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Bergen County Academies

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Bergen County Academies
File:Http://www.bergen.org/guidance/images/academylogo.jpg
Address
Map
200 Hackensack Avenue

Hackensack
,
NJ

USA
Information
TypeMagnet school
Established1991
PrincipalPatricia T. Cosgrove
Grades9-12
Enrollment1098
Color(s)Black and Teal (BCA); Black and Gold (BT Knights)
MascotKnight
Information(201)343-6000
Average SAT Scores (2005-06)2015
Athletics13 Sports
35 Teams
Websitehttp://www.bergen.org/ACADEMY/

The Bergen County Academies (sometimes referred to as Bergen Academy or BCA) is a public magnet high school located in Hackensack that serves the high-school population of Bergen County, New Jersey. The school was originally the brainchild of the late Dr. John Grieco. The current principal is Patricia Cosgrove; the vice principal is Russell Davis.

House and grounds

Bergen County Academies Auditorium entrance

The Bergen County Academies is located on the John Grieco Campus of the Bergen County Technical Schools District in Hackensack, NJ. In addition to the main, three floor building, the Environmental Science Center (ESC) and ten modular classrooms are used for academic purposes. Major construction is currently ongoing. A two floor addition is currently being built and renovations to various classrooms and the cafeteria are planned.[1]

Program

The school's strengths are evident in its challenging academics, extracurricular activities, and distinguished faculty, many of whom hold doctorates in their respective fields.[2] The school also offers individual research opportunities which allow students to compete in science fairs on local to international levels. Seniors participate in Senior Experience, [3] in which they attend an all-day internship once a week instead of reporting to school. The school is heavily involved in the Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma programs. Bergen County Academies was certified to offer the International Baccalaureate (IB) diploma in January 2004.[4] The school is one of only 16 schools in New Jersey to offer the IB program.[5]

The school is divided into seven different college-preparatory academic programs. Each program is called an "academy" and offers a unique set of courses catering to a specific area. An eighth program, called the Global Leadership Exchange (GLE) exists for the classes of 2008 and 2009, but does not exist for later classes.

In order to accommodate a traditional liberal arts high school education in addition to higher-level education in specific fields, the school day is from 8:00 AM to 4:10 PM. Students are permitted to enter the building and work as early as 7:15 AM. Previously, the class day had extended from 7:30 AM to 4:35 PM for the Academy for the Advancement of Science and Technology until the early 2000s, with athletics and extracurricular activities continuing into the evening. [citation needed]

While the different academies are often treated as a single school within the district and the state, students apply to colleges and certain academic programs under the aegis of their respective academic programs, rather than BCA as a whole. For example, a student in the Science Academy would list the "Academy for the Advancement of Science and Technology" on his college applications; Bergen County Academies itself has no CEEB code.

The school is also known for defying traditional methods and practices adopted by typical high schools. Students are not required to attend study hall during free time and are allowed to socialize in hallways. This time is referred to as "free mods". Homerooms are referred to as "IGS"(Information Gathering Sessions). All seniors participate in the Senior Experience internship, and classes are scheduled using flexible modular scheduling.

Awards and recognition

BCA - National Blue Ribbon School

For the 2006-07 school year, the Bergen County Academies was recognized with the Blue Ribbon Award from the United States Department of Education, the highest honor that an American school can achieve.[6] Signs of the Blue Ribbon School Award are present through the campus; one can be seen in the picture to the left.

Bergen County Academies was recognized as one of six national Intel Schools of Distinction for excellence as one of the nation's top schools for mathematics. The program recognizes one school for math and one for science in each of three school ranges (elementary, middle and high school).[7]

For the 1997 - 1998 school year, AAST was cited by the New Jersey Department of Education as a Star School.[8]

Bergen County Academies was recognized by Newsweek magazine in its May 28, 2007 issue covering America's Best High Schools, as one of its 21 Public Elites, a group of consistent high performers excluded from its rankings because of the number of students with SAT (or ACT) scores well above the national average.[9] The school was also recognized as a "Public Elite", one of 22 such schools recognized nationwide in Newsweek magazine's listing of "America's Best High Schools" in the May 8, 2006 issue. Newsweek described the school as "Seven subschools specializing in everything from finance to visual arts".[10]

In 2005-06, BCA averaged a 2015 combined SAT score, second-highest statewide.[11]

Admissions

Though it is a public school, the admission process is selective. Tuition is free for residents of Bergen County and is paid for by the student's home school district, the State of New Jersey, and a number of public and private grants. Payments from sending districts are mandated by both state and county legislation affecting vocational and technical districts such as BCTS.

