www.jcpsky.netEqual Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer

Offering Equal Educational Opportunities

May 2012

JCPS is now accepting middle and high school applications (page 6)

Elementary application period starts soon

Most elementary schools will be part of 1 of 13 clusters (page 3)

Applications will be accepted online this year (page 2)

Nov.-Dec. 2012Jefferson County

PublicSchools

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The registration and appli-cation period for elementa-ry schools for the 2013-14 school year is Mon., Nov. 19, through Fri., Jan. 11. Who should apply during this period?• Students who will enter

kindergarten at the start of the next school year

• Students who are new to the district

• Students who have moved • Students who want to ap-

ply to a magnet school, magnet program, or op-tional program

To find out which school serves your child’s home

JCPS elementary application period starts soon

address, call the JCPS De-mographics Office at 485-3050 or use the School-Finder, an interactive fea-ture on the JCPS Web site.Online registration and ap-plications with instructions will be available on the dis-trict’s Web site and at reg-istration sites that will be located throughout the dis-trict during the application period. For more information, call the JCPS Optional, Magnet, and Advance Programs Of-fice at 485-3323 or the Student Assignment Office at 485-6250.

The Elementary School Showcase will be held at the Kentucky International Convention Center on Sat., Nov. 17, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Representatives from schools and from many JCPS District offices will be available to answer your questions.You’ll get a free copy of Choices, the guide to JCPS elementary schools, at the Showcase. Links to individual school sites also are available on the JCPS Web site.

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Most elementary schools will be part of 1 of 13 clusters

Beginning with the 2013-14 school year, most JCPS el-ementary schools will be part of a cluster that includes five to eight schools. During the elementary application period (Mon., Nov. 19, through Fri., Jan. 11), students may apply to any of the following:• The school that serves their home address • Any other school in their cluster• A magnet school• A magnet program• An optional programSee the next page for an overview of magnet schools and program.Click here for the elementary version of Choices, the guide to JCPS schools and programs.

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JCPS elementary magnet programs provide a spe-cialized learning environ-ment (such as a Montessori school) or focus on a specif-ic subject (such as technol-ogy or health and fitness). Students who are accepted into a magnet program be-come a full-time student of the school that offers it. Students throughout the district may apply to many of the following programs, but some serve students from specific clusters. JCPS provides transporta-tion for most students who are accepted into a magnet program. • Academy for Excellence

in Teaching and Learn-ing: Atkinson (districtwide magnet program)

• Communications: Breck-inridge-Franklin (magnet

Elementary magnet programsprogram for Clusters 8 through 13)

• Environmental Stud-ies: Cane Run (magnet program for Clusters 1 through 6) and Portland (magnet program for Clus-ters 7 through 13)

• Gifted and Talented: King (districtwide magnet program)

• Health and Fitness for Accelerated Learn-ing: Wellington (magnet program for Clusters 1 through 6) and Rangeland (magnet program for Clus-ters 7 through 13)

• Institute for Creativity and Innovation: Maupin (districtwide magnet pro-gram)

• International/Cultural Studies and Language: Fairdale (magnet program for Clusters 1 through 7) and Goldsmith (magnet

program for Clusters 8 through 13)

• Leadership Academy: Mill Creek (magnet pro-gram for Clusters 1 through 5)

• Mathematics/Science/Technology: Wheatley (districtwide magnet pro-gram)

• MicroSociety: Indian Trail (magnet program for Clus-ters 6 and 7)

• Montessori: Kennedy Montessori (magnet program for Clusters 1 through 8) and Coleridge-Taylor Montessori (magnet program for Clusters 9 through 13)

• Preparatory Acad-emy: McFerran (magnet program for Clusters 4 through 7)

• Success for All Accel-erated Reading: Jacob (magnet program for Clus-ters 1 through 5)

• Talent Development: Byck (districtwide magnet program)

• Technology: Roosevelt-Perry (districtwide magnet program)

• Visual and Performing Arts: King (districtwide magnet program)

• Visual Arts: Rutherford (magnet program for Clusters 1 through 6) and Price (magnet program for Clusters 7 through 13)

• Waldorf-Inspired Pro-gram: Byck (districtwide magnet program)

Mill Creek Elementary offers a Leadership Academy.

