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Hall County Schools open their IB schools to non-residents
If you’d like to give your child the chance to study the International Baccalaureate curriculum, but don’t have access to an IB school, Hall County has announced it is taking applications from rising high-school juniors who live outside the county for its three IB high-schools: Johnson High School, North Hall High School, and West Hall High School.
The IB Diploma Programme is a rigorous, challenging curriculum. Completion of the IB Diploma can translate into college course credits at many major colleges and universities.
Students from anywhere are welcome to apply, but all out-of-county students must pay tuition of $1,500 for the year, plus the cost of IB exams. Also, parents must provide transportation to and from the school.
Limited spaces are available. According to Sally Krisel, the director of innovative and advanced programs for the county, if a school receives more applicants than it has open seats, it will first review all the applications and select the students who are most highly qualified. If there are more equally qualified applicants than available slots, the spaces will be filled by lottery.
Application deadline is July 7, 2012. Applications are posted on the web sites of each of the schools.
For more information, read the announcement on the Hall County Schools web site, or contact Sally Krisel at sally-dot-krisel-at-hallco-dot-org (address deconstructed to help prevent spam).
Open season for school transfers in Atlanta Public Schools
Atlanta Public Schools has posted the application for school transfers for the 2012-13 school year. Under the general administrative transfer program, students can attend any school in the APS system that has available spaces.
Schools that will be accepting transfers next year include four elementary schools that teach the highly acclaimed International Baccalaureate (IB) Primary Years Programme: Deerwood, Garden Hills, Beecher Hills, and Jackson elementary schools. (Although Jackson has spaces only for incoming kindergarten students.)
Applications must be submitted in person at the APS offices on Trinity Avenue, beginning this Saturday, May 19, and continuing through June 15. Open spaces are assigned by lottery, not first-come, first-served, so there’s no need to panic.
For complete information, visit the APS Student Transfers page.
2012 Serendipity camp for gifted students registration open through May 11
Registration for the 2012 Serendipity summer camp for DeKalb County gifted-identified students is due to the gifted office by next Friday, May 11. To be eligible, students must have participated in the gifted program in a DeKalb County public school this school year. The camp is open to current 1st-7th graders (rising 2nd-8th graders).
Camp for students in grades 1-3 (rising 2-4) will be held June 4-8; students in grades 4-7 (rising 5-8) will have camp June 11-15. Both sessions meet from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily at Midvale Elementary School. Cost is just $100 for the week, including breakfast and lunch daily. Courses are determined by the child’s grade level.
If your child is eligible to attend Serendipity, he or she should have brought home a registration form already. Unfortunately, DeKalb doesn’t post the form online, so if your child didn’t hand the form over to you (as in my case), the best way to get one is to ask the gifted teacher at your school. If that fails, contact the county’s gifted office at (678) 676-0718.
Atlanta Public Schools 2012 Xanadu and Summer Academy applications now available
Atlanta Public Schools has now posted the complete information and applications for its 2012 Xanadu and Summer Academy for the Arts and Sciences summer programs.
The process of applying for both programs is essentially the same. You can register online now, which allows you to select classes, but you won’t be confirmed in those classes until you’ve submitted the required documents and paid your fees. You must do that in person at the APS Office of Gifted and Talented, beginning this Friday, May 4. A complete schedule shows other dates when forms and payment will be accepted. Bear in mind that classes are filled on a first-paid, first-served basis. In other words, registering online does not hold you a space in the classes you want. Only completing the payment process guarantees your spot.
Good luck!
Advance information for 2012 Xanadu and Summer Academy programs
Note: Applications are now online for 2012. See the Xandadu / Summer Academy post on this blog for more information.
