Watch a recording of the Virtual Open House of 10/25/22 Beacon High School Virtual Open House 10/25/22 Beacon Open House 10/25/22 This video features ASL translation, as well as audio of teachers and students, enhanced by slide show presentations of various departments. Show Transcript rate so I'm good evening everybody it is about 6 we're going to get started my name is Brian trolio I am a math teacher at the at Degan and Prince unfortunately had some pressing business and could not be with us tonight but we are we have the team assembled and we are ready and excited to tell you a little bit about the school I'm if you really want to hear from Principal Smith and sell then please the website there are two more information sessions in early November feel free to rejoin one of those he will be able to give some more detailed information about the application process however he's also going to instruct people to look at the FAQ document on our website which should have answers to almost all of your questions about the admission process one thing I will say something he would he would deliver a few is here is not that the emissions are not first come first serve so after you have learned about vegan and then hopefully learn about other Alternatives we hope that you will make the most informed choice for yourself I'm in any application that is submitted by the deadline as equal weight and so there's no rush to turn it in first they all are evaluated equally so please just make sure that you apply by the deadline if you do like what you hear tonight times people want to know what can we do to help ourselves what you want to do is just indicate Beacon as your first choice on the preference warm that the city gets so again if if you are very determined to come to Beacon do you want to indicate Beacon first that is probably the best thing you can do in order to kind of help yourself in the process and we have a variety of teachers here this afternoon this evening and each one of us is going to give you a little bit of information about our area in school and then we should also have some time for some information about our special education program and sometime for information about sports at school about the Arts programs at school and then about our tremendous College office and then after that we should have hopefully maybe 20 year maybe only 15 minutes for question the answer and we are going to close this evening at 7:30 with that I believe first we are going to hear from The English Department so we have Miss Hines and Mister Joel please take it away all right how everyone my name is Arianna heintzman English teacher at beacon in just a moment take a look at I'm at your children go ahead and do that okay about the English Department as a whole fastest consist of text-based suit that our discussion is a lot of emphasis on student discussion and on I'm kind of trying to Real Life Connections both between the text it's a generator the text and the audience kind of like that Baltimore doing in class is having students collaborate with one another in terms of writing we do emphasize formal letter in Caesar talks about all four years specifically writing in 9th and 10th grade all four years culminate in a PBA of performance-based assessment form of assessment at the weekend and that's when students presented a revised or a wholly original paper that incorporates academically centered literary criticism will work towards that all four years but ultimately that kind of combination will happen in their junior year English classes also allow students to demonstrate understanding through a variety of different ways not just buy literary analysis essay I lost my virginity for creative personal narratives visual representations of work and those are often kind of paired without more analytical formal assays turn it over to mr. I will tell you about little bit more about your by year everybody I teach 11th and 12th grade English through our 12th grade class is a little bit different than the one before it so would like to think of you is having a team and a task were right and goal that sets it apart I was starting the ninth grade with this team and younger English classes in high school around the city but now it's time tell me they're coming baby dolls and they are raised a five paragraph literary analysis essay starting an argument about the use of a literary device tree sort of simple basic five paragraph building pieces using evidence supporting evidence learning this for the basics of literary analysis and how to make a persuasive argument some of the sample book titles that we use this is just a sample of what you might see kids will get different things into the course of the different teachers but they'll all be centered around a particular theme are they move from thinking about themselves to their position in society and the world so we call that theme self and Society you can see that reflected in the handmaid's tale and Sula persepolis all about the individual's relationship to the society in which they live right angle is about style during move on from there on especially with a focus on analysis and comparative writing that you can write about one book and the same time and think about the ways that explore the same idea in different ways or similar ways to increase a little bit different instead of be trace-a-matic it's about place it's about America in the American identity literature really fun class you can see are book titles that reflect different kinds of American experiences just this past week we finished thinking about Gatsby and since great book passing essay incorporating outside literary criticism that's the real difference in the 11th grade as we asked you was to start taking into account the work of others analysis of others and using it to build an argument of their own is important to use that