BCA serves all 70 municipalities of Bergen County. In recent years, classes of 250 - 270 have been accepted from an applicant pool of 1100 - 1200. [12] Limits are held on the number of students that can be accepted from each district, with the limit being based on the size of the high school. The school reports that there are "4 or 5 districts where this is a problem." According to the March/April 2001 special superintendent's report, published in the wake of the 2001 funding controversy (see infra.), there exists an informal agreement that the Academies will accept at least one (qualified) student from each district.

History

BCA began as a single academy, "The Academy for the Advancement of Science and Technology" (AAST), which inducted students in fall 1992 for the graduating class of 1996. The school originally intended to provide a unique learning environment where classes were discussion-based and where students were not given grades. However, AAST quickly adopted more standard teaching methods, including the offering of AP Programs, largely due to pressure from parents. [citation needed]

In 1997 additional schools opened on the campus, including The Academy for Business and Computer Technology (ABCT), The Academy for Engineering Design Technology (AEDT), and The Academy for Medical Science Technology (AMST). The following year, three career institutes were added: The Culinary Arts Institute, The Power and Transportation Institute, and The Visual Arts and Graphic Communications Institute. Although the first class to apply to these three programs was in 1998 (the class of 2002), there was also a class of 2001. The students in this class began as freshmen at the Bergen County Technical High School (which had also been located on the Hackensack campus), and subsequently became sophomores in the career institutes. In 1999, the career institutes were renamed to become academies: The Academy for Culinary Arts (ACA), The Academy for Power and Transportation (APT), and The Academy for Visual Arts and Graphic Communications (AVAGC). Integration of the schools into the current BCA began outright in 1999.

In subsequent years, several of the newer programs underwent changes. Eventually all 7 programs were geared less towards career prep and more towards college prep, adopting a liberal arts curriculum with an extra focus on their respective fields. Beginning in 2002 with the entering class of 2006, ABCT changed its focus and became The Academy for Business and Finance (ABF), APT was replaced by The Academy for Telecommunications and Computer Science (ATCS), ACA added hotel administration to its coursework and became The Academy for Culinary Arts and Hotel Administration (ACAHA), and AVAGC expanded its scope to include performing arts, and became The Academy for Visual and Performing Arts (AVPA).[13]

The school itself also changed its name numerous times: first "Bergen County Regional Academies", then "Bergen Academies", then "Bergen County Academy" (with the singular denoting the unity of the seven programs), and then the present "Bergen County Academies".

Over the past several years, funding policies and admissions procedures have drawn the ire of many local districts. In 2001, a major dispute initiated by the Bergen County School Administrators' Association focused on what Paramus Superintendent Janice Dime called "elitism." [14] Several of these districts threatened to withdraw funding from the program. The Bergen County Technical Schools agreed to increase the transparency of the admissions process and enter into talks with a number of sending districts. [15] For the 2006 - 2007 school year, districts pay annual tuition of $6600 for each student.[1] For copies of Bergen Record articles on the subject of BCA admissions as well as a rebuttal to the original allegations by then-superintendent Dr. Grieco, see the March/April 2001 special superintendent's report.

The Academies

The Academy for Culinary Arts and Hotel Administration (ACAHA or ACHA)

Founded in 1997 and originally called the Academy for Culinary Arts (ACA), the program represented a culinary vocational program that was reworked to give students a more academic focus. Originally grouped with APT and AVAGC (see abbreviations stated previously) as "career" academies, they were set apart from the college prep programs of AAST, ABCT, AEDT and AMST. After being reorganized into academic, college-prep academies, the name changed to the present name in 2002 to reflect the change in emphasis and curriculum. Head instructor Mary Beth Brace has been recognized as Advisor of the Year for SkillsUSA and has received attention for devotion as a baking and culinary arts instructor. Chef John Branda, who worked in the food service industry for 30 years, was the saucier at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, and co-owned an upscale Fair Lawn restaurant. [16]

Global Leadership Exchange (GLE)

Started in 2004 to first support the class of 2008, GLE is the newest program at the Academies; its focus is the field of biotechnology and global leadership [17]. It was initially designed to give its students the state high school requirements in two years [18], with International Baccalaureate courses being later added to the program. The components of the GLE program, such as biotechnology, are being integrated into the Academy for Medical Science Technology. [citation needed]

Extracurricular activities

AAST Math Team

With nearly 100 students in participation, AAST Math Team is a large extracurricular team at the Academies. Since its inception, the team has been coached by Joseph Holbrook, [19] who is also the chair of the mathematics department. In line with the school's original philosophy, Holbrook created a model for mathematics education that was directed at solving non-standard problems, without concerning traditional time restraints and curricula. Holbrook runs problem-solving sessions on Saturdays and Sundays, which function as practice sessions for team members. This model has been adapted to create programs for local middle school students. [20] [21] Students are encouraged to come to practices and participate with the team in high school math competitions.