At this time of year, a lot of parents start getting antsy to get a jump on applying to the Atlanta Public Schools summer programs. So, this morning I called the Atlanta Public Schools gifted office and got this information:
Xanadu 2012
Dates: June 4-29, 2012
Time: 9 a.m. – 3 p.m. weekdays, with before- and after-care available
Location: Parkside Elementary School
Enrollment: Rising 1st – 5th grade students
Summer Academy for the Arts and Sciences 2012
Dates: June 4-29, 2012
Time: 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays, no before- or after-care
Location: Carver School of the Arts
Enrollment: Rising 6th – 12th grade students
Xanadu and Summer Academy both are operated by the APS gifted office; however, students need not have been formally identified as gifted to attend. The programs will accept students from outside the APS system. Tuition for those students is typically higher.
Applications should go live the week of April 23. When they’re available, you’ll find them on the APS gifted page. Note that applications will not be accepted until early May. This waiting period is built in so parents don’t need to get anxious about downloading and submitting the application the moment it goes live.
There is no deadline to apply, but classes are filled on a first-come, first-served basis, and some classes will fill quickly.
DeKalb sets dates for 2012 Serendipity summer program
Information has been updated. See the latest post on 2012 Serendipity camp.
At a meeting this week with the heads of gifted programming of DeKalb, the dates for the 2012 Serendipity summer program were revealed:
- June 4-8, 2012 for rising 2nd-4th graders
- June 11-15, 2012 for rising 5th-7th graders
Serendipity camp is open to children who participated in the gifted program at a DeKalb County public school during the 2011-12 school year. In the past, there’s been no information online about the program. If you have a student in DeKalb’s gifted programs, you should receive a flyer from the school with more details. If history provides any clues, the information will probably be distributed in April.
You can expect the cost to be around $100.
I will let you know as soon as the information becomes generally available.
Open enrollment for school choice in DeKalb begins Monday
It’s school choice season in the DeKalb County School District (the new name of the former DeKalb County School System). That means you need to register now to get your child into the lottery for magnet and theme schools, including DeKalb’s magnet schools for high achievers.
Dozens of elementary, middle and high schools are part of DeKalb’s school choice program. New for the 2012-13 school year are International Baccalaureate (IB) programs at Salem and Tucker middle schools. There’s also a new start-up charter school, DeKalb Preparatory Academy, which is so new there’s hardly any information about it. DeKalb’s school choice page connects you to a full list of the schools you can consider. Officials said the school choice catalog would be online today.
To enter the lottery, you’ll need to register on the school choice portal. Open enrollment is from March 12-30, but you can go ahead and set up your portal account now, as it takes a couple of business days to get your account authorized. School choice administrators, who met with parents on Wednesday, advised that you may see some error messages when you complete the online form, but as long as you see the status listed as “eligible,” everything is OK.
Parents need to understand that just because a school is listed in the school choice lottery system doesn’t mean there will actually be spaces open in that school for the 2012-13 year. Seats are always made available first to students living in the school’s attendance zone, if it has one. Only if the school is below capacity will seats be opened for school choice students.
Also note that DeKalb School of the Arts (the high school) does not conduct its admissions process through the online portal. You can obtain an application for the school online or at your home school. Deadline to apply is March 23.
Director of DeKalb gifted to speak Wednesday morning
Pat Copeland, director of DeKalb County Schools’ gifted and theme programs, will speak at the Dunwoody-Chamblee Parents Council meeting this Wednesday, March 7, at Huntley Hills Elementary School, at 9:15 a.m. The topic is the county magnet and theme program, so I can’t say how much of her talk will focus on gifted students, per se, but if you’ve ever wanted to meet and hear from Ms. Copeland in person, this is one chance to do so.
School choice season is now
Metro Atlanta’s school systems include a decent choice of magnet, theme and charter schools. If you want your child to attend one next year, it’s time to gather information and submit applications.
Here’s a quick round-up of some of the school choices and their admissions procedures. Note: Please don’t consider this to be a complete list. I’ve tracked down what information I could, but there are other schools not on this list that deserve consideration. If you’re seriously considering school choice, I recommend that you visit your school system’s page under the “Gifted Ed in Local Schools” tab on this site. From there, you can explore the web sites for the specific school(s) that interest you and contact them for more information.
DeKalb County Schools will hold its School Choice Expo this Saturday, Jan. 21, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Mall at Stonecrest in Lithonia. Registration for a few DeKalb schools opens later this month, but for most schools, lottery registration will begin in March.