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Magnet schools accept applications throughout the districtElementary students throughout the district may apply to the following magnet schools, which are not part of an el-ementary cluster. JCPS provides transportation for most students who are accepted into a magnet school (except for the Brown School). • International Baccalaureate (IB) school: Young

(3526 W. Muhammad Ali Blvd.) • Mathematics/science/technology school: Brandeis

(2817 W. Kentucky St.)• Performing arts school: Lincoln (930 East Main St.)• Self-directed learning school: Brown (546 S. 1st St.)

Traditional schools: Students are assigned to Audubon Traditional (1051 Hess Lane), Carter Tradi-tional (3600 Bohne Avenue), Greathouse/Shryock Tradi-tional (2700 Browns Lane), or Schaffner Traditional (2701 Crums Lane) based on their home address.Foster Traditional Academy (Cluster 2) and Shelby Tra-ditional Academy (Cluster 12) offer the Traditional Magnet Program, and stu-dents throughout the district may apply.These six schools are part of the traditional education feeder pattern to Barret Tra-ditional, Jefferson County Traditional, and Johnson Traditional Middle Schools. Wilkerson Traditional (Clus-ter 2) and Smyrna Tradi-tional (Cluster 7) provide traditional education, but they don’t offer magnet pro-grams and aren't part of the feeder pattern to traditional middle schools.

Hawthorne’s Spanish Immersion Optional ProgramHawthorne Elementary of-fers the Dual-Language Spanish Immersion Pro-gram. It’s an optional pro-gram, which means trans-portation is provided only for Cluster 13 students. The program provides daily immersion experiences that prepare students (kinder-

garten through fifth grade) to read, write, and speak proficiently in Spanish. The students receive daily math and science instruc-tion in Spanish from cer-tified, Spanish-speaking teachers. Other content areas are taught in English. Students also benefit from

cultural enrichment in a Spanish arts class. Hawthorne’s program ben-efits both students who are learning Spanish as a sec-ond language and students who are learning English as a second language.

Students perform in Lincoln Elementary’s black box theatre.

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JCPS is now accepting middle and high school applicationsJCPS is now accepting on-line applications for middle and high school magnet programs, optional pro-grams, magnet schools, and high school open en-rollment for the 2013-14 school year. You also can complete the online application at regis-tration sites at many JCPS schools and offices. The application period will end Fri., Jan. 11.For more information on optional programs, mag-net programs, and magnet schools, contact the JCPS Optional, Magnet, and Ad-vance Programs Office at 485-3323. For general information, contact the Student Assign-ment Office at 485-6250.

Academy @ Shawnee to launch new middle school programThe Academy @ Shawnee is going to start an innova-tive middle school magnet program serving about 100 students in grades six through eight. The program will help stu-dents develop the core skills needed to be success-ful at the high school level and beyond. Middle school students will participate in real-world aviation experi-ences during 15 days of

extended learning time — 5 days in the spring semester after acceptance into the program and 10 days in the summer. The program will ad-mit students who have a strong record of academic achievement and good at-tendance—and who are committed to participating in the extended-time expe-riences.

For high school students, the Academy offers two districtwide magnet pro-grams: Aerospace: Flight School and Aerospace: Aviation Maintenance Tech-nology. For high school Network 3 students, the Academy also offers an Engineer-ing course as well as Navy JROTC.

Click here for the middle and high school version of Choices.

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Foreign exchange students bring new perspectives to Atherton classroomsAtherton High has nine for-eign exchange students this year, the highest num-ber in recent memory. The 17-year-olds are from Kosovo, Japan, China, Rus-sia, Germany, Brazil, and Spain. They are victors of fierce academic competi-tions in their home coun-tries to spend one of their high school years in the United States. Some of the students are scholarship recipients from the U.S. De-partment of State. All of them have regular class schedules but make special visits to other class-es to discuss realities and challenges from their cor-ners of the world. In fact, the students’ backgrounds make them a hot commodity among teach-ers hoping to help their other students un-derstand view-points from dif-ferent cultures.“I love having these students in class,” says John Ferguson, who teaches Atherton cours-es in business, economics, and global is-

sues. “It just gives a differ-ent perspective about what goes on. I use these young people a lot to compare and contrast issues like educa-tion or voting. The students here in America have a lot of questions for these young people.”The American students have been quick to accept their new peers, who represent some of the many national flags hanging in Atherton’s lobby. For example, during his first month at the school, a student from Kosovo was

nominated for Homecoming Court.“These students have re-ally enriched the interna-tional academic theme of our school,” says Principal Thomas Aberli. Atherton offers an Interna-tional Studies/International Baccalaureate (IB) course and other courses in the Human Services, Education, and International Studies Professional Career Theme. Fairdale High (see the next page) and Seneca High also offer courses in this theme.