phrase performance-based assessment which I'm sure you're going to hear Lotto tonight by the basic idea is that instead of doing high-stakes testing Beacon uses a PBA are presented to a small group of people they do that every year but the most important year is the 11th grade in which they write this essay most a listings of Beacon are exempt I'm taking most rings exams because they do these performance-based assessment said there's one exception to that all students of Beacon do take Ela Regents in January of their junior year so that's only Regents exam it will take but it is in English we're both ways a little bit different because our theme is applying English to our passions it is when students get to take electives of their choice you can see so the greatest a class as we have and there's a literature and film class A sci-fi and fantasy literature class I teach your fiction writing class but I love teaching it in the spring I'll be teaching a class on Native American contemporary fiction that I really enjoyed teaching so speak in English part in the senior year that students get to choose something that they're really passionate about and explore it a little bit more deeply that's it all right we're going to watch you go on to the next subject and if there is time for questions I think we'll take him at the end but that's that's that's English thanks everybody okay now we're going to hear from Becky Ford in the history Department share my screen for this particular presentation anybody enable screen sharing awesome everybody my name is Becky Ford and I'm going to present the slideshow about history and social studies at begin so I'm I've been teaching at Beacon for 4 years and it's hot and in 12th grade history on Tuesday so as Ariana and Chris just mentioned Beacon is a performance-based assessment school so none of our students take the reasons exam in global or US History instead each year students are responsible for doing a PBA where they sort of investigate a larger historical question and just like an English this builds upon Beach on PBA builds upon the next and students get an opportunity to explore different types of questions using different types of sources the 11th grade history PBA again one of them more significant PBA that begin takes the form of a comprehensive research paper that students work on for about six weeks and present you a piano the same history and social studies at Beacon is thematic an inquiry-based so we value exploring big questions by analyzing select text we teach students to think analytically and mimic the work of historians we read and discuss articles and reputable news sources and all grave making connections between current events in history lessons we put a strong emphasis is on developing academic reading and writing and when Christian support relationships with teachers and friendly and open-minded environment but here's a little bit about our curriculum so in 9th grade we start with the idea global patterns of contact conflict and really kind of examine this big question about global inequalities embark on a mini introduction about monuments and Collective historical memory look at early civilizations such as the dawn of agriculture in defining civilization as well as looking at World Empires on the performance-based assessment in the middle of the year is your conference and debate often around set up a simulation with where students represent different countries in the Middle East and sort of explore a variety of conflicts in the world in a global and equality with Topeka emphasis on economic differences and choose one of their projects that they like to present before the panel 10th grade is really the year revolutions didn't really sort of taken the opportunity to explore the modern global history and from the 18th to the 21st century kind of working at the Renaissance and the enlightenment French and Haitian revolutions as well as South American is colonialism and imperialism World War World War II and the Cold War kind of threading current events into each of these discussions kind of taking a look at the status of these countries economically and politically and socially now 11 grade much like a English we focus on American history so we begin with indigenous Nations and cultures study instead of you an in-depth palaces of the origins of slavery in Jamestown moving through the American Revolution a constitutional formation and so on and so forth through the 19th and 20th Century super 19th century the second semester is a lot more about the night the second half 19th century in the 20th century I'm looking at the Civil War action Jim Crow and Civil Rights Movement are they mentioned before 11th grade students are responsible for a performance-based assessment this is often a very for the rigorous research paper that students begin where they sort of begin with a historical question and they really kind of embark on some original historical Reese so students will often look through many sources including books as well as Journal articles and primary sources to kind of compiled a really thoughtful research work 4th grade history we also have an opportunity for students to choose electives that they're interested in so we do not offer AP History classes at this school but instead students have an opportunity to choose no active kind of based on their own personal interest in also t-shirt interest this year we're offering classes on the fiscal crisis 1970s New York City International political economy understanding China I'm teaching a class right now I'm cast as I really enjoy ethnic studies as well as sociology and we really surprised and interested our place in an elective but they're interested in history so that's what was the presentation thank you so much for your interest in the in high school alright everyone I'm going to pick it up from there my name