Atlanta Wolfpack wins fifth GHSA State Wheelchair Basketball title in six years!

UPDATE: The Atlanta Wolfpack team WON its fifth state wheelchair title in six years over the weekend! Reece Johnson scored 12 points in a 35-25 win over arch-rival West Georgia in the finals held Friday at the Gwinnett Arena. Johnson is a senior at Crim Open Campus, was praised by his coach in an AJC article:

“Reece has grown from being just a player to being a mentor,” Wolfpack coach Andrea Arnold said. “We appreciate the development that he has shown personally, athletically, even socially, just making sure that he is a resource to his teammates. He will be greatly missed.”

The Atlanta Wolfpack team will compete for its fifth Georgia High School Association‘s AAASP Wheelchair Basketball Championship in six years on Friday, March 11, at the Gwinnett Arena.  Tip-off is noon. The Wolfpack will compete against Meriwether County’s West Georgia Wolverines, who are their toughest competitors.

The Wolfpack took an easy win at the State Wheelchair Basketball Semi-final Tournament on Saturday, March 5, at Warner Robins High School in Houston County against the Gwinnett Heat, finishing the season undefeated with a 6-0 record.

Currently the team has won four GHSA State AAASP Wheelchair Basketball championship titles – 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2010 — which ties the league record for the most consecutive state championships. (Read The Atlanta Educator article here.)

Inside The Atlanta Educator: Adapted sports athletes

We continue our look at the features, profiles and images from the latest issue of of The Atlanta Educator with a look at the adapted sports athletes of Atlanta Public Schools. If you haven’t picked up your copy before the break, you can view and print individual articles here, or you can read it online at www.issuu.com/atlantaeducator.

Here’s the intro:

Each year, athletes in the district’s Adapted Sports Program rise to the occasion. But this year has been truly exceptional.

Consider the two state championships — in wheelchair handball and wheelchair basketball — under the auspices of the American Association of Adapted Sports Programs (AAASP). Then there is the series of grants they have earned. Atlanta Wolfpack athletes also attracted attention and respect from members of the Atlanta Dream women’s NBA team. After a campus tour of the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, these talented students are now focused on the path to college.

Read more here.

Inside The Atlanta Educator: Grady High teacher Korri Ellis

Have you checked out the latest issue of The Atlanta Educator? It’s chock full of amazing features about the teachers, administrators, staffers, students, parents and community supporters who continue to enforce Atlanta Public Schools’ journey to excellence. You can read them one article at a time online here, or by clicking on www.issuu.com/atlantaeducator. We wanted to give you some examples before the break, starting with this feature on Grady High science teacher Korri Ellis. Here’s the intro; read the rest at the jump!

When Korri Ellis thinks about community engagement, she thinks green.

She thinks about trees her Grady High students planted on campus and throughout Midtown. She thinks about the school recycling program that began a couple years ago. She also thinks about harvesting organic produce from the school’s garden and creating meals for students to enjoy. 

As chair of the Grady High School Science Department and 2008 APS High School Teacher of the Year, Ellis has reinforced Georgia Performance Standards by creating partnerships with just about every environmental group in town. That list includes the Piedmont Park Conservancy, Georgia Conservancy, Trees Atlanta, Georgia Organics, Farmer D Organics, the Georgia Aquarium — and more.

Read more here.

The Atlanta Educator‘s Winter 2010 edition hits the streets

The Winter 2010 issue of the award-winning Atlanta Educator, a product of the Atlanta Public Schools’ Office of Communications, hits the streets this week to celebrate the many business and community partnerships that help our students in their journey to excellence.

In this issue, read all about the collaboration with KaBOOM!, which helps schools and community partners build a playground in one memorable day. Read about author and former Atlanta Brave Brian Jordan’s commitment to the students of APS and his recent visit to Centennial Place Elementary. Walk with Karen Riggins-Taylor, middle school principal at Coretta Scott King Young Women’s Leadership Academy, as she tours Graphic Packaging International with CEO David Scheible. And you’ll visit Turkey with Bolton Academy kindergarten teacher Claudine Curry as she shares her experiences with the global social-media group ePals.

Mays High inducts inaugural class of single-gender academy for girls

They marched in white, clasping a yellow rose, and are hoping to become butterflies. These were the metaphors that Mays High staff hope will lead to a metamorphosis, as 48 freshman girls were inducted Tuesday morning into the inaugural class of the Dorothy Height Academy of Leadership.

This first group is a part of Atlanta Public Schools’ High School Transformation Initiative, with Mays High offering the district’s only single-gender academies for boys and girls. (B.E.S.T Academy and the Coretta Scott King Young Women’s Leadership Academy started out as middle schools and this year are expending to include their own high school campuses.) The “DHALS,” as they’re often called, are supervised by Academy Leader Dr. Sharon Gay and receive mentorship from their older classmates.

The inductees enjoyed an elaborate ceremony that featured a lecture by Rev. Lola Russell of Antioch A.M.E. Church in Stone Mountain and a dance performance. Dr. Gay, as well as Mays High Principal Dr. Tyronne Smith, both promised the girls a quality education with strong support and challenged them to fulfill their potential. Mays High English teacher Badia Askari, who wrote the DHALs’ theme song, has played a pivotal role in this first year and received a special honor from her students that brought her to tears.

We’ll soon have a video with highlights from the ceremony and interviews with Dr. Gay, Askari and freshmen Jasmin Paschal and Kameera Wells — all of whom were featured in a previous interview and will be featured in the upcoming fall issue of The Atlanta Educator.