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Earlier this year, Fairdale High signed a letter of agree-ment with University of Cam-bridge International Exami-nations to become the first and only Cambridge School in Jefferson County.Cambridge is a world-re-nowned university in London. The International Examina-tions program is a challeng-ing course of studies that offers high school students opportunities for an interna-tional diploma and college credit. Cambridge courses—taught in more than 2,900 schools worldwide—are available in English, math, natural sci-ences, social sciences, global studies, and foreign lan-guage.

“University of Cambridge In-ternational Examinations is the world’s largest provider of international programs,” says Fairdale Principal Brad Weston. “Leading universities and employers worldwide value and recognize the Cambridge programs as evidence of aca-demic ability and preparation to succeed at the highest levels. We are very excited and proud to partner with the Uni-versity of Cambridge. This is an excellent opportunity for Fairdale students.”

Cambridge provides the cur-riculum and tests as well as online support, technical as-sistance, and professional de-velopment (PD) for Fairdale teachers.Fairdale offers courses in the Human Services, Education, and International Studies Professional Career Theme. Atherton High and Seneca High also offer courses in this theme.

Are you getting the e-mail newsletter?Parent Connection eNews is a JCPS newsletter that offers new, brief articles in a monthly e-mail. You can view the latest issue and sign up for future ones on the Parent Connection Web site.

Nov. 17: Elementary School ShowcaseNov. 19: Elementary school application

period beginsNov. 21–23: Thanksgiving BreakDec. 1: SAT testingDec. 4: 15th District Parent Teacher As-

Mark your calendarsociation (PTA) Reflections Awards Cer-emonyDec. 8: ACT testingDec. 21–Jan. 4: Winter BreakJan. 11 . Elementary, middle, and high

school application periods end

Fairdale High is only Jefferson County Cambridge School

Are you as smart as a JCPS seventh grader?The answers to the chal-lenging science questions in the last issue of Parent Con-nection are 1: C, 2: D, 3: C. To review the questions, click here and and select the October issue in the ar-chive. The first parents to send the correct answers last month were Amy Dobben (mother of a student at Jeffersontown elementary), Angela Duvall (Butler Tradi-tional High), and Amanda Keller Felts (Greathouse/Shryock El-ementary).This month, Parent Connec-tion offers a quiz with sev-enth-grade math questions. The first three parents who send the correct answers to the newsletter office via e-mail and the first three who send the answers via regu-lar mail will receive a free JCPS T-shirt. Please include the name of your child’s (or grandchild’s) school. Click here to send the an-swers via e-mail. The regu-lar mailing address is Thom-as Pack, Communications and Publications North,

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C. B. Young Jr. Service Cen-ter, Building 4, 3001 Crit-tenden Drive, Louisville, KY 40209. You don’t need to write the questions or answers. Just send the question numbers and the letters for your an-

swers. Or you may print out this quiz

and mail it.

1. What is the prime

factoriza-tion of 408?

A. 2 • 3 • 17 B. 2 • 4 • 51 C. 23 • 51 D. 23 • 3 • 17

2. A dentist of-fers her patients different colored

toothbrushes (red, blue, and green) and differ-ent flavored toothpastes (mint, lemon, cherry, and bubble gum). What is the total number of differ-ent combinations of one toothbrush color and one toothpaste flavor that the dentist has to offer? A. 2 B. 7 C. 12 D. 14

3. Francine drew the pic-ture below on a piece of poster board. She plans to color the interiors of the circle and the triangle blue. What is the approx-imate area of the parts of the picture that she will color blue? A. 57 in.2 B. 82 in.2 C. 114 in.2 D. 233 in.2

