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Saturday December 20, 2003
Anti-PPA response
What follows is a response to a letter in today's paper, which once again speaks out against the Academy.
First of all, I am curious as to where you obtained the facts that you cite in your letter. We have one National Merit Scholar? First of all, news about scholars hasn't come out yet. If you meant semifinalists, the Academy has four. However, even with only one, that would mean a full 5% of qualified students who took the PSAT recieved National Merit Semifinalist status. When the true value of four is used, that percent rises to 20%.
Also, you point out that we have "no distinguishable curriculum offered." I am also curious as to where you are getting that fact. According to the school board themselves, one of the reasons we are hated is our exclusive gifted curriculum. As a part of the recent decision, we will begin sharing this curriculum with other campus gifted programs. This, of course, means that we DO have distinguished curriculum.
Also, yes it is true that we have 11 teachers. However, how many of those are full time? One. How many of the remaining ten teach more than one class? One. How many of the remaining nine are actually McClintock teachers? Two. As you can see, our staffing ratios are nowhere as "elite" or "unfair" as you make them out to be. We have the equivalent of three staff members. I don't know about your math, but according to mine, that gives us class sizes of around 40 to one.
The proposal was trying to integrate us into regular schools? Let me enlighen you a bit on the Academy and how it really works. As you know, we are situated in McClintock, in unit five (which we share with 5 or more McClintock teachers). We are involved in McClintock clubs. We participate in McClintock activities. We go to pep assemblies. Close to 100% of Academy students take one or more McClintock classes. We are as much McClintock Chargers are we are PPA Students. How can you say we are "exclusive" and "elitist?" How can you say we need integration? We are already integrated into McClintock.
The proposal was also rejected for different reasons than you bring up. We are not elite students trying to hold onto our little "exclusive" worlds--we are regular students that take special classes and just want to fit in. The propsal was rejected mainly due to hostility, which has been exemplified quite well in your letter and many others that have appeared on this page in the past few weeks. It was also rejected due to cost and inconvenience to parents. Nowhere does it say we rejected the proposal due to elitism. You do not have the right to judge us before you get to know us.
I would like to end with a quote from your letter, "Throughout the heated discussions, the tears and shaking heads, this is what we found:" You know what? That quote pretty much exemplifies our life as Academy Students for the past three years. Know what we've found? We've found that we don't fit in, and that people hate us for no reason. You have no reason to have shed tears. We do. Please, learn the facts before you write.
You from Mountain Pointe? Read this.
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