The calendar year will have four 13-week academic terms with each term having 1 week for student vacation and one week for standardized testing, field trips, holidays and student parties and make-up work. The vacation week can come at the start or the end of an academic term to accommodate holidays so students will have at least one 2-week vacation period during each calendar year.
The school will be a Christian school- primarily Protestant but otherwise non-sectarian.
Students will be prepared to take at least 8 AP exams by the time they graduate.
Students in grades 7-12 will have only 4 courses per academic term and most classes will have a daily lecture and a weekly lab period. Whenever a course does not have a lab component the time can be used for homework, tutoring or in-school recreation.
PE will not be required.
Personally...i think a christian school is the last thing this city needs...there are plenty to cover all groups of christians. If any state or city money is used for any school it shouldn't be a religious school...let the church pay for it...not the citizens.
PE will not be required? The state doesn't require it?
Hello, Childhood Obesity
Quote from: vicupstate on August 31, 2011, 07:23:22 AM
PE will not be required? The state doesn't require it?
Hello, Childhood Obesity
The state does not regulate the curriculum or the accreditation of private schools.
Quote from: jax-native68 on August 31, 2011, 07:42:35 AM
Quote from: vicupstate on August 31, 2011, 07:23:22 AM
PE will not be required? The state doesn't require it?
Hello, Childhood Obesity
The state does not regulate the curriculum or the accreditation of private schools.
Which is just another reason why not one of them should revieve a dime of any public cash...tax breaks and all. Remember..the church doesnt have to pay taxes...so they get off not only teaching rubish they do it at the cost of the nation...end the tax exemption status for all religious groups now.
personally, I believe there is significant value in the summer camp experience....and the calendar proposed here would not allow it
Quote from: jax-native68 on August 31, 2011, 07:42:35 AM
Quote from: vicupstate on August 31, 2011, 07:23:22 AM
PE will not be required? The state doesn't require it?
Hello, Childhood Obesity
The state does not regulate the curriculum or the accreditation of private schools.
No, but their accrediting bodies certainly do. I've never heard of a private school that didn't require PE. Otherwise that course schedule sounds pretty solid.
In terms of whether there's a "market" for a new private school here, you have to consider what it would be up against. Jax/North Florida already has a number of private Christian schools, and some of them are excellent. You'd really have to have a substantial support and financial base in place before even beginning.
Quote from: tufsu1 on August 31, 2011, 08:09:29 AM
personally, I believe there is significant value in the summer camp experience....and the calendar proposed here would not allow it
I am an only child of divorced parents and my mother worked 50-60 hours a week. So I was never a big fan of summer vacation because it meant intense loneliness and extreme boredom.
The calendar I propose would give high school graduates the equivalent of 2 years of college. Students will take AP classes for English lit; Foreign language; American History; European History; Calculus; Statistics; Biology; Chemistry and physics, and they’d also be able to take the AP exam for Art History and U.S. Government and Politics.
So in economic terms alone a year-round school is worth it. We could add a 9-week academic term to the existing public school system during the summer and cut 2.6 calendar years off the standard 13 year K-12 public school schedule even without making any changes to the standard public school K-12 curriculum we now have. At current spending rates for Duval County public schools this would save over $19000 per student over the course of a K-12 education- over $2 billion for the entire school system.
Year-round school would also eliminate the need for remedial work at the start of each school year to compensate for what students forget over the summer. Modifying the curriculum to eliminate course repetition would allow time for AP courses. This would allow you to cut by half the amount of time needed to get a bachelor's degree so you'd save even more money per student.
Your attempts to broaden educational options will not be well received here, so long as there is a religious component. Any challenge to the status quo of government indoctrination education should always be rebuked.
What is the curricular stance on evolution/creationism?
Who may go to heaven?
I did time at Trinity Christian Academy during my sentence. (Public schools were far worse, but for very different reasons) therefore, I have little personal fondness for the concept of religious/dogmatic "education" but I'd like to hear your views.
Students who attend Paxson Advanced Magnet school can already receive close to two years of credits - depending on the classes they take. A friend's daughter enrolled at UNF this year as a sophomore in the Nursing program. It's done, it just depends on how hard a student is willing to be pushed (by the parent, not the school)
In regards to the year round program, I'm all for it. Due to the nature of my and my wife's jobs, I'm busy when she's not and vice-versa, so we usually end up taking our son out of school for family trips. We can't take them in the summer and we can't take them in the spring, so we take them when we can. I'm all for structuring the school system based on a 7 weeks on / 2 weeks off or something similar, throughout the year.
At least this way, he (mini-me) can do some travelling with his extended family when it's not the dead of summer.
Quote from: Tacachale on August 31, 2011, 08:49:01 AM
Hello, Childhood Obesity
We have childhood obesity anyway, so why waste money on PE?
My school will have a hands-on environmental education component so students will have to spend time doing gardening work.
QuoteThe state does not regulate the curriculum or the accreditation of private schools.
No, but their accrediting bodies certainly do.[/quote]
State law requires public schools in Florida to be accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. But I don’t know of a single private school in Jacksonville that is also a Christian-based school that has SACS accreditation. Furthermore SACS does not regulate curriculum to any great extent. Public school curricula in Florida are determined by state law and local school board requirements. If SACS controlled public school curricula, the government wouldn’t have to.
In fact SACS gives individual schools broad leeway to design their own curriculum:
http://www.advanc-ed.org/webfm_send/10
QUALITY SCHOOL INDICATORS
In fulfillment of this standard, the school:
3.1 Develops and implements curriculum based on clearly-defined expectations for student learning
3.5 Offers a curriculum that challenges each student to excel, reflects a commitment to equity, and demonstrates an appreciation of diversity
I looked into SACS accreditation back in the 1990s when I first thought about opening a school. At the time SACS was more concerned with teacher and school administrator training than anything. A private school essentially had to hire people who qualified to work in a public school in order to get SACS accreditation. So SACS was mostly concerned with supporting the public school teachers’ union.