is Christian Jacobs I'm a Spanish teacher here at the weekend I'm going to be representing our world languages department so I'll go ahead and share my screen and tell you a little bit about our department firstly it be we offer two languages French and Spanish and students typically take a placement exam in June before their freshman year on that placement exam do indicate their preference for French or Spanish women based on go to that placement exam will place them into an appropriately challenging course to hide that whistle metric we used to place students into language classes we understand that some students come in with a really robust Middle School language programs other students can be inherited tornadoes because of the languages other students come in with maybe only a year or a few months of language study so rather than look at transcripts or any other metric we just use our own placement exam to determine the best level for each student what you see on your screen right now are all of the courses that we offer in Spanish so we do have Spanish one two and three would serve as a series and those are the three courses that students usually play since you as a freshman based on that placement exam that I mentioned after Spanish 3 is where students start to have some options so they can continue with Spanish for or they could take his van accessible is in which is really a history class taught in Spanish that looks at the Historical political Social Development of the Spanish-speaking World another course of texting you this year and we're having the first time is Hispanic media essentially as a film in conversation class so again that's open to students who have completed as me Spanish three students complete units based on identity different scenes seen in films has been at world and there's a really heavy conversation component of it a student may you know Place into Spanish two as a freshman takes three as a sophomore for is it Junior and then can definitely still take Hispanics Or Hispanic media as a senior so they're open to deserved we did at least Spanish 3 but we have students who completed more advanced course work also in those courses lastly at the bottom you'll see AP Spanish Spanish is open to students who have completed Spanish for so students must complete or there's also placement exam and two other prerequisites that goes into play Tainted at course I'll show you our French sequence next our friendship is very similar to our Spanish sequence again we're French one two three and four wheeler French civilization course looking at the development and history of the francophone world not just friends but all french-speaking countries including Canada including francophone Africa and again that's open today since I've completed at least friends 3 and new this year we had AP French that's the first year they were offering that course and similar to Spanish that's open the students have completed at least who have come French for it again there's a placement exam to enter into that so one thing that I do think it's really exciting is that a lot of these courses are sort of knew that have been developed and offered over the past few years are both of our civilization courses are in their 50 Hispanic media and a few friends are in their first year so it's really exciting for me as a teacher who's been here for 5 years to really see our course offerings develop its offer sort of more challenging upper-level coursework for students I should say it's not required for students to take language for all four years most while hang up the department of education requirement is actually only one year so if the student passes both semesters of a language they have fulfilled their graduation or Simon Helberg most we can students do choose to continue with language usually for three or four years which is also the recommendation from our College office a little bit more just better teaching philosophy within the department our goal is to use the target language the target language being Spanish or French about 85 to 100% of the time that's our goal and our level one classes we certainly are not meeting that at the beginning of the year but as the year goes on we definitely use more more of the target language as a Spanish one teacher I could say that's really exciting that were finishing up our first unit and we just finished our first oral examination were students were able to have insisted in a kind of first conversation in Spanish asking an answer basic questions about age where they live their birthdays how they are so we really start to use the target language right away we focus pretty strongly on our four modalities listed below speaking right listening and reading and those really come into play with our performance-based assessment which you can see on the right one thing that I think is important to pay about Deacon as we talked a lot about to be as near absolutely integral to are teaching philosophy and to all of our courses in subjects but that doesn't mean we don't have more traditional assessments especially in the language department so students in all levels should expect what does that deal with really would topics like G herbo how do I restart a more traditional assessments from there we built our unit exams and speaking assessments on these is where we really look at these four modalities we usually have a writing section reading section A listening section so our goal is to really take what we've learned take the grammar to take the boat cab and then apply at all cities for modalities rpda happens in June and we've been midterm that happened in January those two things essentially the same what we're moving towards is that throughout each of the units in the fall students are drafting a writing piece as a part of their unit exam so they on the spot writing piece and then for their