The AAST Math Team participates in competitions such as the AMCs, AIME, USAMO, Mandelbrot, Harvard-MIT Mathematics Tournament, and ARML. The team often ranks within the top ten in competitions it enters, competing against top magnet schools and state and regional teams. The team has been nationally ranked either first or second in each of the past four years of the Mandelbrot Competition. [22]

Although the AAST Math Team is open to all academies, it is still known as "AAST" for historical reasons.

FreshAngles

As part of a co-curricular program run through the Academies' Journalism and English departments, students run their own teen-oriented current events website known as FreshAngles, located at freshangles.com. Topics written about include politics, technology, sports, pop culture, and creative writing. The project began in the summer of 1996 as an on-line magazine for teens by teens, in partnership with The Record. The site debuted to the public on January 27, 1997, originally located at teenvoice.com and known as in-site. Beginning in 1998, the website officially changed its name to Teenvoice.[23][24] In 2000, Women Express, Inc., publisher of Teen Voices magazine, threatened the school with a copyright infringement lawsuit for using the name Teenvoice, so the name of the website changed to FreshAngles on May 9, 2001.[25] [26]

FreshAngles was much more prominent in the past. Originally, students participated in this project by taking elective classes in Journalism and Wire Editing, where students learned how to acquire articles from the AP wire. At one time, the site had a staff of over 220 students. As of January 2001, just before Teenvoice became FreshAngles, the site was receiving over one million hits per month. Companies such as Random House and Sony often sent the staff music, books, and electronics for review well before the commercial release date. Teenvoice also had collaborations with Columbia University's Center for New Media, Fred Friendly Seminars, ABC Television's ABC 2000 Today, as well as local high schools' newspapers. The project suffered throughout the Teenvoice to FreshAngles transition, as it saw a reduction in website visitors, staff members, and lost contact with prior collaborators. [27]

FreshAngles began to gain popularity again, but a crash of the server lasting from 2005 to 2006 temporarily destroyed the website and the articles archived on it. Beginning in 2007, FreshAngles started back up on an outsourced server, run by the American Society of Newspaper Editors. However, the website now contains few articles and is rarely updated. [28]

Other activities

The Academies' BattleBots IQ team, known as the Titanium Knights, won the 2006 national heavyweight championship in the high school division with the robot E2V2, [29] and won two other awards for another 120lb robot, Knightrous. In previous years, the team has won second, third, and fourth place titles in BBIQ, and affiliated student teams have won numerous awards in Northeast Robotics Club events.

Mission: Bossou is a charitable project of the students of Bergen County Academies. Its official purpose is to deliver food as quickly as possible to people suffering from hunger in Bossou (Guinea) and surrounding communities.

The Bergen County Academies is also home to a large Amnesty International student group. Students from the chapter participate in biweekly letter-writing campaigns, bring speakers to campus, lobby government officials, and attend local, regional, and national conferences on human rights.[30]

The Academies also have a strong debating tradition. The Academies' policy debate program finished first in Bergen County in 2005-2006, beating Tenafly High School (which had won the previous six years) and the Dwight-Englewood School. There are three levels of competition: Novice, Junior Varsity, and the highly selective Varsity level that accepts only six teams, with more than twice that number usually trying out. During the 2006-2007 school year, however, there was no novice debate program, due to a lack of freshman debaters. The single freshman team competed at the JV level instead.[citation needed]

Besides FreshAngles, there are two other student-run publications present at the Academies: The Academy Chronicle and The Academy Advocate. The Academy Chronicle primarily focuses on in-school news, such as articles about school activities, and is distributed approximately 4-5 times per year.[citation needed] The Academy Advocate is an opinion journal focused on international and domestic affairs, social issues and business news, which is focused strictly on student opinions on various events and controversies.[31]

The Bioscience Research Program enables up to 40 students per year from any academy to learn how biologists work as scientists in the research laboratory. The program consists of a series of four courses: Experimental Science 1 and 2, and Research 1 and 2. The Experimental Science courses focus on learning how the research investigation process works, and the Research courses allow students to design and complete a project in an area of biology. The goal is publication of their work via competition in science fairs during trimester 3 of the second year. A new cell biology research laboratory under construction planned to be open in February 2007. For more information: BRP

Academy students participate in many other competitions nationwide, such as SkillsUSA, FBLA, and HOSA. The Academies have a Model UN program consisting of their own Model UN conference, called AMUN and the Academies Model United Nations Team, which has won Best Delegation at Yale, Princeton, GWU, and MIT/BU, and garnered numerous individual delegate awards. The Academies' Quizbowl team placed third at NJ States in the 2004-2005 school year and went to the national tournament; it qualified to compete again in the national championship in 2007. It won the fall 2006 New Jersey State Championship in the Knowledge Master Open, placing eighth in the nation, and also won the spring 2007 New Jersey Championship in the KMO, earning second place internationally in the overall rankings. [32] It won the NAQT New Jersey State Championship at Rutgers in 2007.

