Dear Parents and Students,
We are so excited to be at the beginning of another amazing year at American Prep! We have been busy preparing our school to ensure a wonderful experience for your student(s) this year.
You will recall that at the end of last year, parents were invited to fill out a Parent Survey. We had a 3rd party collate all of those responses, and we spent significant time this summer reviewing our parent feedback. We have made several substantive changes as a result of your feedback. Thank you for your willingness to share your ideas and thoughts!
1. The Draper 2 facility has undergone some changes this summer! We have done some remodeling upstairs to create more classroom space for our additional students in our high school.
2. The soccer field has been financed and approvals and permits are in process!
3. We have had a lot of feedback regarding Reading University (RU). As a result, Reading University has been altered in several ways. We now will allow students to choose one book per term that is “off-list”. Also, students may count books read to them in all grades (with some stipulations for secondary students). We are also working to increase the books on the RU list (we’d love some volunteer parent readers!). RU lists are easily found on our new website, under each campus site.
4. Friday Casual Uniform Day – due to parent requests, we have brought back Friday Casual Day! Students may wear navy polos on Fridays and forego the ties. Staff also may wear collared shirts on Fridays without ties.
5. Homework loads – we have done quite a bit of reading, listening and consulting on this topic. We received a WIDE RANGE of parental input on this topic, from parents who feel their children could do more, to parents who feel their children are over-loaded. So we feel it is important to increase the opportunity parents have to report homework loads to the school staff so that we can adjust as needed based on real homework-load data. We have developed ways to record homework completion times on learning plans (elementary) and in planners (secondary). We have also asked secondary teachers to list how long they anticipate a homework assignment should take, along with the assignment itself, so students can begin to align their efforts to the expectation, and so parents and students can let teachers know if their estimates are inaccurate. We will continue to report back to parents on this topic as the year progresses.
6. We are still seeking to have access to 11950 South so that we can have a smoother carpool process, and so that we can move forward on seeking to build a high school. Legal proceedings have begun to gain that access, though the wheels of justice turn ever-so-slowly. Thank you for your patience.
Parents – it is our aim to make our school the best possible experience for your student(s)! Thank you for providing feedback and ideas to assist us in our efforts!