The school I envision would require its teachers to have at least a bachelor’s degree with at least 40 credit hours of college work in the subject area in which they teach.
I've never heard of a private school that didn't require PE. Otherwise that course schedule sounds pretty solid.
QuoteJax/North Florida already has a number of private Christian schools, and some of them are excellent.
Most of them are not. Most are McKay Scholarship baby-sitting services for brats that cannot or will not do the work required in public schools.
QuoteYou'd really have to have a substantial support and financial base in place before even beginning.
I have about $100,000 in cash and another $70,000 or so from a life insurance policy I can cash in along with property I can sell and no debt. But my health isn’t good and I am the only caregiver for my disabled mother, so I don’t know that I could commit to being a full-time teacher let alone run a school. My other option is to leave the state, buy land and try to set up an organic farm that can serve as an environmental education center, but I have the same problem with my health. But either way I need to do something because the money isn’t earning me anything sitting in the bank earning less interest than the inflation rate.
You better get a heck of alot more cash than that...and as it sounds from your post it seems that you are ok with trying to get around standards which sounds like a scam...
Quote from: buckethead on August 31, 2011, 09:08:58 AM
Your attempts to broaden educational options will not be well received here, so long as there is a religious component. Any challenge to the status quo of government indoctrination education should always be rebuked.
What is the curricular stance on evolution/creationism?
Who may go to heaven?
I did time at Trinity Christian Academy during my sentence. (Public schools were far worse, but for very different reasons) therefore, I have little personal fondness for the concept of religious/dogmatic "education" but I'd like to hear your views.
My school will compare the Theory of Evolution with Creationism, but neither will be given the status of science because both are based on conclusions that cannot be tested by science meaning they are both faith systems. Note: I am a Creationist Christian who graduated from Stanton in 1987 and I have a bachelor’s degree in biology (along with 40 credit hours in history) from Emory University.
Various religious beliefs would naturally be covered in the history curriculum, but the school would not expressly endorse any particular doctrine because my personal doctrine is not compatible with any existing denomination or sect of Christianity. Imposing my doctrine on the school would likely mean an enrollment of zero.
Umm..does that mean that you will promise to never teach that the only way to heaven is to believe in Jesus chirist as the son of god?
Personally, I would not send my child to any school that did not teach about living a healthy lifestyle. That includes fresh food and PE. The obesity epidemic in the US begins in childhood so teaching kids healthy living from a young age is critical. Great for adding art history (what I actually have my degree in) but music is important too, especially for helping develop math skills. Raising kids to appreciate quality of life and not just facts and figures is what I would look for in a school for my child.
QuoteI have about $100,000 in cash and another $70,000 or so from a life insurance policy I can cash in along with property I can sell and no debt. But my health isn’t good and I am the only caregiver for my disabled mother, so I don’t know that I could commit to being a full-time teacher let alone run a school. My other option is to leave the state, buy land and try to set up an organic farm that can serve as an environmental education center, but I have the same problem with my health. But either way I need to do something because the money isn’t earning me anything sitting in the bank earning less interest than the inflation rate.
You could always establish some sort of trust in your or your mother's name for scholarships to current religion based, private schools with the extra $$.
Even better for my own personal agenda, give it to LaVilla to help them run their great music program that my kid is in ;D It costs about $45k per year and they only get about $2k from Duval (dedicated to music not overall for the school). They could use the funds as well.
Quote from: Non-RedNeck Westsider on August 31, 2011, 09:16:44 AM
Students who attend Paxson Advanced Magnet school can already receive close to two years of credits - depending on the classes they take.
When I was at Stanton I took AP courses for American History; European History; Biology; German Language and English Lit. The teacher for American History had a family crisis in NC so the class fell behind schedule and I was given no preparation for essay questions so I was afraid to take the AP exam. I had a string of bad teachers for German so I was afraid to take that exam as well. I failed pre-calculus so I couldn’t take the calculus exam. But I scored a 3 on the English lit exam (no college credit, but my writing skills were good enough to be exempt from the bottom freshman English course), and I scored a 4 on the biology and European History exams and received 8 hours of college credit for each. I knew enough on my own that I probably could have taken the American Government and Microeconomics exams, but if they existed at the time nobody at Stanton bothered to tell me about them.
QuoteIn regards to the year round program, I'm all for it. Due to the nature of my and my wife's jobs, I'm busy when she's not and vice-versa, so we usually end up taking our son out of school for family trips. We can't take them in the summer and we can't take them in the spring, so we take them when we can. I'm all for structuring the school system based on a 7 weeks on / 2 weeks off or something similar, throughout the year.
I’m working on another calendar option that will have 3 academic terms per calendar year. K-12 would take only 12 calendar years divided into 3 blocks of 4 years each (lower, middle and upper) with each block requiring 12 academic terms. There would be an optional Kindergarten year, but it wouldn’t count towards academic credit.
In the 3 academic term schedule each term would have 16 weeks of school time. The first term of the academic year would start in September of the calendar year to keep the traditional fall start for the new school year. Term 1 will have an assembly day and a holiday for Thanksgiving along with 2 days for final exams and a day for an in-school party for Christmas. Students would then have a 2 week vacation over Christmas and New Year’s and term 2 would start on the first Monday after New Year’s Day.
Term 2 would have a field day for Valentine’s Day for all grades with an evening dance for middle and upper school students. There would be another field day for Easter with the date of Easter being set during the 15th week of the academic term. Then 2 days would be used for final exams and another day used for a field trip. Students would then get a 1 week vacation during the last week of April or first week of May.
Term 3 would begin in May. There would be a field day and a holiday for Independence Day along with 1 day for standardized exams (Stanford Achievement Tests for example) and 2 days for final exams. Then students would get a 1 week vacation before starting the next school year.
