From the Superintendent
Spring Banquet
Our Spring Banquet with Gene Stallings is rapidly approaching. Please call or e-mail Terry Stubblefield or Mrs. Sullens to reserve your seats.
Please also be aware that although Mrs. Sullens is still serving as our Director of Development and Admissions, she does much of her work from home. You can always reach her via e-mail at tsullens@fcbcs.org.
Chorus to Sing at State Basketball Tournament
Our high school Chorus has been invited to sing the National Anthem at one of the State Championship Basketball Games. They will sing at the 12:00 game on Friday, February 27, at David Lipscomb University. Our chorus has done an outstanding job of representing our school in the community this year, and I am confident they will do well in this performance. Special thanks go to Mrs. Jeanne Hagar for all of her hard work in starting and developing our vocal music program.
Veterans’ Program
Our Veteran’s Program will be this Friday morning at 9:00. All Veterans, family, and friends are welcome to attend. If you know of any Veteran who will attend, please call Terry in the office and let her know. We want to provide a small gift and refreshments for them and need an accurate count of how many we need to plan for. Thank you for your support with the program.
Preparation for College
At Boyd Christian, we want to give our students the best preparation for college that we can. For us, it’s not about just graduating students from high school and getting them into college. We want them to have the best possible chance of being successful once they get to college.
Records of recent graduating classes show us one area where we can improve. The average GPA for our graduating class of 2006 was 3.54. Certainly, this is an outstanding grade point average. However, the same students in their freshman year of college in 2006-07 had an average GPA of only 2.49. Lower GPA s in the freshman year has been a matter of concern for many students in Tennessee in recent years.
Besides wanting our students to be as successful as possible, there is a financial issue involved. The HOPE Scholarship is available to students who earn a GPA of 3.00 in high school and score a 21 on the ACT. However, students must maintain their GPA once they get to college in order to keep the scholarship. To maintain the scholarship, the Tennessee legislature recently lowered the required college GPA from 3.00 to 2.75. Recent statistics show that about half of all college freshmen lose the scholarship after the first year, and about two-thirds have lost it by the end of their junior year.
We believe that our GPA should be an accurate predictor of how students will perform once they get to college. If our graduates’ GPAs decline, we want to know what we can do to help our graduating seniors to be better prepared.
One such area where we can make improvements is in the area of exams. Currently, we have a policy which allows students to be exempt from semester exams. It is entirely possible for a good student to go through four years of high school at Boyd and never take a semester exam. And we are not the only school in the area that has such a policy. As a teacher, I always wanted as many
students to be exempt as possible, because it meant much less work for me grading exams!
But the question we have to ask ourselves is this: Are we really doing the best job that we can in preparing students for college life when we let them go through high school and not make them take exams? For those students whose GPA dropped from 3.50 in the senior year in high school to 2.50 in their freshman year of college, I wonder how many of them faced semester exams for the first time in that freshman year. I wonder how many of them lost their HOPE scholarship in part because they were unprepared to deal with the rigor of college semester exams.
It is my belief that by allowing students to be exempt from exams, we are not doing the best that we can to prepare students for college. Students can expect a change in this policy beginning with the 2009-2010 school year. While this will likely be unpopular with our students in the short term, we believe that when they get to college, they will be able to face the rigors of college academics with much more confidence. As with any other issue, I would welcome your input in this area.
Upcoming Events
February 27...Chorus Performs National Anthem at State BKB Tournament
February 28...Softball Playday at Forrest
March 6...Grades K-2 Field Trip
March 6-8...Interact Convention
March 11...National Honor Society Inductions
March 13...Staff Development (No School)
March 16-20...Spring Break (No School)
March 28...Spring Banquet with Gene Stallings, McMinnville Civic Center, 6:00
April 3-9...Book Fair
April 10...Junior/Senior Banquet
April 17...Leo Club Banquet
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Lunch Menu for February 23-March 2
Tuesday...Chicken Nuggets
Wednesday…Ravioli
Thursday…Baked Potato
Friday...Grilled Chicken Sandwich
Monday...Riblets with Mashed Potatoes