Mays High Eagle Leadership Academy students speak at Principal Shadow Day luncheon

While we were incredibly moved by the experienced shared by our community and business partners who spend Principal Shadow Day learning more about the exciting things happening in our schools, we were equally moved by the speeches provided by male students from Benjamin E. Mays High‘s Eagle Leadership Academy at the concluding luncheon. The academy is part of Mays’ single-gender approach to education, with the Dorothy Height Academy of Leadership serving the girls. (We’ll be featuring both in the next issue of The Atlanta Educator. Watch videos here.) It’s all a part of APS’ High School Transformation Initiative, which is providing a smaller, more personalized instructional approach to our high school students. The theme of the day was, “The workforce of the future is in a classroom today!” We think our Mays students spoke eloquent to that theme. Here are the speeches from the students, after the jump …

In the next Atlanta Educator: Mays High’s single-gender academies

We’re busy at work putting together the fall issue of The Atlanta Educator, an award-winning print newspaper that celebrates achievements around Atlanta Public Schools. From District staff and board members to school staff, faculty, students, parents and partners, The Atlanta Educator shows the wide range of people and programs that are making a difference in our students’ lives.

One of the most exciting stories we’re working on is the third and final phase of our High School Transformation Initiative, in which Grady, Mays and North Atlanta high schools have been converted this fall into small learning communities (SLCs) or academies — each with their own academy leader who reports to the school’s principal. We’ve found that this exciting approach leads to a more personalized learning environment.

On that note, one of the more innovative approaches within this model is the single-gender approach that APS launched a couple years ago at the middle-level (B.E.S.T. Academy and Coretta Scott King Young Women’s Leadership Academy). We’ve taken that approach and used it at Mays High School; two of the four academies are the Dorothy Height Academy of Leadership (girls) and the Eagle Leadership Academy (boys). In the girls video above and the boys video above, academy leaders, teachers and students discuss how the single-gender approach has helped students avoid distractions, stay focused in the classroom, and developed a kind of unity that builds on being with classmates of their own gender. As one teacher noted, the approach provides a surprising amount of freedom in the classroom, as students feel less self-conscious and more willing to discuss their unique concerns among themselves.

For the girls’ academy video above, we’d like to thank Academy Leader Sharon Gay, English teacher Badia Askari and students (from left to right) Jasmin Paschal, Danielle Rainwater, Katia Villalva and Kemeera Wells. for the boys video below, we’d like to thank Academy Leader Casey Landsman, guidance counselor Andrew Ragland, business law teacher Dr. Theo Smith Jr. and students Nicholas Williams and David Smith.

Look for this article and others in the upcoming fall issue of The Atlanta Educator.

Washington High’s Deonte Bridges delivers inspiring valedictorian speech

Deonte Bridges is just one of several Atlanta Public Schools graduates who had a story behind his years of hard work. Bridges, valedictorian for Booker T. Washington High’s Senior Academy, truly captured the essence of his challenges his speech graduation at the Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center. And APS’ Department of Learning Technologies was there to capture the moment in dramatic fashion. (Also thanks to APS Media Production Manager Scott King for providing this video to us.)

Bridges was one of Washington High’s “Freedom Writers.” (Check out the Talk Up APS story here.) We also profiled Bridges and the other APS valedictorians in the latest issue of The Atlanta Educator, which should have arrived in your mailbox by now. Bridges plans to attend the University of Georgia.

For more graduation memories, check out the Atlanta Public Schools’ Media Gallery at www.AtlantaPublicSchools.us, and click on Media Gallery. The gallery features videos and countless photos that detail our transformation into a top-performing  urban school district.

You’ve got mail: The Atlanta Educator!

There should be a nice little surprise in mailboxes throughout the Atlanta Public Schools community this week: the graduation issue of The Atlanta Educator. In this summer edition, we not only profile this year’s valedictorians but also hear from two valedictorians from the Class of 2009 as they share their thoughts on their first year of college. We also provide a look at some of our most comprehensive initiates, including the Effective Teacher in Every Classroom project as well as the Middle School Transformation initiative.

You’ll see how schools such as Centennial Place Elementary and Burgess-Peterson Academy are taking innovative approaches to educating our students. We profile new Atlanta Board of Education member Nancy Meister and Project GRAD-Atlanta Program Administrator Eric Rosser. We also hear from APS Superintendent Dr. Beverly L. Hall as she salutes our students’ progress on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) test, also known as the Nation’s Report Card.

So while we would never “mail in” an issue, we can say that we’re mailing out this issue. And thanks so much to our partner, the GE Foundation,  for their help on this. We think you’ll like what you see. Enjoy.

Grady, Douglass high schools make strong showing at national urban debate tournament

Representatives from both Grady and Douglass high schools showed off their abilities and earned scholarship money at the National Association for Urban Debate League’s (NAUDL) third annual Chase Urban Debate National Championship. The National Championship, held April 22-25 at the Chase Conference Centers in New York City, was sponsored by Chase and the Arthur N. Rupe Foundation.

Students from Grady and Douglass were among 75 students competing for the title of Chase Urban Debate National Champion. Jamba Juice provided $10,000 in student and team scholarship money to the top individual speakers and debate champions.

Grady junior Michael Barlow (pictured, at left) and sophomore Holden Choi made it to the semifinals. (Barlow, you may recall, was featured in the spring issue of The Atlanta Educator.) Both debaters were additionally recognized for their individual speaking skill, with Barlow earning the third place speaker award and a $750 scholarship from Jamba Juice. Choi earned the ninth place speaker award. Douglass’ De Angelo Bowie was the other representative from the Atlanta Urban Debate League.

“They’re both such outstanding debaters,” said Grady’s coach, Lisa Willoughby, a 25-year veteran of this competition.