I started out thinking in terms of five 9-week academic terms per calendar year. But this schedule wouldn’t really allow any flexibility to make up days that are lost because of bad weather, and this schedule wouldn’t work at all for college since some college courses have 13-15 week lab components.
Quote from: Garden guy on August 31, 2011, 09:30:03 AM
You better get a heck of alot more cash than that...
If you are such an expert, tell me how much money does it take to open a private school.
Quoteand as it sounds from your post it seems that you are ok with trying to get around standards which sounds like a scam...
I am not trying to get around standards. I'm simply calling for standards that are stronger than what is usually applied already.
Quote from: Garden guy on August 31, 2011, 09:38:15 AM
Umm..does that mean that you will promise to never teach that the only way to heaven is to believe in Jesus chirist as the son of god?
What is your point other than that you wish to be hostile towards religion? I haven’t done a thing to you, so your attitude is totally uncalled for.
Quote from: avs on August 31, 2011, 10:03:53 AM
Personally, I would not send my child to any school that did not teach about living a healthy lifestyle. That includes fresh food and PE. The obesity epidemic in the US begins in childhood so teaching kids healthy living from a young age is critical. Great for adding art history (what I actually have my degree in) but music is important too, especially for helping develop math skills. Raising kids to appreciate quality of life and not just facts and figures is what I would look for in a school for my child.
Well considering what gets served in your average school cafeteria in Jacksonville (public and private), and the fact that PE isn’t a yearly requirement in public school (at least it wasn’t when I was at Stanton in the 1980s), what school do you send your children to?
And why is it up to the school and not the parent to teach children about healthy diets and exercise?
(http://freedomslighthouse.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/joplin_tornado_AP110523028154_1_540x405.jpg)
The haze in the air isn't morning dew, it's airborne insulation dust and it's about as plesant as breathing liquid Draino.
Quote from: Garden guy on August 31, 2011, 08:01:13 AM
Which is just another reason why not one of them should revieve a dime of any public cash...tax breaks and all. Remember..the church doesnt have to pay taxes...so they get off not only teaching rubish they do it at the cost of the nation...end the tax exemption status for all religious groups now.
Sorry Garden Guy, your either allowing your hatred of all things religious cloud your vision, or your trying to satisfy the vocal few on here who likewise will not admit to there being something in the universe bigger then they are. Regardless of their doctrine, when the Tornado swarm of May 3, 1999 hit Central Oklahoma I led Oklahoma Search and Rescue in the town of Mulhall...(more like the town site of Mulhall as the town was destroyed). For almost a week while FEMA tried to get it's act together we had a sea of tents, RV's and all manner of portable kiosks for the express purpose of disaster relief. It was made up of the largest collection of various church based organizations I've ever seen. Catholic, Baptists, Adventist, Mormon, you name it, they were there. They gave of themselves and provided everything from construction battalions to drinking water distribution. They set up a huge cafe 'circus tent' where victims and rescue workers could refuel and rest. They distributed tons of clothes, personal items, and thousands of hours of just pure back breaking work. The Catholics helped rebuild the Baptist Church, and the Baptists helped rebuild the school, and the Adventists fed the Catholic victims and probably a few atheists too. Whatever 'tax breaks' these churches got that year, they more then spent in this one small town. I never saw any of them ask for a thing, it was no stings attached giving.
I'd suggest you go spend some time in Joplin and spread some of your love there, no doubt you'd find it a life changing experience. Whether or not you agree with their doctine (and I often don't) these groups have more then proved themselves and IMO don't deserve to be taxed any more then the local museum, or service organizations. Frankly, I wouldn't care if their doctrine included that the moon is inhabited by 9 foot tall Quakers and made of green cheese, I've seen the selfless fruit of their labors.
Imagine Garden Guy, if jax-native68 actually starts this school, you have the right to not attend. Meanwhile the rest of us might, through gentle suggestion, assist us in obtaining another educational choice for our city. OCKLAWAHA
Quote from: JHAT76 on August 31, 2011, 10:16:13 AM
You could always establish some sort of trust in your or your mother's name for scholarships to current religion based, private schools with the extra $$.
Even better for my own personal agenda, give it to LaVilla to help them run their great music program that my kid is in ;D It costs about $45k per year and they only get about $2k from Duval (dedicated to music not overall for the school). They could use the funds as well.
Considering what my health is, I cannot afford to simply give money away. And I am not interested in supporting public schools or helping any existing religious school in Jacksonville because they are all a waste of money.
Yet you still support the idea of you running a school without standards of the rest of reality...i'm just sayin it seems like you could do better work in something else...maybe an outreach for the homeless and addicted instead of trying to teach children that its ok to exclude others that don't believe the way you do...public school has created a wonderful group of people we call Americans...
Quote from: Garden guy on August 31, 2011, 10:44:17 AM
Yet you still support the idea of you running a school without standards of the rest of reality...
What are you babbling about? Just what "rest of reality" standards will my school not uphold?
Quotei'm just sayin it seems like you could do better work in something else...
That is not up to you to decide. You are in no position to determine how I spend my own money.
Quotemaybe an outreach for the homeless and addicted instead of trying to teach children that its ok to exclude others that don't believe the way you do...
I don't have a right to tell others that their beliefs and behavior are wrong?
Quotepublic school has created a wonderful group of people we call Americans...
I am a product of public schools but I gather that you do not think I am entitled to be called an American.
Quote from: jax-native68 on August 31, 2011, 10:32:17 AM
Quote from: JHAT76 on August 31, 2011, 10:16:13 AM
You could always establish some sort of trust in your or your mother's name for scholarships to current religion based, private schools with the extra $$.
Even better for my own personal agenda, give it to LaVilla to help them run their great music program that my kid is in ;D It costs about $45k per year and they only get about $2k from Duval (dedicated to music not overall for the school). They could use the funds as well.
Considering what my health is, I cannot afford to simply give money away. And I am not interested in supporting public schools or helping any existing religious school in Jacksonville because they are all a waste of money.