midterm they're doing second floor polish drafts of those and submitting that as the written portion of their midterm the same thing would happen in the second half of the Year those more polished wooden pieces would be submitted as the written portion of the PBA and there's a speaking task that I time to talk about what they've written throughout the year so again it's a real world task that's our goal our ultimate goal is to prepare students to use the language outside of the classroom and so are PBA tasks always mimic a real-world usage of the rainbow I'll give you one example like I said I'd teach Spanish one this year students are focusing on basic conversation skills in first unit or next unit will focus on school will subjects classes things like that or third unit will full extracurriculars and hobbies there PBA speaking is actually to do basically what I'm doing here tonight we're going to be getting off o presentation to prospective students telling them about the beacon school schedule telling them about classes that they take telling him about there. talking about clubs and extracurriculars up there in Fountain so using what we've learned throughout the year and it's something that they do in the real world so thank you very much that was my overview of our department remember his next Monday to pass it off to our next president okay thank you very much next we are going to talk about Matt and I appreciate that there are a lot of questions happening what we'd like you to do is to try to just pay attention to the speaker and what the speaker is saying and we will get to as many questions as we can after the session is over now she's right back to school for a 10 years and I'd like to tell a little bit about the math department our math department has a focus on a balance between what we would call a student-centered classroom and then a more traditional teacher Orion the difference is that in the student center classroom are working together and working with each other in order to try to become centers of knowledge what we try to do is help the students see that they can develop connections and develop understandings about math on their own without us telling them what's going on that happens a a good amount of the time and then we also have some other times where it's math class like you might remember in school where the teachers in the front of the room talking the students are in their in their chairs take notes and so far so we do imma try to work on both just depending on what the lesson calls for our math progression at school just as you've heard so far and as you will hear again there are certain classes that are statutory at the beginning and then there was a a student Choice toward the end so depending on where a student starts till either begin with us in algebra or geometry and then after geometry progressed out for 2 then after algebra 2 most of our students take precalculus after that on their way to a calculus or AP Calculus class and then instead or in addition some students decide to take one of our senior electives in their fourth year we eat for the Passover years have offered a class in statistics a class quantitative economics and a class in the math behind architecture is not running this year so if you hear from a friend or family who's at the school that there's no architecture the reason why is that the teacher is on a temporary sabbatical my understanding is that she's going to return next year and to architecture will be back so what this means is that there is a variety of progressions that students can take and the one on the top is one that is very important as we seen during the pandemic there were a lot of students who didn't quite learn as much as they could have or as much as they otherwise would have in a normal classroom so I'm this year we saw our largest number of students start in Algebra 1 add then we or largest percentage and so we worked very hard to make sure that students that all students have a four-year pathway into a Calculus class so is Susan who starts with an algebra 1 then take geometry than Algebra 2 and then in the summer between 3rd we're here so the summer between Junior and Senior year that student can take a pre calculus class that began with other Beacon students with Beacon teachers that focuses for a summer school session on just a really the most important things in freak depending how they do that student will be invited invited to join a calculus or an AP Calculus class in their fourth year so it's important to realize that no matter where your student starts all students have the ability to finish in a Calculus class the zoom in red might have started in geometry and then gone to the progression of finishing calculus the student in green maybe decided they calculus wasn't as important to them for whatever reason and they start until 2 or 1 and then finish our student in Orange of the boss decided after algebra 2 that they were done solving for x and grabbing things and wanted to do one of our electric forces as well so they decided to take the statistics class or the architecture class or something along those lines I'm going to focus on Algebra 2 for a second but before that a common question for the math department is how do I know where my student will begin will my student start in algebra or in geometry what we do is we look at either or a combination of the algebra Regents if a student takes it in 8th grade and or the placement assessment that we give to all of our incoming students in June of their 8th grade year and just based on whether that's how the student scores we will place them either in Al or we will invite them to join a geometry class or in the past we have we have given a certain number of students at based on their scores the ability to decide on whether they would like to start in algebra or start we generally get a