I had a hard time finding information on the Clayton County Schools web site, but in poking around I found that Fine Arts Magnet High School is taking applications now. Rex Mill Middle School also is accepting applications from current 5th graders — their deadline is Feb. 24.
In Fulton County, you have until Jan. 23 to apply to Riverwood International Charter School. Once again this year, Riverwood is accepting applications only from Fulton County residents — the non-resident, tuition paying option won’t be available for 2012-13. The deadline for North Springs Charter High School is Jan. 30. A staff member at North Springs said residents of Fulton, DeKalb and Cobb can apply, although there may not be spaces available for students from outside Fulton. Applications for the lottery are being taken now for Ridgeview Charter School, Fulton’s IB middle school. Their deadline is Feb. 16, 2012. Applications to the math and science magnet at Westlake High School are due Feb. 9. The visual and performing arts magnet at Tri-Cities High School is holding auditions this Saturday, and also on Feb. 25.
Magnet schools in Cobb County are no longer taking applications, which were due in early December.
(I was starting to feel guilty about not being timely with information on Cobb and Fulton schools, until I realized I published this post back in October 2011. Whew.)
Gwinnett County students can apply to the Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science and Technology (GSMST) through Feb. 3, 2012.
The City of Atlanta Public Schools system doesn’t offer school choice via a magnet or charter structure, but it does allow student transfers. Applications for transfers are generally allowed in the spring, toward the end of the school year.
Open house and application season has begun for area magnet schools
We’ve got plenty of the 2011-12 school year left, but it’s already time to start thinking about 2012-13, especially if you’d like your child to attend one of the charter schools around the metro Atlanta area. Here’s a round-up of application deadlines and open houses, county by county.
Note that some magnet schools will open a certain number of spaces for people who live outside the county. Check with the individual schools to see if they expect to have openings for non-residents next year.
Clayton County
Fine Arts Magnet School in Morrow is taking applications for auditions. Application deadline is Dec. 16, 2011 for the first round of auditions. There is also a later deadline in March 2012 for the second round of auditions.
Cobb County
Cobb County has developed a common application for all magnet schools, so you can apply for any and all magnets at once. The deadline for all magnet applications is Dec. 9, 2011.
International Baccalaureate (IB) program at Campbell High School. Open house Nov. 16, 2011 at 7 p.m.
Academy of Math, Science and Technology at Kennesaw Mountain High School. Open house Nov. 17, 2011 at 6:30 p.m.
South Cobb High School Academy of Research and Medical Sciences. Open house Nov. 9, 2011 at 7 p.m.
Center for Advanced Studies in Science, Math and Technology at Wheeler High School. Open house Nov. 8, 2011 at 7 p.m.
DeKalb County
DeKalb’s magnet programs are filled by a lottery that takes place each spring. I didn’t find any fall events. The county has typically held a centralized open house for all magnet programs during the winter.
Fulton County
International Studies magnet at Riverwood International Charter School (an IB Diploma Programme school). Information sessions at 9 a.m. on Nov. 4 and Dec. 2, 2011 and on Jan. 6, 2012. Prospective students open house Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012 at 3:00 p.m. Application is not online yet. Application deadline will likely be in January.
North Springs High School, offering magnet programs in math/science and visual / performing arts. Application deadline Jan. 30, 2012. Open house Nov. 13, 2011 at 2 p.m.
Westlake High School math and science magnet. Open house Nov. 17 at 6:30 p.m. Application will be available in Jan. 2012.
Tri-Cities High School has a magnet program in visual and performing arts. I’ve contacted them and am awaiting a response.
Gwinnett County
Gwinnett School for Math, Science and Technology. Couldn’t find any open house information. Registration will be open in November.
City of Atlanta
The City of Atlanta no longer uses a magnet model; however, the school system has many theme schools, and often more than one theme community within a school. School choice in Atlanta Public Schools is handled via a student transfer process that takes place in spring.
Gifted Atlanta 