So what would make your school so special that it is not "a waste of money"? Are you trolling or are you just an idiot?
As far as accreditation goes, there are other bodies that accredit private schools besides SACS. Most are accredited with FCIS/NAIS and/or a Christian school accrediting body. Additionally, many private schools (eg, all the good ones) are also accredited by SACS as well. As to PE, whether they're required to have it or not (I don't believe there's a law requiring it in private schools in Florida), I've never heard of a school not having it.
If you want to start your own k-12 school, you'll need a lot more than $170 thousand. In fact, it is nearly impossible to start a new school without your financing lined up before you even begin. When Providence opened in 1998 it cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $6 million. And they had their financing already lined up, and were attached to a church congregation they could draw students from.
Assuming for the sake of argument that you do line up financing, look at what else is in the market already. While there are many poor or mediocre schools in the area, there are also excellent ones, and those are the ones you'd be competing with for students (not to mention donors). You're up against Episcopal and Bolles. Providence is also up and coming; you also have St. Johns Country Day. Additionally, the 3 Catholic high schools offer a pretty solid education for much cheaper than other private schools are able to. And the magnet schools are free. Plus you have all the other inferior private schools and the homeschool types.
Is there room for one more? Maybe, but it's clearly not an untapped market. And if you think that your little school will be comparable to or better than Stanton, Episcopal, and Bolles right off the bat, you're being as silly as some of the other comments on this thread.
Let's not paint all Christian schools with the same brush regarding evolution. Neither Episcopal nor the Catholic schools teach creationism or "intelligent design" or whatever else they're calling it these days.
Quote from: sean on August 31, 2011, 11:04:33 AM
Are you trolling or are you just an idiot?
Are you?
The whole AP thing is a little overblown though, IMO. My sister went to a school that was IB down in Hillsborough County, so all her classes were AP. She still had to take many of those classes again at FSU even though she did well on the AP exams. She still ended up going to college for 4 years even though sh ewas full time and came in with all those AP classes. I took many AP classes in high school too and I don't feel like the curriculum was so much better than the honors classes or that it put me ahead any in college. Just my experience though. AP classes wouldn't sell me on a school, and the lack of Phys Ed and music would concern me. I have no idea if there's a market or not for this school, it wouldn't be the school of my choice for my child and some great points about who the school is competing with and funding have also been made.
Quote from: Tacachale on August 31, 2011, 11:09:48 AM
As far as accreditation goes, there are other bodies that accredit private schools besides SACS. Most are accredited with FCIS/NAIS and/or a Christian school accrediting body.
I looked into all of this back when I first began thinking about opening a school in the mid-1990s. But I don’t have much faith in these accrediting organizations. I taught briefly at a couple of private schools that had ACSI accreditation. One school used Bob Jones University geography textbooks that were copyrighted in 1996 but still had chapters covering the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact nations. The other school I worked at did not allow homework and gave me 2 class sets of A Beka textbooks with which I was supposed to teach science for grades 7-12. But it didn’t matter. No more than a dozen of the 150 or so students could read so textbooks were a waste of time. And students at this school were not grouped into classes based on their age or even their grade level. They were grouped based on their personality so the worst of the troublemakers were never in the same class where they could kill each other.
None of the other Christian schools whose teaching jobs I interviewed for back in the 1990s had a school library or science lab supplies, and if they had a computer lab the hardware was at least 10 years old. I used to support taxpayer-funded vouchers for private schools, but I don’t anymore because of my experience with Jacksonville’s Christian schools.
QuoteAdditionally, many private schools (eg, all the good ones) are also accredited by SACS as well. As to PE, whether they're required to have it or not (I don't believe there's a law requiring it in private schools in Florida), I've never heard of a school not having it.
The two private schools I taught at didn’t have PE as it is known in public school. They simply had play periods. Neither school had a locker room, and only one had access to a gymnasium. My college degree is in biology. I know nothing about sports, but I had to help monitor students during their “PE†periods at the second school I worked for.
QuoteWhen Providence opened in 1998 it cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $6 million.
If you are so knowledgeable, tell me what exactly the money spent on. How much went into the pastor’s pocket?
QuoteAnd they had their financing already lined up, and were attached to a church congregation they could draw students from.
Neither of the schools I taught at were associated with a church. One was K-12 and likely had 200 or more students. The other had “grades†7-12 and had about 150 students.
QuoteWhile there are many poor or mediocre schools in the area, there are also excellent ones,
With excellent tuition costs as well. Very few people in Jacksonville can afford the likes of Bolles or Episcopal.
QuoteAnd if you think that your little school will be comparable to or better than Stanton, Episcopal, and Bolles right off the bat, you're being as silly as some of the other comments on this thread.
Have I said my school would be as good as Stanton, Episcopal or Bolles right off the bat? No. So take your snide attitude and shove it.
Getting back to your original question: "Is there are market for this school in Jax?" Sure, and it is being served by several good schools. I think your organic farm idea sounds great. Are you sure you have to leave the state to do it? I have always felt a farm could also absorb some of our out-of-work population, becaus every farm I've ever been to (and I spent 2 weeks visiting my friends 60 acre organic farm in Northern Virginia this summer) needs lots of manual labor to succeed.
Quote from: stephendare on August 31, 2011, 11:10:43 AM
Sounds pretty good to me Jax Native. Anyone familiar with the AP exams can tell you how important prepping for them was----especially over the long summer where you might not retain the previous years information.
AP exams don’t really cover cumulative material except for foreign languages. You generally take the AP exam for each subject near the end of the school year in which you are taking the AP course. I was told during my 3rd year of German Language that I could take the AP German exam before the end of that school year or anytime after that. I took the exams for English lit, European History and Biology before I had even finished taking these courses.
But for everything else, especially in elementary grades, students can spend an entire grading period or more re-learning what they had forgotten during the summer.
QuoteThe kind of parents that are going to send children bright enough for AP classes to a Christian School are already teaching their children creationism at home, so its not like an additional class in the subject is going to expose them to the ideas any more than they are already.