recommendation and then let the family shoes so that's kind of the way that we've been operating in the Passover years and I suspect that's going to continue our goal is to play students in the class that is best for them long-term many families want Rush Street in the geometry and when that happens if a students not quite ready for it we do make a strong recommendation that they take algebra one class Algebra 2 is very important for us because that is where students do their pee performance-based assessment task as you've heard students do not take the Regents exams other than English 1 at Beacon so instead of the algebra Regents or the geometry regents or so for the students will complete a performance-based assessment what does this is a way for us to to put students in a position to think like a mathematician and to do an exploration of either one problem that is kind of very deep and rich or a series of non-routine problems the bacon compiled a port and they are working Without Really any instruction and without guidance from us and without us telling them how to solve the problem or problems and they will have the opportunity to do what Matheson do they create their own systems to create their own schemes and to figure out how to check their own work to really explore the mathematics and try to see it in as deeply as possible and then they create a paper so yes they do write papers in math class and then they give orientation as you've heard this evening a presentation to a panel of teachers and sometimes other students and then we assess how they've done and that's what we do as our Region's equivalent for math class most students pass this first time some students don't and when that happens we work with them and make sure they know what they need to do to be successful what this does is allows us to frame our classroom experiences in a in a way that is maybe a little get more broad then what you might find in a traditional High School like Christian said there is a mix of the math department of open-ended assessment like a project of some kind and traditional like a quiz of some kind so it's kind of like left-brain we do need to focus on skills as much as we focus on the bigger picture understanding so students will have test in math class they will have quizzes in math class they will also have some assessments that are a little bit more open-ended and so we try to create a balance what we might see I'm after a student in in pre-calculus has studied trigonometric functions and amassed a certain amount of skills they will apply that to any number of phenomena in the world some of them which are natural such as this one still looking at how gravity will affect the tides high tides and low tides and and levels of water to include things like weather patterns the hours of day during different seasons of the year I'm temperature and things like that and also some human-made phenomena like profit and revenue patterns for different businesses these are all things that answer to this particular type of function and so are leftover covers model allows us to work with students on things that are a little bit a little bit more applicable to life sometimes and helps us go beyond just kind of Shear skills nice work and that kind of culminates in our Algebra 2 PBA exam AP Calculus program has been very successful the current teacher has made improvements over and previous years in terms of the stores that students earn it is a very competitive program not every student who applies for it gets in and so they're there is a process which which will be you know explain down the road when the time comes in 11th grade it is a very Remote programming is something that we're very proud of so please know that there is a strong component of AP Calculus in the math department I'm going to change right now unfortunately I'm the person who supposed to read and science is not here with us this evening something came up so I'm going to tell you a little bit about science one thing I'm just going to say is that similar to what you heard there is a balance between structure and choice so in 9th grade call 9th graders take biology and some of you might be wondering my student took the living environment Regents or in earth science Regents or something like that so you know what what happened unfortunately we're not able to recognize any credit for regions in science and so all 9th graders take Buy LG have no matter where they come from then after ninth grade biology all 10th graders take chemistry and so that is a another shared experience these classes are very Hands-On if students have taken a biology class in the past what we try to do is work with them in a way that is a little more interactive than they might be used to and then also is just a high school appropriate biology class which might be more go and more Jeff then and a middle school level biology class as you might imagine happy 10th grade students have a tremendous amount of choice and so they will Express preferences in 11th and 12th grade and we try to honor student preferences as much as we can until we see on the screen a really wide variety of courses that are offered in the science department these do change periodically based on what teachers are interested in teaching but as you heard from some of our other departments is a really great thing that sets our school apart by the time they're in 11th and definitely both grade they're able to work on things that they are interested in and work with teachers who are you know growing expert in certain fields or teachers who just kind of have a passion for type of learning and that something that we find a really does set us apart so there are several APS in science as well as some courses that are not granted the AP status the real difference there is that an AP curriculum is scripted and so apt chairs have to teach a