Sports

The Academies shares its sports program with the Bergen County Technical High Schools. The boys' teams, called the Bergen Tech Knights, and the girls' teams, the Bergen Tech Lady Knights, have formerly played in the BCSL Olympic athletic conference. [citation needed] Bergen Tech has been placed in the Northern New Jersey Interscholastic League (NNJIL) for the start of the Fall 2006 athletic season. Bergen Tech would face teams such as Bergen Catholic High School, Don Bosco Preparatory High School, Paramus Catholic High School and Saint Joseph Regional High School. It is important to note that the tennis team and baseball team advanced to the North I Group IV State playoffs last year, with the tennis team continuing on to the semifinals after winning sectionals.[33][34]

In 2006, the football team reached the playoffs, falling to Randolph High School 29-0 in football.[35] The boys soccer team advanced to the 2006 state tournament, winning in the first round before losing 4-3 to Memorial High School in the semifinal game. [36]

Notable alumni

References

  1. ^ a b Bergen Technical High Schools Budget 2006-07, accessed November 9, 2006.
  2. ^ Academy Faculty
  3. ^ Senior Experience
  4. ^ Bergen County Academies, International Baccalaureate Organization. Accessed May 24, 2007.
  5. ^ Find an IB World School—results, International Baccalaureate Organization. Accessed May 24, 2007.
  6. ^ No Child Left Behind-Blue Ribbon Schools in 2006, accessed September 29, 2006.
  7. ^ Fabiano, Giovanna. "Bergen Academies wins national math award", The Record (Bergen County), June 16, 2007. Accessed June 16, 2007.
  8. ^ Star Schools for 1997-1998, New Jersey Department of Education.
  9. ^ "The Public Elites", Newsweek, May 28, 2007. Accessed May 25, 2007.
  10. ^ "The Public Elites",Newsweek, May 8, 2006.
  11. ^ 2005-06 School Test Score Rankings, The Star-Ledger. Accessed June 19, 2007.
  12. ^ Admissions FAQs, Bergen County Academies.
  13. ^ Academy Parent Partnership Organization
  14. ^ Schools refuse to pay 'elitist' academies, The Record, March 3, 2001
  15. ^ Accord reached in dispute over high-tech Academies, The Record, April 11, 2001
  16. ^ Branda Named Teacher of the Year
  17. ^ Pilot Program Focuses on School for the 21st Century
  18. ^ Experimental Bergen Tech Program Uses the World as its Lab
  19. ^ Math + Enthusiasm = Mr. Holbrook, The Record, October 16, 2006
  20. ^ BCA Math Competition
  21. ^ Academy After Hours
  22. ^ Mandelbrot Rankings
  23. ^ About Teenvoice, archived March 9, 2001, accessed from archive April 23, 2007.
  24. ^ About Teenvoice.com, archived February 21, 2001, accessed from archive April 23, 2007.
  25. ^ FreshAngles, archived May 9, 2001, accessed from archive April 23, 2007.
  26. ^ Teenvoice.com redirects to FreshAngles.com, archived May 16, 2001, accessed from archive April 23, 2007.
  27. ^ About FreshAngles, archived June 13, 2001, accessed from archive April 23, 2007.
  28. ^ FreshAngles on My High School Journalism, accessed April 23, 2007.
  29. ^ 2006 Results for BattleBots IQ
  30. ^ Home page of the local Amnesty International chapter
  31. ^ Home page of The Academy Advocate
  32. ^ KMO 2006-2007 Rankings
  33. ^ 2005 Boys Team Tennis - North I, Group IV, NJSIAA, accessed April 23, 2007.
  34. ^ 2005 Baseball - North I, Group IV, NJSIAA, accessed April 23, 2007.
  35. ^ 2006 Football Tournament - North I, Group IV, NJSIAA, accessed April 23, 2007.
  36. ^ 2006 Boys Soccer Tournament - North I, Group IV, NJSIAA, accessed April 23, 2007.
  37. ^ IMDB Entry for Meetu Chilana
  38. ^ "Once-touted novel has uncertain future", Arizona Republic, April 28, 2006, accessed April 23, 2007. "Weems, who taught literature to Viswanathan when she was a junior at Bergen County Academies in New Jersey, remembered her as a gifted student and as the winner of a number of writing contests."
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