The AP exam wouldn’t cover Creationism anyway. I would have to teach evolution to prepare students for the AP bio exam, but this doesn’t mean students have to believe it. And making students compare and contrast evolution and Creationism will improve their thinking skills- which our existing schools generally ignore.
QuoteBut on the other hand, parents (speaking from experience here) tend to be set in their ways and have less liberal ideas about education. Coming from a fundamentalist background, I know that my own family would have been a lot more open to the idea of a summer prep school if they could have been comforted that it would also teach things that they felt were important---like creationism.
My father’s family was Baptist, but they always did their worshipping at the First Baptist Church of Budweiser. My mother’s mother was raised as a Lutheran, but her father was an atheist. I was raised with zero religion at home and I wouldn’t give you 2 cents for every organized church in the world. My parents are both children of the 1960s. So despite my low opinion of organized religion, I’ve always been the conservative one in my family.
QuoteYour idea sounds delightful to me, and I do think that it serves a need, and potentially a group of gifted kids that would not be served otherwise
My goal would be to have an improved version of Stanton with a veneer of Christianity. When Stanton opened in 1981 it was planned that by the time I graduated the school would have a pre-med program through the University of Florida. It didn’t happen. The IB coordinator didn’t know his head from a hole in the ground. One of my math teachers also taught typing. The library had science books that were from the 1960s and 1950s. And to top it off a whole school year was wasted by the time I did duplicate coursework (7th grade life science = 9th grade biology I = 12th grade AP biology for example). Stanton never lived up to its potential.
QuoteEveryone has a different experience and It depends alot on what or how you continue education.
Obviously a person who wants to be a forest ranger or a deep sea diver, or a fireman isnt going to particularly benefit from AP course credits, but I think it definitely helps in the applied and theoretical sciences, fine arts and the humanities.
My sis and I both pursued humanities and fine arts degrees, I have no idea why FSU didn't let her skip some of what she came in with. You are absolutely right though, if someone wants to be a fireman, or deep sea diver, etc then they prob wouldn't use AP courses in their training. I took all honors and AP and feel the classes were pretty equal, one just had a huge test at the end. Passing the AP classes and using them to get rid of college classes def isn't guaranteed though
Quote from: stephendare on August 31, 2011, 11:46:21 AM
Episcopal and Bolles are for wealthy people and its freaking expensive to enter. Stanton is so prebooked that it might as well be a legacy school, and the other christian schools usually don't have an emphasis on AP curricula.
I once interviewed for a job at a tutoring service where the owner told me that parents are given applications for financial aid when they request an application for enrollment at Bolls. Tuition, room and board at Bolles was something like $30,000 a year at the time.
Stanton was over-crowded when I was there 20 years ago. The school opened with grades 7-10. 7th grade enrollment was supposed to be capped at 700 students. But the NAACP pitched a temper tantrum and we ended up with at least 1200 7th graders. I had at least 30 students in my core academic classes for 7th grade. My graduating class had about 75 students and only a few of us had been their since the 7th grade.
Quote from: avs on August 31, 2011, 11:59:28 AM
The whole AP thing is a little overblown though, IMO. My sister went to a school that was IB down in Hillsborough County, so all her classes were AP. She still had to take many of those classes again at FSU even though she did well on the AP exams.
To some extent colleges limit how much AP credit they will give. The more courses you have to take in college the longer you have to pay tuition so the more money the college can make. I would seriously investigate getting accreditation as a junior college so my students can enroll in a baccalaureate program without any loss of high school credit.
QuoteAP classes wouldn't sell me on a school, and the lack of Phys Ed and music would concern me.
Why would you put more emphasis on PE than you would academics?
BTW: My curriculum would include courses on fine arts and music so students would get a good all-around liberal arts education. I might offer something like band as an after school extracurricular activity, but I wouldn’t include it as an option for academic credit.
Quote from: stephendare on August 31, 2011, 12:41:55 PM
baptists don't Recognize each other at the liquor store.
;)
And the reason that you have to invite two of them anytime you go camping, golfing or fishing - unless you want all or your beer drank. ;D
Quote from: MusicMan on August 31, 2011, 12:07:52 PM
I think your organic farm idea sounds great. Are you sure you have to leave the state to do it?
Climate-wise I need to leave the state. I am not nearly as active as I need to be to deal with my high blood pressure and arthritis because I have trouble with Florida's heat and humidity. A cooler climate would mean fewer insects, less plant disease and a greater variety of crops.
QuoteI have always felt a farm could also absorb some of our out-of-work population, becaus every farm I've ever been to (and I spent 2 weeks visiting my friends 60 acre organic farm in Northern Virginia this summer) needs lots of manual labor to succeed.
The manual labor is my problem. I’ve been around gardening for as long as I can remember because my father’s parents were both expert growers. I’ve had my own garden almost every year since 1981 and I’ve used mostly organic methods since the 1990s. I have the mental know-how and enough money to buy land (out of state) and get started But I don’t the physical ability.
Quote from: stephendare on August 31, 2011, 12:41:55 PM
QuoteMy father’s family was Baptist, but they always did their worshipping at the First Baptist Church of Budweiser. My mother’s mother was raised as a Lutheran, but her father was an atheist. I was raised with zero religion at home and I wouldn’t give you 2 cents for every organized church in the world. My parents are both children of the 1960s. So despite my low opinion of organized religion, I’ve always been the conservative one in my family.
I must admit a certain fondness for budweiser baptists. They tend to be a lot more genial than the iced tea variety.
As a Baptist, I have to share my favorite joke.
Jews don't Recognize Jesus as the Messiah.
Protestants dont Recognize the Pope as the head of the Church.
Baptists don't Recognize each other at the liquor store.
;)
Maybe not Stephen, but I did recognize that Methodist guy we talked to the other day while in the ABC store.
