Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Dear Advisor (10-12th grade Advisory)
As part of our whole school initiative to improve our daily attendance rates and decrease chronic
absenteeism, EBHS is having a whole school attendance competition. The contest will be
between homerooms and will begin on Monday, December 1, 2014 and will end on Friday,
December 19, 2014. Winners will be the top 3 homerooms with the highest attendance rate for
the 4 weeks, and the top 3 homerooms with the most improved attendance rate (from first term).
We will have a whole school campaign that includes both print and video advertising (thanks, Mr
Leone). During today’s advisory, please make students aware that the contest will be
happening (based on attendance in their 2nd period classroom, not on their advisory period), and
have them vote on their favorite poster for the print campaign (see attached Google Slideshow
Document). Take a vote in your advisory of students’ favorites, and send your top 3 choices to
jgorham@bostonpublicschools.org. Winners will be announced on Friday.
The main focus of this week’s advisory is helping students understand their GPA and how to
calculate it. At our Advisory on 12/4/14, students will be looking at their report cards, setting
goals for the remainder of the academic year, and will calculate their own GPA using their actual
grades.
Instructions: In this activity, students will learn what a GPA is, why it is important, and how to
calculate it.
A. Distribute the “Calculating GPA” worksheet. Work through the first three questions by asking
students if they know the answers to the questions. Guide them with the following
questionsanswers
1. What does GPA stand for? Grade Point Average
2. What does a GPA show? This is the average of your grades in all your courses.
3. Why isa GPA important? Colleges, scholarship committees, and employers will judge
your application based on criteria including your GPA. If you have a high GPA, it shows
you worked hard in high school and will do the same in college or a job. If you have a low
GPA, those reviewing your application may think you won’t work hard in college or in a
job.
a. Have students look at the sample grade report and go through both example of calculating
the GPA as a class. (Hint: The GPA for Student 1 = 1.11; Student 2= 4.42) Follow-up. During
the 12/4/14 Advisory we will distribute to each student his/her individual report card and we will
have them calculate their GPAs.
As always, thank you for your support of the Advisory initiative. Please let us know if you have
any questions or concerns,
The Advisory Committee