Friday, August 3rd, 2018


Dear Students and Parents,

On behalf of the High School Faculty, I would like to welcome you to the 2018-2019 school year. I hope you have had a restful, enjoyable summer and are looking forward to the coming school year!

It is my pleasure to introduce you to the new members to the high school faculty:

 Hans DeJong - Science
Jud Ford - Math
Nicole Merletti - World Languages
Nick Pollman - EAL
Soyeon Lee - Personalized/Online Learning Coordinator
        
I hope you will join me in welcoming them into the AISC HS community!

Congratulations to Vikram Noronha who competed with a non-AISC team at the Global Round of the World Scholar’s Cup. His team won first place for South Asia and he and his team scored well in both the Scholar’s Bowl and the Champion Team Countdown. Vikram has now qualified to continue to the Tournament of Champions at Yale University this fall.

Congratulations to the six AISC students who presented at National History Day in Washington, DC this summer. All of these students succeeded in previous contests in Chennai and Singapore last year. For this final round, there were 175 performances in the high school division, so competition was intense. Max Jacobson represented our school with his individual performance titled the "Silver Age of Comics".  Gyanendra Sengar, Manav Chakravarth, Prahalad Giridhar, Trevor Bridgeland, and Vinay Sriram delivered their group performance titled "Brown v. Board of Education". All students did a commendable job with their research, script writing, theatrical preparation, and live performance. The group of Grade 10 boys did particularly well by scoring in the top 20 within their project category. Congratulations to these students!

Finally, please join me in congratulating this year’s AP Scholars!

AP Scholar (a score of 3 or higher on three or more Advanced Placement exams):
  1. Kavya Gopinath
  2. Heewon Hwang
  3. Johui Hwang
  4. HyeRi Kim
  5. Ji Won Lee
  6. Seungyoon Oh
  7. Ji Eun Park
  8. Benjamin J. Pratt
  9. Siddhanth B.Reddy
  10. Aumkar Renavikar
  11. Gyanendra P. Sengar
  12. Hyeonjeong Song
  13. Pranav Unni

AP Scholar with Honors (an average score of 3.25 on all exams and scores of 3 or higher on four or more Advanced Placement exams):

  1. Jordan T. Archer
  2. Manav Chakravarthy
  3. Shreeja Kannan
  4. Suhyun Kwon
  5. Emilia L. Majakari
  6. Jeong Woo Park
  7. Seojin Park
  8. Serin Kim
  9. Richa P. Shankar

AP Scholars with Distinction (an average score of 3.5 on all exams and scores of 3 or higher on five or more Advanced Placement exams):

  1. Hye Rin An
  2. Ananya Atluri
  3. Beomseok Cha
  4. Junwon Choi
  5. Max L. Harrison
  6. Choha Kim
  7. Ji Won Kim
  8. Jihye Kim
  9. Yoon Seok Kim
  10. Tarun B. Krishna
  11. Donghyun Lee
  12. Seungyeon Lee
  13. Aleksander Mabry
  14. Anjan K. Mani
  15. Minha Park
  16. William A. Pratt
  17. Jeseo Pyun
  18. Nikhil Rachamadugu
  19. Keshav R. Raja
  20. Uday Saharia
  21. Vikram  Sivakumar
  22. Vishal Sriram
  23. Vishnu K. Sriram

AP International Diploma (a score of 3 or higher on five or more Advanced Placement exams in three or more subject areas):
1.    Uday Saharia
2.    Vikram Sivakumar

New Student Orientation

To help welcome high school students and their parents who are new to the AISC community, we will hold an orientation session beginning (for parents and students) on Wednesday, August 8th, from 10:00 am until 10:30 am after which high school students will go with the counselors for a special orientation. Parents can enjoy the PCA business fair until meeting with the Athletics and Activities Director at 12:00 pm. Students will rejoin parents at 12:45 pm for a session with the High School Principal. All sessions will take place in the FAC Theater.

First Day of School

Thursday, August 9th, is the first day of school for all students.  The day will begin with an assembly in the FAC Theatre, after which students will attend all 8 blocks in shortened periods. The timetable will be shared on the day.  The regular rotation of A Day (blocks 1, 2 3 and 4) will begin as usual on Friday, August 10th.

