Dear Parents,
I met last Monday
with the high school parent representatives of the PTA: Aditi Vasu, Virgini
Vlaminck, Stefania Sem and Susila Anand. They shared with me questions they had
gathered from a high school parent meeting the previous week. These monthly
meetings are very helpful, giving me the opportunity to learn
about questions that parents may have about the academic and co-curricular
programs in the high school. This in turn helps me to plan my communications
with parents through the weekly Principal’s Notes and through the monthly
Parent Coffees.
One of the things
I learned from this week’s meeting is that many parents are unsure about where
to access information about our school. At the High School Parent Coffee this week (Tuesday, Sept. 24,
8:45-9:45 a.m. in the Cafeteria) Ms. Mercy Jesudass, one of the high school
counselors, will explain the Freshman Seminar. I will then lead a virtual tour
of the AISC web resources to help parents understand where to find information
about Discover India, our co-curricular program and much more. I hope to see
you there.
PSAT and MAP testing
For many years we
have given the Preliminary SAT in order to gain information about our students’
proficiency in critical reading, mathematics and writing, and to give them an
opportunity to practice for the SAT. This helps us to monitor the quality of
our academic program.
In prior years the
PSAT was given to all 9th, 10th and 11th grade
students on the third Wednesday in October, which is one of the two days each
year that students are allowed to take the test. You may have heard from your child or noticed
on the calendar that this year the PSAT will be given on Saturday, October 19
this year. We decided to change from our previous practice for two reasons.
The first is that
each year we administer the MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) tests to our
students in grades 2-8. These measure students’ proficiency in reading,
language usage, math and science from one year to the next. The scores from
these tests can also be shared with other school if the student moves from one
school to another. We believe that it would be more useful to parents and to
the school if we had an assessment that would provide a continuous measure of
academic proficiency from grade 2 through grade 10.
The second reason
was because the date of the Wednesday administration of the PSAT fell in the
middle of our Discover India week. The first semester is a very busy one and
October is especially full with events and holidays, including the SAISA
tournaments and the fall break. We feel it is important for the Discover India
trips to take place early in the school year to enable our students and
teachers to get to know each other better early in the year. We are also
constrained by weather, since the monsoon doesn’t end until late September and
in north India it begins to get too cold for outdoor activities such as river
rafting. The MAP tests give us more flexibility in deciding the test dates.
However, we still want to give our students the opportunity to practice for the SAT and, if
they are U.S. citizens, to qualify for the National Merit Scholarships. With
this in mind, we will make the PSAT available to students on Saturday, October
19. There will be no charge for the test. Ms. Jesudass has explained the
process for registration to the students, which they can do online. If you have
any questions about the test, don’t hesitate to contact her (jmercy@aisch.org) or me.
Spirit Week
The Student
Council organized a very successful Spirit Week last week in the buildup to the
Big Bad Blue swim meet. On successive days students and faculty members dressed
in pajamas, as twins, in their class colors, with dots and in blue and white to
show their school spirit. There was also a watermelon-eating contest one day
during the lunch period. The week’s events were capped off with the Homecoming
Dance in the cafeteria on Friday night. It was well attended with lots of
dancing going on. Congratulations to the Student Council and adviser Lisa Levi
for a SPIRITED week!
Dot Day and Big Bad Blue
Last
week we celebrated one of the “Four C’s” of our Mission – creativity – through
our participation in International Dot Day. We also hosted our first
interscholastic athletic tournament of the year with the Big Bad Blue swim
meet. You can see videos of both events at www.youtube.com/user/AISCEVENTS.
Discover India Update
A question was raised
recently about the impact of the July floods in Uttarakhand on the Discover
India trips to the area around Rishikesh. I contacted the trip organizers in
July regarding this. The owners of both companies informed me that the flood
damage had occurred far upstream of the areas where our trips will be taking
place and that our trips will not be impacted.
The itineraries for
all of the trips as well as a schedule of departure and return times can be
viewed at Discover
India 2013-2014. You can find answers
to Frequently Asked Questions at Discover India Frequently Asked Questions. Because this is information posted on Moodle pages, you will
need to log in to get access. Information on logging in to the Moodle pages can
be found at Moodle Information. Remember that the new password is “raptors13”.
Food for Thought - College Rankings
Last week I ran across an article in my reading that I shared with the faculty. I thought parents might also be interested in reading it. This article from the New York Times is titled “Your Annual Reminder to Ignore the U.S. News and World Report College Rankings.” It has good information about why the whole college ranking system is flawed and it has links to other arguments, pro and con. As Ms. Jesudass, Ms. McGlamery and almost every college admissions officer will tell you, finding the right college is about what is the best fit for the student and not some perceived place on an artificial scale that has little to do with student success. I hope you enjoy the read.
Please
remember that there is a lot more information to be found in the sidebar links
to communications from the Guidance Department, the IB-AP Coordinator and the Athletics Director. And
don’t miss The Voice, our online student newspaper. In it you will find
articles and interviews with new teachers, all written by our high school
students.
As
always, please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or
matters you would like to discuss.
Have
a great weekend.
John McCandless
High School Principal
