Alex Carr's The Jaguars' Spot column for Wed., Feb. 10, 2010

No summer school? Yay! ... or Uh-oh!?

          I had lunch with Principal McCowan this week and we talked about last semester and how the school did academically. Turns out not every student at VCHS received a 4.0 or higher. Darn it! We’ll have to try harder next time Jags!

          But in all seriousness, MOST OF US had a great first semester. Only 3% of the grades given out were F’s and McCowan told me he has a few plans to help get that number even lower.

          “Starting the week we get back from our weeklong break,” McCowan said, “every student who has an F will go to After School Enrichment (ASE) to get tutored in the subjects they are having trouble in.”

          In math classes, the interactive computer-teaching program, ALECS, will be introduced this semester, too. This program is cool because, rather than one teacher trying to teach math to 35 kids who are all at different levels in math, it can teach them each student individually with much greater efficiency.

          One more thing McCowan wants kids to know is that, due primarily to budget cuts, summer school just might not be happening this year. That means, if you’re kicking back planning on making up that F in summer school, think again: you may very well get held back a year. Think about that very carefully, fellow Jag. I know I’m always talking about what a great school VCHS is, but c’mon, it’s not quite like the planet Pandora in Avatar where you wish you could live there forever, right?

          So, take advantage of the tools the school provides to help you with your grades!

WHAT weeklong break?:

          BTW, WHAT weeklong break, you ask, was I talking about in that last item? The one that starts this coming Monday and lasts for ... a week! That’s because it’s Presidents’ Week (I think it’s Rutherford B. Hayes and Millard Fillmore, but I’ll have to check the flyers we got in the mail for exciting Presidents Week mega-sales to be sure!). Anyway, have fun, Jags, but keep up on your studies!

Tell me about it!:

          Some high school alumni have told me some pretty useful -- and a couple of scary -- things about a requirement for graduation called Senior Portfolios. The Senior Portfolio is a must-do presentation of all your VCHS accomplishments to a panel of local professionals. The pros conduct an interview and try to offer some real-world experience.

          But here’s the problem: Some of these alumni have told me they had nothing to put in theirs! They had thrown away all their special school projects, press clippings, and awards. So allow these “old timers” (hey, some of them are nearly 20!) to give you this advice: Save all that stuff! It’s not that hard. Create a designated file or folder where you put all of those sorts of things and your Senior Portfolio will be a piece of cake.

          Oh, and by-the-way, make sure you actually DO some cool stuff -- right? -- or there won’t be anything to save!

          Got a great item for this column? Tell me about it! Catch me on campus or go to my web page and shoot me an e-mail (www.carrfamily.com/alex).