Students should plan on arriving a few minutes early on August 9th. We will distribute student schedules in the Foyer of the Fine Arts Center from 8:00 to 8:30 a.m.

Bring-Your-Own-Technology (BYOT) Program

All High School students are required to bring in a laptop that meets a minimum set of specifications to support student learning. Students may choose between a laptop with either the Mac or Windows operating system.  In order to configure the devices, we ask that students bring their own device on these days:

  • Thursday, 9 August: New students
  • Thursday, 16 August:  HS  Grade 10, 11 and 12 Returning students - New Device configuration
  • Monday, 20 August: HS Grade 9 Returning students - New Device configuration

Please remember to set your operating system language to English in order for our IT department to configure devices. You may check out the specs and details on the BYOT page.

Save the Date: High School Back to School Night

Please mark your calendars for the High School Back to School Night on Thursday, August 30th, and come and experience an abridged version of a “day in the life” of your student(s).  Teachers will share an overview of their course and will answer general questions you may have.  You can pick up your student’s schedule between 4:45 pm and 5:00 pm which will be followed by a brief welcome in the Madras Hall.  Classes will start promptly at 5:30 pm and end at 7:25 pm. Please join us!

PowerSchool Reporting Dates

Families will receive regular updates about academic progress throughout the year.  Progress reports with grades and comments are sent home and posted online in the middle of each semester.  Report cards are sent home at the end of each semester.  Approximately once per month in between these official reports, teachers will update their marks in our new student information system PowerSchool for your review.  We call this a “Progress Update.”

For your information the reporting periods this academic year will be as follows:

September 14 – Progress update
October 12 - Progress update
October 26 - Progress report with comments
November 16 – Progress update
December 14 - Progress update
January 23 - Report card with comments

February 15 – Progress update
March 15 – Progress report with comments
April 26 – Progress update
May 17 – Progress update
June 6 – Final report card

Student Schedule Changes

Please note that the drop/add period for schedule changes is limited to the first six days of school.  This deadline is in place to help students settle into their classes as soon as possible.   Schedule changes made during this time do not require parents signatures.  This means that it is very important for families to discuss potential schedule changes before the student seeks out his or her counselor.  If a family feels strongly that no schedule changes should take place without written parent permission they are encouraged to contact the appropriate counselor.

Please note that it is our expectation as a school that students would have made wise choices regarding their schedules last spring during the registration process.  As such, we expect students to pursue schedule changes only when truly necessary.  We will not entertain changes motivated by a desire to be in class with particular friends or to seek out a particular teacher.  Our counseling staff work very hard to balance our schedule such that no class is overloaded or too small.  This is to everyone’s advantage in terms of student learning. 

Communication is Key

Each week I will update my Principal’s Notes, an online newsletter that shares that shares important information with students and parents in the high school.  The Head of School, Andrew Hoover, also publishes notes weekly.  Please do your best to read these notes weekly so that you are as informed as possible.

There will also be opportunities throughout to meet in person.  Most months I will host a Parent Coffee that will help you to gain greater access to what goes on in our classrooms.  Student/Parent/Teacher conferences take place twice yearly (November and March).  Please do refer to the community calendar so that you do not miss these important opportunities!

Welcome to another great year at AISC! I am looking forward to working with you in the coming year as we continue to build a learning community that helps our students develop into knowledgeable, caring and responsible citizens of the world.

Standards Based Assessment and Reporting

As you may recall, we are completing the process of implementing Standards Based Assessment and Reporting in the High School this year. Many thanks to all who attended the informational presentations last fall.

A condensed version of the same information will be available this fall. Two identical sessions comprised of an overview with an explanation of our reporting structure will be offered in the BBT on Tuesday, August 21st at 8:45 am and, again, at 4:00 pm. The sessions will include an hour-long interactive presentation followed by thirty minutes of question and answer time.

For those who attended sessions last year but have remaining questions, know you are welcome to attend either session this fall, to reach out via email or to speak with Mike or I in person at Back to School Night.

Sincerely,

Joelle Basnight
High School Principal

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