How to get students to read more books

Okolona Elementary is the first elementary school in Kentucky to stop using the Dewey Decimal System in its library and start using a system called the Book Store Model. The shelves for popular subjects—such as animals or sports—now can include fiction, nonfiction, and po-etry books. Under the Dewey Decimal System, fiction, nonfiction,

Take them all off the shelves, put them back in a new way

and poetry usually would be found on different shelves.Okolona’s library started the school year with the new model, and “so far, my stu-dents are loving it,” says li-brarian Amanda Klakamp. “I’ve been very slow about easing them into it, so they have a true understand-ing of how it works.” Still, “changing to this format has been a challenge for some of my students. I had one

say, ‘Why do we have to change after you made us learn all that Dewey stuff last year?’ I laughed and explained that students still need to know ‘Dewey stuff’ because they will need to know how to use it in mid-dle school, high school, and college for all the research they will do—as well as in the public library.” The Book Store Model seems to be boosting read-

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ing. For instance, a little more than 300 Okolona students checked out 933 books in September 2011. In the same month this year, fewer than 300 stu-dents checked out 1,218 books.Klakamp worked with JCPS Library Media Services last summer to reclassify the books, which involved pack-ing all of them into 67 box-es and trucking them to the C. B. Young Jr. Service Cen-ter, a JCPS facility on Crit-

tenden Drive. Library Media Services Director Paul Lana-ta arranged for a large stor-age area to be emptied so employees could sort books using the new system. Each of the more than 3,000 books had to be relabeled and tagged. Fi-nally, all of the books were trucked back to Okolona and rearranged on the shelves. The effort initially stemmed from a discus-sion between Lanata and Okolona Principal Tracy Bar-

ber, who was looking for a better way to feature library subjects. Klakamp, now in her second year as the Okolona librarian, had initi-ated a smaller-scale subject heading redesign at an Indi-ana school. “You really have to have a philosophy and a vision that will allow [the new system] to work,” Lanata says. “Our main objective is for stu-dents to read, and if this facilitates that, more power to it.”

Students interned on the set of a filmTwo students from Fern Creek Traditional High (La-kin Pack and Andy Creek) and a recent graduate from Ballard High (Cassandra Kelsey) were selected to intern for a film in Los An-geles.The internships were creat-ed by Conrad Bachmann, a Louisville native and long-time Hollywood actor who has been a partner with the three JCPS Communica-tion, Media, and the Arts Professional Career Theme high schools—Fern Creek,

Ballard, and Pleasure Ridge Park. Students from these schools have been involved with Conrad’s Louisville In-ternational Festival of Film since the inception of the Professional Career Theme Program. Bachmann had a role in a small film this past summer and convinced the direc-tor, Matt Berman, to bring three JCPS students to Cali-fornia to intern for a week. Berman agreed to sponsor the flight and hotel stay for the students and their chaperone.

An application and audition process was established to select the students. Appli-cants were required to sub-mit an extensive portfolio that included letters of rec-ommendation, transcripts, work samples, and an es-say. The judging panel included filmmakers, postsecondary partners, and JCPS Com-munications staff. Candi-dates were invited for an interview session and were required to demonstrate that they could operate a camera. The winners were required to create a docu-

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mentary highlighting their experience. Lakin, Andy, and Cassan-dra showed a brief video at the Oct. 8 Jefferson County Board of Education (JCBE) meeting.

Eastern educator re-ceives Career and Technical Teacher Award

Eastern High teacher Jodi Adams received the Out-standing New Career and Technical Teacher Award from the Kentucky Associa-tion for Career and Techni-cal Educators. Adams, who began teaching business and information technology in 2010, has pri-vate-sector business owner-ship experience, which now benefits her students in the classroom. Her colleagues describe her teaching style as innovative, creative, and student-centered. She serves as the chair of Eastern’s business program, and she has helped launch Kentucky’s first High School of Business. The program takes students through a

college preparatory cur-riculum designed to guide them into private-sector opportunities or to major in business in college. Ad-ams also was instrumental in the creation of Eastern’s Eagle’s Nest Café.

