ADVANCED
ACADEMICS
101
A product of Vertical planning meetings
PURPOSE:
Advanced Academics 101 was designed to be an
evening to educate our elementary feeder parents
(specifically the parents of current 4th and 5th
graders) about our PreAP and AP academic
programs.
 Our goal is to help parents understand the value
of enrolling their student in a PreAP or AP class,
while also helping them to understand the rigor,
commitment and responsibility required to be
successful in these courses.
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HIGH SCHOOL OVERVIEW
Our Liberty High School counselors put together
a very informative presentation including the
following key points:
 Graduation requirements and credits
 Class rank and GPA (including how PreAP, AP
and dual credit courses are weighted)
 College entrance overview (including the
advantages of graduation in the top 10%)
 Overview of PreAP and AP courses and a
description of the “qualities of an AP student”
 Guidelines to help parents and students decide if
PreAP/AP is the appropriate fit
 Also touched on Dual Credit and CBE’s

MIDDLE SCHOOL OVERVIEW
Re-emphasized several points covered by the high
school counselors, just more specific to middle
school including:
 The positives of taking PreAP courses in
preparing students for their future in high school,
college and beyond
 The rigor, challenge and commitment required in
the PreAP courses and academic guidelines to
consider in making course selections
 Making a good choice so that the student can be
successful in their middle school career
 The impact of having to change out of a PreAP
course if it is not a good fit
 The different PreAP courses offered in middle
school
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CORE SUBJECT
SIDE BY SIDE COMPARISONS
Each of our instructional coaches presented a
brief comparison of how a PreAP course in their
subject area compared to an on-level course in
their subject area
 Extra time was dedicated to math to include
information about the flow of courses, the impact
of a middle school student taking a high school
math course for credit and how that can impact
their GPA and graduation rank, and to attempt
to explain all of the different levels available to
our 8th graders, the online Geometry course, etc.
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PREAP GALLERY WALK
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This was an element we added this year which was my
favorite time of the evening
Each of our core subject areas had a display that
showed some of the activities our PreAP students were
completing and demonstrating the higher expectations
of work in a PreAP course (or in the case of US History,
the independent study program)
Each station had teachers available to answer
questions and current PreAP students available to
answer questions or talk with parents about how
PreAP courses had challenged them to grow as
students
High school and middle school counselors, along with
our principal were all available during this time to
answer more specific questions as well
The best part about this was that the teachers put this
all together on their own – I didn’t have to do anything
except reserve technology. The displays were honestly
very impressive!
CLOSING THOUGHTS…
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Although I hate adding another evening to our “work schedule”, I
would definitely be on board with doing this again next year because I
think our parents found it very informative and valuable
We had over 300 parents in attendance and some students as well; I
think I would encourage elementary schools to promote it to students
as well in the future
Two of our elementary school principals and counselors attended, I
know the parents really appreciated having them there and actively
seeing the cooperative efforts between the different levels of schools
It was truly a team effort. Our administrators came up with the idea,
then told us (counselors) to put it all together; the Liberty counselors
and our teachers were responsible for the majority of the presentation;
the elementary school counselors did everything on the promoting and
communication side (I did provide an event flyer, but I mostly just
adapted Vandeventer’s ;-)!); Pretty much all I did was send a bunch of
emails to a bunch of people making sure that everyone had what they
needed, and typed up an agenda!
The only thing I wish we could somehow cover more thoroughly is the
math progression, various options, and CBE’s, but that could honestly
be a whole evening in itself. That is definitely where the majority of
our questions are focused!
We are REALLY hopeful that the information disseminated this
evening will help our parents and students to made educated and wise
decisions when we start the course registration in March. We will
see!?!?!?