Isn't it funny to you that most people on this site fall all over themselves to stay liberal or open minded, but the mention of God or religion brings out Garden Guy and every other person in town that has ever written a comment in the Times-Union.
"EEEEEEK Auntie Em, It's a twister, it's a twister!"OCKLAWAHA ;)
Quote from: Ocklawaha on August 31, 2011, 01:35:42 PM
Quote from: stephendare on August 31, 2011, 12:41:55 PM
QuoteMy father’s family was Baptist, but they always did their worshipping at the First Baptist Church of Budweiser. My mother’s mother was raised as a Lutheran, but her father was an atheist. I was raised with zero religion at home and I wouldn’t give you 2 cents for every organized church in the world. My parents are both children of the 1960s. So despite my low opinion of organized religion, I’ve always been the conservative one in my family.
I must admit a certain fondness for budweiser baptists. They tend to be a lot more genial than the iced tea variety.
As a Baptist, I have to share my favorite joke.
Jews don't Recognize Jesus as the Messiah.
Protestants dont Recognize the Pope as the head of the Church.
Baptists don't Recognize each other at the liquor store.
;)
Maybe not Stephen, but I did recognize that Methodist guy we talked to the other day while in the ABC store.
Isn't it funny to you that most people on this site fall all over themselves to stay liberal or open minded, but the mention of God or religion brings out Garden Guy and every other person in town that has ever written a comment in the Times-Union.
"EEEEEEK Auntie Em, It's a twister, it's a twister!"
OCKLAWAHA ;)
Georgia’s drinking age was 18 until just a few years before I enrolled in college. I started out at Emory’s satellite campus in Oxford Georgia because the main campus in Atlanta didn’t have enough space. Oxford was only a 2 year school so no freshman was old enough to drink under Georgia law and I was one of the few students to be drinking age by the time I transferred out of Oxford. This Methodist school was so bad I could have made a fortune buying alcohol for the drunks when I turned 21. And before Georgia’s drinking age was raised the school itself owned and operated a bar for the students.
I don’t drink; never have. But when I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure in 2008 I was giving drinking serious consideration.
Quote from: stephendare on August 31, 2011, 12:41:55 PM
QuoteMy father’s family was Baptist, but they always did their worshipping at the First Baptist Church of Budweiser. My mother’s mother was raised as a Lutheran, but her father was an atheist. I was raised with zero religion at home and I wouldn’t give you 2 cents for every organized church in the world. My parents are both children of the 1960s. So despite my low opinion of organized religion, I’ve always been the conservative one in my family.
I must admit a certain fondness for budweiser baptists. They tend to be a lot more genial than the iced tea variety.
As a Baptist, I have to share my favorite joke.
Jews don't Recognize Jesus as the Messiah.
Protestants dont Recognize the Pope as the head of the Church.
Baptists don't Recognize each other at the liquor store.
;)
Come to think of it I’ve never known a non-drinking Baptist, so what is this ice-tea version you speak of?
Quote from: jax-native68 on August 31, 2011, 12:01:15 PM
Quote from: Tacachale on August 31, 2011, 11:09:48 AM
As far as accreditation goes, there are other bodies that accredit private schools besides SACS. Most are accredited with FCIS/NAIS and/or a Christian school accrediting body.
I looked into all of this back when I first began thinking about opening a school in the mid-1990s. But I don’t have much faith in these accrediting organizations. I taught briefly at a couple of private schools that had ACSI accreditation. One school used Bob Jones University geography textbooks that were copyrighted in 1996 but still had chapters covering the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact nations. The other school I worked at did not allow homework and gave me 2 class sets of A Beka textbooks with which I was supposed to teach science for grades 7-12. But it didn’t matter. No more than a dozen of the 150 or so students could read so textbooks were a waste of time. And students at this school were not grouped into classes based on their age or even their grade level. They were grouped based on their personality so the worst of the troublemakers were never in the same class where they could kill each other.
None of the other Christian schools whose teaching jobs I interviewed for back in the 1990s had a school library or science lab supplies, and if they had a computer lab the hardware was at least 10 years old. I used to support taxpayer-funded vouchers for private schools, but I don’t anymore because of my experience with Jacksonville’s Christian schools.
You may not have any faith in the accrediting bodies, but I can guarantee you that parents paying their hard earned money to send their kids to private schools are going to want more than your own say-so that the school is on the up and up.
Quote from: jax-native68 on August 31, 2011, 12:01:15 PM
QuoteWhen Providence opened in 1998 it cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $6 million.
If you are so knowledgeable, tell me what exactly the money spent on. How much went into the pastor’s pocket?
Do your own homework.
http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/stories/1996/07/15/story2.html
http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/stories/1998/07/06/story4.html
And that $6 million was on top of the land the school is on, which the school already owned.
Quote from: jax-native68 on August 31, 2011, 12:01:15 PM
QuoteWhile there are many poor or mediocre schools in the area, there are also excellent ones,
With excellent tuition costs as well. Very few people in Jacksonville can afford the likes of Bolles or Episcopal.
How are you going to keep your costs down to offer a more affordable tuition, while still maintaining the rigorous academic standards you outline above?
Quote from: jax-native68 on August 31, 2011, 12:01:15 PM
QuoteAnd if you think that your little school will be comparable to or better than Stanton, Episcopal, and Bolles right off the bat, you're being as silly as some of the other comments on this thread.
Have I said my school would be as good as Stanton, Episcopal or Bolles right off the bat? No. So take your snide attitude and shove it.
Your initial statements about your academic plans certainly suggest a very high quality program. Additionally, your comments about Stanton suggest you don't think much of it, and elsewhere you said most Christian schools were sub par and "all a waste of money". All together this implies you intend your school to be better. If you don't like people responding to your questions, don't ask them in the first place.
