News from Scholars' Academy

Dr. Peine's Pen

A Letter from Ms. Moschel's Class:
At a class meeting in October, the second graders in Mrs. Moschel and Mrs. Anton's class selected a class project to raise money to protect land in the rainforest; but they can't do it without you! They are selling shirts, tote bags, wallets, hats (and a variety of other items). All items are about saving the rainforest! Students from the class are visiting the other classrooms in the school, making presentations about the project, and leaving information and forms with students for ordering. The stuff will come in before winter break. Here are a couple of reasons why we should save the rainforest... A rainforest the size of New Jersey is being cut down every day; 56 percent of all animals are found only in the rainforest. Money raised by the project will be used to support the preservation of acreage at the Children's Cloud Forest in Monteverde, Costa Rica.

Thank you to Peyton Thomas for the information in this letter.

RECOGNIZING: Ms. Kathy Moschel, who has been named as the Primary School Teacher of the Year by the NC Entomological Society. Ms. Moschel submitted samples from the unit about insects that she has developed for our Discoverers III classrooms. The unit is the final stage of our Discoverers level curriculum about living things, which begins at the Discoverers I with animals, continues in Discoverers II with plants, and concludes with insects. Congratulations on this well-deserved award.

LOST and FOUND: The number of items in our lost and found is exploding. If your children's closets seem to be missing any number of items, please check out our lost and found under the stairway behind the reception area. Any items left there at Thanksgiving will be donated to service organizations.

ADMISSIONS: Our first official event for admissions for the 2011/2012 school year was the open house for prospective parents that was held on Saturday, November 6, at school. It was most gratifying to be able to host the open house at our new facility. Current parents and staff were on hand to discuss the program and our school community with visitors. Current families are our most visible means of connecting with potential families of highly gifted children who might be interested in considering the Scholars' Academy as a possible option for school. We will receive many calls and emails from prospective families from now until our application deadline of January 31. If prospective families have any questions that you are unsure about, please encourage them to call the school office - or email Ms. Cuneo or me.

Please remember that the criteria for eligibility is as follows: to be automatically eligible, a child must have an IQ score that is three standard deviations above the mean for the particular test that was administered. Different tests have different means and standard deviations. With a score between two and three standard deviations of the mean, the application will be evaluated by the School Based Admissions Team, for determining eligibility. There is no automatic cut-off score in the two-to-three standard deviations range that determines eligibility. If you indicate a "cut-off score" to prospective parents, you would be providing inaccurate information about our process. Eligibility does not guarantee admission to the school, as that is determined by lottery.

Thank you for all you do to promote our program for highly intellectually gifted learners.

For the earth,

Marie Peine, Ph.D., Director

director@scholarsacademy.org