certain amount and and type in sequence of material because that's what's on the exam a lot of our 12th grade courses in science also in there are English and departments we have chosen the opposite approach where we create rigorous classes that the college is recognized as you know a Beacon Falls for a class is understood to be a very rigorous class but we have freedom to teach something is not recognized by ETS which is who creates and monitors the AP programs so for example our forensics is a very Hands-On class to learn about signs from that lends an rpr friend the teacher is able to do some really cool things that perhaps you wouldn't be able to do if she was stuck to the aap's Mandate so hopefully that kind of answer some questions about a peas and and how that works so again what you need to hear from science is the idea of structure in the beginning and then choice at the end and then also that the courses are designed to be very Hands-On they are designed to be collaborative they're designed to be cooperative there's certainly a a good amount of students understanding like definitions and you know classical models and things like that but our real focus is for students to be working together to be getting their hands dirty and to be creating understandings on their own because we find just like a mess. That helps to Aid our attention and also just frankly just makes class more fun so that's kind of some some commonalities between Math and Science thank you very much and now I believe I'm going to pass this off to our special Department great thanks I'm a Master Saleem I'm one of the special Educators I'm going to try to share my screen as well and so one of the focuses of the special education staff is ensuring that students are receiving the support they need in order to be successful in school and our role as special. cheaters is to help you build the skills they need to navigate the world and it Beacon equities the center of what we do to ensure that students that all students with IEPs receive access to all programs available to all students and we see our role of Educators as being in partnership with the parents the family as well as the student the special education department includes all special education staff and providers IP and information IEP and 504 implementation ICD classes special education classes and in Richmond in dimension classes as well and additional staff receive training in classroom strategies lesson and Cole planning and in pension strategies Special Education team is a large team that consists of the assistant principal of special education special Educators as well which I am one of them would each sets classes are in ICT classes as well as special we have a host of related service providers from a speech pathologist occupational therapist hearing Education Service Providers vision service providers orientation service providers and adapted physical education provider physical therapist ml7 121 nursing as needed in addition we have paraprofessionals school social worker as well as a school psychologist and family worker the team is also comprised of an SSD quarter coordinator for college purposes for testing purposes I'm sorry of 504 coordinator and a college counselor for supplemental support in executive functioning in a caseworker is a sign to each IP family and the purpose of caseworker is to assist the student and family in navigating special education at Beacon and scheduling their annual individualized educational plan meeting I know there might be a time questions later on but I would ask because the give special education is not here right now and there are special education information sessions or be scheduled if you go to the website you can register for one of those specific questions that would be the place to ask them and that's on Wednesday November 2nd from 6 to 7 or the following Wednesday November 9th from 6 to 7 and then I'll turn it over thank you I know going to hear from a couple students would like to tell us about the arts program try OK Google, I'm a junior in Beacon right now I'm here with my fellow soon-to-be huh do you want to put the presentation everyone my name is amihan I'm one of the student directors for the music program and also a participant in the fine arts program we have several Arts departments at Beacon all of them are listed here one thing to know is that when freshman coming to begin they will be put into a freshman rotation where for each semester they will be placed into an Arts Departments of spite Prince this way they are encouraged to try new things and to really discover what Beacon has to offer in terms of the Arts and in the sophomore year on to their senior year they will be allowed to choose which Arts departments they participate in we have several levels within each of these programs are main things is be focused on resources we have a lot of resources for each of these that allows students to be creative and 2 also be a size building relationships they fall under a big umbrella of like collaboration and we'll talk a little bit about the art show so to show the next Slide the music department at this located in the basement we have alive Hall and we also have beautiful Production Studios these are a couple of our bands performing we have over 15 bands that begin and we also offer lessons and instruments and we emphasize building relay it's not necessarily always instrumental like I said we have to Dakshin and we have had to alumni Grammy winners who were producers in the beacon music department so it's something we're really proud about and something that we continue to grow moving on to photocell man. We have a very expensive photo and sell Department as well as odd is mainly focused on like resources we have a huge offer I'm on the fourth floor as you can see this is why we love to decorate a begin just a couple of