Quote from: avs on August 31, 2011, 11:59:28 AM
The whole AP thing is a little overblown though, IMO. My sister went to a school that was IB down in Hillsborough County, so all her classes were AP. She still had to take many of those classes again at FSU even though she did well on the AP exams. She still ended up going to college for 4 years even though sh ewas full time and came in with all those AP classes. I took many AP classes in high school too and I don't feel like the curriculum was so much better than the honors classes or that it put me ahead any in college. Just my experience though. AP classes wouldn't sell me on a school, and the lack of Phys Ed and music would concern me. I have no idea if there's a market or not for this school, it wouldn't be the school of my choice for my child and some great points about who the school is competing with and funding have also been made.
It's a whole catch 22 thing with the ap classes! You can't get into most schools without the added gpa that the ap classes give you. Except now almost all schools are cutting down on the number of ap credits they they will accept. So students are stuck taking the same classes over again anyway!
Quote from: Tacachale on August 31, 2011, 02:15:17 PM
You may not have any faith in the accrediting bodies, but I can guarantee you that parents paying their hard earned money to send their kids to private schools are going to want more than your own say-so that the school is on the up and up.
As far as Christian schools are concerned most parents don’t care about accreditation. A parent for a student I had at the first school I taught at (back before the McKay Scholarship was around so parents themselves were paying for tuition) agreed with me that the curriculum at the school was garbage and she admitted that her son wasn’t learning anything. But at the same time she wanted her son in a Christian school because she didn’t want her son in a public school environment.
But then I was fired when I refused to give out good report card grades just to keep the parents happy and the tuition money coming in.
QuoteDo your own homework.
http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/stories/1996/07/15/story2.html
http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/stories/1998/07/06/story4.html
I am not the one making the claim about the cost of opening a private school, you are. So why should I do your research?
And note: “New Life Christian Fellowship on the Southside breaks ground July 14 on a $6 million church school and day care center.â€
“And daycare centerâ€. The government does heavily regulate daycare providers so it is likely that this is where the church spent a lot of the its $6 million. My school will not have a daycare of any kind.
This school also has a 133000 square foot facilty and can enroll 900 students. My school would likely start with a single class of 7th graders and enrollment would be capped at 120 to 150 students. Additional grades would be added over time.
QuoteAnd that $6 million was on top of the land the school is on, which the school already owned.
Where is the law that says a private school has to own its own property? Neither of the schools I worked at did.
QuoteHow are you going to keep your costs down to offer a more affordable tuition, while still maintaining the rigorous academic standards you outline above?
What costs do you think are going to be so outrageous?
I was planning for a yearly budget that had $8-15 per square foot for building rent (up to 4000 square feet; bag lunches so no kitchen or cafeteria); $1000 a month for JEA; $100 a month for phone; $12-18,000 each for teacher salaries (4 teachers) with me serving as both a teacher and the administrator for no additional pay and $10,000 or so per year for a secretary. I included something like $120 per student for textbooks and classroom supplies. I don’t remember now what I was budgeting for insurance- something like $100 per year per student. Total budget was going to be about $360,000 per year for up to 120 students. Tuition was going to be around $3000 per student per year.
QuoteYour initial statements about your academic plans certainly suggest a very high quality program. Additionally, your comments about Stanton suggest you don't think much of it, and elsewhere you said most Christian schools were sub par and "all a waste of money". All together this implies you intend your school to be better. If you don't like people responding to your questions, don't ask them in the first place.
Stanton is great when compared to other public schools and it has usually been the equal of Bolles in student output. But Stanton has never become what my class was promised when I enrolled in 1981.
And I stand by my remark. You claim that I am not able to do what I set out to do when you don’t me from Adam and thus don’t have a clue what my abilities are.
I think there is a market for a school like this- although I think you would do better by not having any religous affiliation similar to Bolles, that way you can draw from a wider group of people. I would assume there are a lot of parents who fall between "not wanting to send my kids to public school" and "not being able to afford one of the more expensive private schools" groups. Especially with the difficulty of getting students into Stanton these days.
PS- I went to Stanton and FSU and had all my AP classes approved for credits- so whoever mentioned they didn't accept them probaby didn't get a high enough score on the exams.
QuoteI went to Stanton and FSU and had all my AP classes approved for credits- so whoever mentioned they didn't accept them probaby didn't get a high enough score on the exams
haha! no, good guess though - she got high scores on all of her tests and all of them should have been accepted. I called her and asked her. It has to do with course descriptions. Incidentally, I knew people at UF who had passed their AP exams with good scores and who also had to retake classes.
Quote from: iluvolives on August 31, 2011, 04:35:29 PM
I think there is a market for a school like this- although I think you would do better by not having any religous affiliation similar to Bolles, that way you can draw from a wider group of people. I would assume there are a lot of parents who fall between "not wanting to send my kids to public school" and "not being able to afford one of the more expensive private schools" groups. Especially with the difficulty of getting students into Stanton these days.
PS- I went to Stanton and FSU and had all my AP classes approved for credits- so whoever mentioned they didn't accept them probaby didn't get a high enough score on the exams.
No one said they don't accept them... They just limit the number that they will accept. Uf caps out at 30 and I believe FSU is the same or close too it now. My son graduated from Stanton's IB program in June and started Uf this month so this is something we've dealt with recently... and he never made anything lower than a 4 on any of his ap tests. He is also going for pre med and talked to that department and was told that to get into med school they want you to take all those classes again in college... even if you aced them in ap.
Quote from: avs on August 31, 2011, 05:27:46 PM
QuoteI went to Stanton and FSU and had all my AP classes approved for credits- so whoever mentioned they didn't accept them probaby didn't get a high enough score on the exams
haha! no, good guess though - she got high scores on all of her tests and all of them should have been accepted. I called her and asked her. It has to do with course descriptions. Incidentally, I knew people at UF who had passed their AP exams with good scores and who also had to retake classes.
