feeder patterns as his staff pointed to the high percentage who supported them in the test drive.
Democratic board member Susan Evans said the feeder patterns are “problematic.”
Evans said shes heard from “numerous families” who are at year-round elementary schools who expected to go to a traditional-calendar middle school but now find themselves feeding into a year-round one. In addition, its putting them into a high school that they didnt expect to feed into.
“I’m hearing from so many people who are contemplating changing their elementary school, not because they’re unhappy, but because they don’t like their feeder pattern,” Evans said.
But Tata said that they would have to resend all 130,000 assignment slips.
“Youre talking about a different plan entirely,” Tata said.
Democratic board member Jim Martin sad its not fair to say it would affect 130,000 students when it would only impact the rising sixth- and ninth-graders.
Tata said only a small number of people have complained about the feeder patterns. He warned about upsetting those who like the feeders.
“You’re going to flip the coin and you’ll hear the hue and cry from people who are satisfied with the feeder patterns,” Tata said.
Republican board member Chris Malone said there are going to be winners and losers on the feeders no matter what they do.
Evans said she believes in stability once you get into a school. But she questioned how realistic it is to provide stability all through high school.
“Let’s be realistic,” Evans said. “We can’t tell any family entering kindergarten today that 13 years from now nothing will change.”
Tata responded that he disagreed with Evans statement.
Martin argued that with new schools opening feeder patterns will have to change.
Tata said theyve never said feeder patterns wont change. He said theyll give people due notice of the change. The idea has been to say that people who enter kindergarten would get a different feeder than those who came before them at that elementary school.
Chief Transformation Officer Judy Peppler said they tried as much as possible to keep historic feeder patterns.
Martin responded that staff assumed everyone in a middle school wants to go to the same high school. But he said thats not necessarily the case.
Peppler responded that people can choose to leave their feeder pattern with Martin replying that can happen if the school theyd rather attend has capacity. Peppler said that when people move it frees up capacity.
Democratic school board member Christine Kushner said that some people feel that the rules have changed on them with the new feeders.
Evans brought up her concerns about putting magnet schools in the feeder pattern will cause some magnet elementary schools to be under chosen. Earlier in the work session, she and Martin had brought up concerns that magnet families have because they dont want to feed into a magnet middle school or high school.
Martin cited the example of people who might not want to apply to or stay at Joyner Elementary because it would feed into East Millbrook Middle and Millbrook High.
Evans also said shes concerned that the feeders will cause people not to want to go to year-round schools.
Evans called these the “unintended consequences” of the feeders.
“There’s no plan on earth that doesn’t have unintended consequences,” said Republican board member John Tedesco. “That’s life.”
Brad McMillen, a member of the student assignment task force, said that eliminating feeders will require them to redo the magnet application process. He cited how a person who might have liked their initial assignment may not have applied to a magnet school as a result.