things photo photo we are incredibly supported by all our teachers and teaching office we got us a joke backdrop on the fourth floor as well I may go to some of the pictures that you can see in the photo and this biotch off so that I may have just mentioned we have it usually at the end of the day I think it was like in June it was wonderful it was like you got to see sculptures paintings anything like anything under the sun it was really in we also have something which is a great resource that is actually not read in many high schools began being one of the few and text I just don't even offer this song the dark room it's a huge resource that many students use and it's a very popular elective and begin what do iPhones so you guys have all of these resources Beyond on break so moving on to our dads program we also have a beautiful dance studio on the 6th floor I have not personally taken dance before but speaking from many of my friends you have have several levels of dance companies that put on performances throughout the year something else to know is that all Arts departments are in like 70% passing led by students at weekend. directors of the music departments and arts is run by a group of students excetera so that way we all get to become really involved and collaborate with each other to create really great things like the art show also includes a film screening in the auditorium theater photos and passing it back to be de lis Explorer right next to the dogs company it is basically quite literally a black box and we have a lot of fun place yeah this is from the sound and check engineering team is there a few into the black box these are some of us are really like you play that we've had over the last couple of years lost your way what you can see we have a lot of different departments within theater as well you don't necessarily have to be an actor and actress or anything just please talk to be on stage if you want to be involved with dinner and can be a sound technician in the light technician you can work and make the set that is all these are like big parts of theater and everybody's welcome to ask me how long is previously mentioned all the awesome minivan by students died on the cross. so yeah that's pretty much it for the odds of hugs if you guys would like to bar and stands for more information but yeah thank you very much this one thing that that I'm just going to add from the school side is there was a couple every couple questions in the chat about does everybody have to take our door how's that work the way that their freshman Arts rotation works is that for each of the four quarters of the ninth grade year a student will rotate through one of our different art classes and so a student might in the first the first quarter might take a dance class the second quarter might take a photography class the third quarter of film class in the fourth quarter a studio art class and there are a couple other options as well the reason for that is that we have a strong belief of exposing students to something that they take out the trash and soda in freshman year all students take part every year and they were supposed to four different High of classes one for each quarter and then students often choose electives as they go through their years after that I'm going to want to make a really really clear because that's something that did our founding principle up had a tremendous blow finding something that we have carried on for many many years okay so next I believe we're going to hear from our tremendous College office Umatilla and I am one of the college counselor our College office is composed The Four College counselors who work one-on-one with students on preparing for the college process we believe that any student who wants to go to college Ken and that there are options for everyone junior year students will be assigned to a college counselor who they will meet with individually to make sure that their college list is balanced and that they know all of the pieces of the process that are required for them specifically They will receive a weekly bulletin notifying them of scholarship internship and summer program opportunities over 200 College reps visit our school to speak with students each year and they continually comment on how impressed they are with their maturity and communication skills to start off the process with students we push into English classes to teach students how to use Naviance which is the software program students are required to you throughout the college process we also have a robust College office website where students can find information on essay help tutorial videos to help with Admissions and financial aid applications as well as recordings of all what are college related event in addition there are numerous evening events for families such as such as a college process overview admissions panel and workshops on topics like interviews essays and financial aid we work with each family to ensure that they have what they need to be successful in the process over 95% of our students attend four-year schools and need for a NYC public high school over 50% of our students attend college outside of New York State as a Consortium school we are proud of deacons robust curriculum and that are birds are able to teach what they are passionate about this results in Dynamic and rigorous courses that are not talked to a test as such we only offer for 26 AP courses a year but we this really women are in-house curriculum with a variety of college Now options at CUNY schools where students can take free college classes feel free to check out our College office website at Beacon College office.com which is also linked to the beacon School website I wish you luck in high school admissions in your high school admissions process and hope to see you at Pekin thank you very much for Ellery and then for