There is no pass or fail for AP exams. Each exam is scored 1 to 5. I scored a 4 on the exams for biology and European History and was given credit for 4 college courses. I scored a 3 on the English lit exam and did not get any college credit. But after taking 2 years of IB English and a year of AP English at Stanton (AP teacher was a college professor on sabbatical) my writing skills were good enough to exempt me from taking the 1st semester of freshman English. But the exemption didn't count as a course taken towards the number of courses needed to graduate.
Quote from: AmyLynne on August 31, 2011, 05:44:17 PM
He is also going for pre med and talked to that department and was told that to get into med school they want you to take all those classes again in college... even if you aced them in ap.
I was never told this. But this is the main problem with the school system in America today- public and private. Education in this country has become big business- and as is usually the case when big business is concerned the consumer gets shafted.
QuoteEducation in this country has become big business- and as is usually the case when big business is concerned the consumer gets shafted.
Maybe this is "usually" the case. But, many for-profit education groups have the right focus. I will concede that many also do not. I taught at a charter school in Southeast DC for 4 years. We were right in the shit (Anacostia - if anyone from DC wants to confirm how bad it is there). Some of the most bad-ass kids in DC were coming to learn from us. It was hard as hell. My heart was in it...at first. After the first two years, I would have been out of there. It was so exhausting and life-consuming; but, I was collecting $60K as a third year teacher. We were held to an unbelievably high standard and so were the students. Our standardized test scores and graduation rates were through the roof. Our middle school kids got into some of the top high schools in DC. These kids were legitimately on their way.
Why?
Because our management company was making that bread and passing it on. Because we attracted (and kept) the best teachers. Teachers who were being compensated well for their skills and effort. Teachers who otherwise would have been forced to take their capable minds and make $60K in the corporate world in order to provide for their families. It seems rational for the person providing the education for my child to be happy with their situation. How was that accomplished?
Now, give me that money.
You made a great case for having earned "that money".
I'm going to treat the last line of the post
QuoteNow, give me that money.
like a typo.
It seems more in line with the teachers I have known, and less in line with a mission of excellence.
Quote from: buckethead on September 01, 2011, 04:35:36 AM
You made a great case for having earned "that money".
I'm going to treat the last line of the post QuoteNow, give me that money.
like a typo.
It seems more in line with the teachers I have known, and less in line with a mission of excellence.
Every school that is owned and operated by a church is legally set up as a non-profit organization because churches think they have a God-given right to not pay taxes. But this doesn’t prevent the pastor from padding his pocket with the profits from the school. My first teaching job offer came from a Baptist church in Mandarin. I was going to teach part of the day and prepare a curriculum for the pastor’s Bible college part of the day. Because of the curriculum work I was expected to work year-round even though the high school was not a year-round school.
The pastor put out brochures that told parents that the school’s teachers made $19,000 a year. What he offered me, after obligating me to give his church 10%, was just $1 over minimum wage. But yet the pastor, his wife, their son and the son’s wife were the only other teachers/employees this school had. The school had no library, no computer lab and its textbooks were 15 years old. Needless to say I did not take the job.
The first school I worked at was non-profit and it was sponsored by a for-profit company. But yet the school had no library or computer lab or science labs and the textbooks were garbage even though tuition at this school was $3000 per student per year. Teachers were well-paid by private school standards, but the work environment was horrendous.
The other school I worked at was run by a for-profit company so any money that was spent in the classroom was that much money less in profits for the owner. So it was much worse than the non-profit school was.
QuoteI'm going to treat the last line of the post
Quote
Now, give me that money.like a typo
That was very much a joke. I was trying to exemplify his generalization of attitudes toward "big money" and education.
Quoteso any money that was spent in the classroom was that much money less in profits for the owner
If the owner had half a brain...he or she would recognize that as an extremely short term profit. Our owners realized that providing a high quality results driven curriculum would keep them around long-term. Charter schools without results (at least in DC) can be shut down at the snap of the fingers. As in any business, there was pressure to perform, becuase the profits would disappear without a unique, quality product.
Quote from: InnerCityPressure on September 01, 2011, 09:17:14 AM
If the owner had half a brain...he or she would recognize that as an extremely short term profit. Our owners realized that providing a high quality results driven curriculum would keep them around long-term. Charter schools without results (at least in DC) can be shut down at the snap of the fingers. As in any business, there was pressure to perform, becuase the profits would disappear without a unique, quality product.
There is such a demand for schools for brats in Jacksonville that any school for brats will make money no matter what. The owner of the school I worked for didn’t have to care about long-term profits. Every student at this school got the McKay Scholarship so the owner had a ready supply of customers. The owner didn’t have to care about the quality of his product because the government is going to buy it anyway because public schools don’t want the problem students that this private school catered to. And as long as parents weren’t paying for anything, they didn’t care about what their children learned.
Quotethey didn’t care about what their children learned.
Therein lies the problem.
Quote from: tufsu1 on August 31, 2011, 08:09:29 AM
personally, I believe there is significant value in the summer camp experience....and the calendar proposed here would not allow it
Oh yeah, speaking personally, the Citadel Military Summer Camp for Boys was just awesome. Lol...experiences differ.
Jax-Native, you clearly have a passion for education and a vision for creating something lasting... and you have some resources.
I don't claim to know all the costs involved in starting up a school. But I know there are a tremendous number of private Christian schools in Jacksonville, of a variety of levels of quality from excellent to not-so-much.
Maybe a better plan to use your talents and your resources would be to open an "after school academy" somewhere in Jacksonville. Rent a couple thousand square feet of commercial space and get yourself setup with a couple classrooms, an office and some basic facilities. Don't underestimate the cost of stuff like a simple sign on the building, furniture for the classrooms and other general supplies.
You could then offer weekday after school programs aimed at preparing students to take AP courses, tests, SAT prep, general life skills, etc. On weekends, you might offer specialized day-long life skills courses taught by experts in their field. Maybe even host some adult education courses. On Sundays you could host a Sunday school.
If you are successful, perhaps a full-blown private school could grow out of your endeavour. Worst case - you help a bunch of kids and don't go totally broke in the process.