An incredible amount of work goes into a successful school year. For one reason or another, the average person knows little about the workings of the school. The children go there five days a week for 180 days, but the rest is up to the teachers and administrators. All too often, parents withdraw from the school scene when their children reach 9th grade, even though this is a transition year and important beyond compare. Before they realize what they are doing, far too many students fail courses and begin immediately to harm the very transcript they’ll need to get into college, the military, even the workforce. Without parental support, many students will not stay around to graduate. The ideal education occurs when schools, parents, and students form a partnership to educate the students. Teachers can do little alone. Whether parents or teachers, when our students fail, we fail; our job is to help them succeed.

Please allow me to share some of the current success stories from ACHS with you this week. I’ll bet you’ll be as happy as I am.

Just this week the Georgia Department of Education (gadoe.org) released the final AYP report for the past school year, and we were delighted to learn that Appling County High School made it after all. The preliminary report said we had not. We did some praying, but we worked harder than ever. Much is involved in making AYP that we have little control over. This past year, for example, our biggest hurdle was the graduation rate, which had to rise to make our goal of AYP. And rise it did. Administrators, counselors, and teachers worked tirelessly to keep students in school. Academically, those students who needed extra help were tutored, and they worked hard to catch up. They themselves joined the partnership to educate them and made success possible. They too are to be congratulated because the lesson they learned was more important than our making AYP. Hopefully, they’ll remember their whole lives through that it was necessary for them to work hard to reach their goals.

Again this past year our Advanced Placement (AP) students scored higher than the national average. The AP program is recognized by colleges as one of the best ways to prepare students for college. Students today need every advantage available to them to compete and succeed in a globally competitive world. One of the most accessible advantages available to many students is Advanced Placement (AP) classes. AP classes are designed in collaboration with colleges and universities to introduce high school students to college-level learning. The high standards and academic intensity better prepare students who take them for the rigors of college instruction. These students know how to study when they arrive on the college campuses.

These students too need parental support. Too many people of all ages today have the good-enough mentality. When students pursue the hardest courses in our high school, we should do everything possible to encourage and support them. We should remember also that grades don’t mean everything. Learning is much more important. Colleges say they’d rather have a B student who took the hardest courses than an A+ one who opted for the easier ones. Eleven of last year’s AP seniors are at various colleges right now enjoying the fruits of their labors. They get credit for their first English course, but don’t have to take it or pay for it. Two of our students made 5’s, the top score possible on the exams. One was an English student; the other, a U.S. History student.

Furthermore, the U.S. News and World Report recently recognized ACHS as one of the best high schools in the country.

We’re doing something right. We do have some problems though, and they change almost everyday. I encourage all parents to help. The earliest and perhaps the most important way to help is to teach your children to love and respect reading. Read to them from birth. Discuss books later on with high school students. Let your children see you reading. One of our biggest problems in language arts is reading comprehension, and the only way to fix that is to do more reading. This area is crucial in all areas of study.

We can never rest on our laurels. In spite of furloughs, of money problems, of what ever obstacles come our way, students are learning at ACHS. And that makes me happy.