Letter from APS Superintendent Dr. Beverly Hall

From APS Superintendent Dr. Beverly L. Hall:

I’m asking for your help on a significant collaboration between our school district and Public Broadcasting Atlanta in order to increase public awareness and prevent the prostitution of children in Atlanta. Please tune in Sunday, January 30, 2011, at 8 p.m. or 10 p.m., for the PBA30 TV broadcast, “How To Stop The Candy Shop,” a one-hour presentation about the sexual exploitation of children.

This topic aligns with the ongoing “Darkness To Light” sexual abuse training that’s offered through the Office of Student Programs and Services. Our school counselors and social workers will discuss this child safety issue in upcoming staff and PTA meetings, as well as provide additional resources to students and parents.

Thank you for supporting such an important issue and for your commitment to protecting our students. For more information, please see the attached press release. (After the break)

Beverly L. Hall, Ed.D.
Superintendent
Atlanta Public Schools

APS honors school crossing guards, students’ ‘first line of defense’

Describing them as “students’ first line of defense,” APS Superintendent Dr. Beverly L. Hall paid tribute to the district’s school crossing guards at an awards ceremony held in the Brewer building today. The event marks a weeklong celebration of National School Crossing Guard Recognition Week.

In 2008, APS became one of the first districts in the country to introduce a certified school crossing guard program. Not only do these dedicated individuals help students cross Atlanta streets safely, most also have been certified in CPR and use of an automated external defibrillator.

We thank them for their hard work on behalf of our students.

Jasmine Guy offers career advice to students from North Atlanta High’s Center for the Arts

When Jasmine Guy spoke with students from North Atlanta High‘s Center for the Arts, she was on familiar ground in more ways than one. The Atlanta stage actress and director and former star of TV’s “A Different World” and “Fame” is a proud graduate of the school when it was called Northside High.

Guy shared her experiences and life lessons from a lengthy career that has brought her back to Atlanta, whether acting with True Colors Theatre or directing the Alliance Theatre’s premiere last summer of the Martin Luther King Jr. musical “I Dream.” One of the funner moments came when a student asked her what she would do when, at an audition, she saw someone who was more talented than her perform. “I go to the bathroom,” she said as the students laughed. Then she got serious, after relating a particularly disappointing exprience: “Now, I try to use people that are good in auditions to inspire me. So I switch it around. If I see a fierce dancer in a room, I try to make it … juice me up. … You can’t let yourself get devastated.”

Guy appeared at the school at the invitation of Center for the Arts academy leader Reginald Colbert. North Atlanta and Grady High are the last of APS’ schools to convert to smaller learning schools under the High School Transformation Initiative that began in 2005 with The New Schools at Carver.

Watch the entire lecture and question-and-answer session with Jasmine Guy here.