More than 45 stu-dents are national scholarship program SemifinalistsStudents at four JCPS high schools are Semifinalists in the 2013 National Merit Scholarship Program or the 2013 National Achievement Scholarship Program. Ballard: Jian Du, Lucian B. Hymer, Madison G. Mc-Tyeire, and Quenten G. Woolfolk DuPont Manual: Naga K. Alluri, Marie K. Bissell, Robyn B. Blackman, Al-len T. Boss, Hannah M. Botts, Zachary R. Brewer, Ava E. Chen, Yuyao Ding, James W. England, David L. Ferguon, Kyle A. Fowler, Shunhua A. Fu, Benjamin T. Gatson, Michael A. Gos-sen, Samuel T. Harper, Kenny K. Jackson, Zachary J. Jones, Josephine M. Kim, John F. King, Serena Lian, Andrew H. Liu, Michelle Liu, Helen J. Lu, Emily Mc-Conville, Abigail B. Mene-fee, Jean C. Namonywa, Matthew A. Pearson, Al-lison Pecaro, Elizabeth M. Penava, Vivek A. Raj, Mary O. Richardson, Zoe E. Schaver, Abby N. Schroer-ing, Elizabeth K. Scruton, Jacob R. Shpilberg, Allison Traylor, Omer Veladzic,

Sravya Vishnubhatla, Jacob A. Vittitow, Sarah Y. Wang, and Grace C. Zhang Eastern: Peter J. HeinigerSeneca: Riley Nelson About 1.5 million juniors at 22,000 high schools entered the 2013 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2011 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholar-ship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT). Nationwide, there are 16,000 Semifinalists. They are the highest-scor-ing students in each state. More than 160,000 juniors requested consideration in the 2013 National Achieve-ment Scholarship Program when they took the PSAT/NMSQT. Nationwide, there are 1,600 Semifinalists, who are the highest-scoring students in their region. To become a Finalist in ei-ther program, a Semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record through-out high school, receive a recommendation from his or her principal, and earn SAT scores that confirm the earlier performance on the qualifying test. The National Merit Schol-arship Corporation admin-isters both the National Merit Scholarship Program and the National Achieve-ment Scholarship Program. For more information, visit www.nationalmerit.org.

Contact the Parent Connection

editor, Thomas Pack, at 485-6315 or at thomas.pack@jefferson.

kyschools.us.

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Vision 2015:JCPS strategies to increase learningThe JCPS Strategic Plan: Vi-sion 2015 includes goals in four focus areas: Increased Learning; Graduation and Beyond; Stakeholder In-volvement/Engagement; and Safe, Resourced, and Equipped Schools. Beginning with this issue, each edition of Parent Con-nection will highlight the strategies that the district is using to meet one of the goals or the measures it is using to track success. This month, the focus is on Goal 1. Focus Area: Increased Learning Goal: Every student pro-gresses in his or her learn-ing and meets or exceeds proficiency in all subjects. Strategies: • Design and implement a

system to align the writ-ten, taught, and tested curriculum that allows teachers to be creative and to differentiate the taught curriculum to en-gage and to meet the needs of the whole child.

• Determine through col-laboration and research—and then institutionalize instructional best practices for—the effective delivery of the district-written cur-riculum and educational program in support of im-proved learning and the

development of the whole child.

• Design and implement a coordinated system of professional development that is aligned to annual strategic priorities and targeted to the needs of schools.

• Establish a formal process to support and monitor the use of instructional best practices.

• Develop and implement a comprehensive, bal-anced plan (that includes both formative and sum-mative measures) for student assessment that includes K Readiness and K–2 measures and the use of authentic assessments where data are utilized to inform practice.

• Develop and implement reading interventions for current third-grade stu-dents (Class of 2021), current fourth-grade stu-dents (Class of 2020), and current fifth-grade stu-dents (Class of 2019) who are not performing at the Proficient level.

• Develop and implement early interventions for students who are enter-ing kindergarten and who are identified as academi-cally underprepared by a Kindergarten Readiness Assessment. Develop and implement early interven-

tions for K–2 students who are identified by K–2 as-sessments.

• Use program evaluations to measure, monitor, and manage program adop-tion, improvement, imple-mentation, expansion, or termination.

• Create a coordinated sys-tem of student support that will result in increas-ing attendance, reducing dropout and suspensions, and ultimately increasing time spent on learning.

• Provide for continuous im-provement of systems de-signed to support student achievement and to elimi-nate the achievement gap.