our last presentation this evening I believe second-to-last I think we are going to hear from him again to talk about the sports program great thank you lunch so yes we have a very robust program sports program at the Beacon we definitely encourage students to participate in all aspects of sport Sports is a big part of real life Edition what's a broken down in progress three categories at the high school level in Fall we have boys and girls soccer we have tennis boys and girls with cross country boys and girls I'm the cross-country in outdoor track coach so we're finishing up our cross-country season now wheels of a bowling team volleyball team and also fencing as well in Winter we have boys and girls basketball wrestling on boys and girls door and indoor track on spring semester is baseball softball and outdoor track other teams we have our ultimate frisbee which is non PSAL but that's a club and we also have a cheer team if you are interested in participating in any of the Fall Sports they tend to start in late August so before school starts there are tryouts for volleyball soccer and 10 cross country doesn't have tryouts but we do have practice starting in August in order to participate in any of these teams you'll need to have medical forms completed by a doctor before you attend any practices or tryouts as well as a parent consent form for any particular sport I definitely highly encourage you to try out for any teams as I said are some of many of our teams do you participate and go into a city championship and we can students frequently attend these events either if they are soccer matches or basketball or volleyball matches which occur in our gem thank you okay and then enter last bit of presentation we are going to hear from our students again to just talk about student life in general and a avoid from esab everyone my name is Leu Kirchner and also got my fellow sap member one of my philosophy members I'll handle it is also is also able to join the call so maybe we work on just handling coordination and Outreach to people reply to Beacon you can always reach out to our email essay be at Beacon school.org I will be happy to answer any of the questions that you have so if I were just too if you have any questions about any future clubs or any admission process that transfer applications anything like that again. did you want to speak hello my name is Alice I am a senior and also a member of the student Mission board some of the club's I'm a part of on the editor-in-chief of can ink the school literary magazine and I've also been a part of various social justice clubs including integrate Beacon I'm taking a lot of a piece if you can if you're interested in talking about a keys and yeah please please reach out if you have any questions yeah and then just add on to it like getting this kind of idea what student life looks out of bacon I mean I'm sure like from this fourth one as you can see that we have a really great space and I think this encourages a lot of like fun hanging out during the hallways and stuff like that not too loud though but essentially like I saw a really great question that talk about since it's such a big school how you go community and we definitely those opportunities like in classes but then also in clubs and in different Arts departments Etc and some people can really find our people and generally we have played all these different events or people cannot go to like France sporting events stuff like that so I think I found that I have found a really great community of begin and in terms of like what it feels like to be in a class A lot of them are based which is something that I really enjoy and given that they are discussing bass like that's also a really great way to get to know other people in their perspectives in a relationship from that too yeah I think that I would also definitely say like when it comes like the more do things like schedules three. Homework loads like a lot of the homework that I for some guidance on my teachers on this call too but I would definitely say that it's very like it's meant to not be that stressful and they're always super understanding about it if you don't understand there's a during hours SPI on in on Friday mornings where you come in and you just talk to her teacher if you don't understand anything what you meant just like talk to them generally three periods or something like a big thing and begin every student has not too bad for you within their schedule that they can use to do what they want if it's studying or just hanging out with your friends yeah generally all these great things about bikini and and then just to look briefly skim through some of the questions as we do have advised me that is another great way to form community so you're you stay with your group of people that you're signed to an advisor with and that advisor for for you it's not also the main personal contacts between your parents and juniors and seniors can go out for lunch the homework load it depends on teachers and I know like a lot of people hear this but it tends to offer turn on the gray like as a junior I'm finding that it'll be like two hours and then I'm up for maximum which is kind of a lot I wouldn't be here but I think that's also taking into account the extracurriculars doing outside of school that we're also doing work for the friend zone apartment there's work that needs to be done for that and then also I lead a union and so that kind of preparation is an additional part of the already academic workbook I'm one thing I will say that we got a lot of question on Institute admissions board is about the PBA so I joined late to this Doom but I'm and I'm sure you guys went over it in this presentation but I will say from the student perspective the Project based assessment they provide a real kind of responsibility for your learning and you feel very you gain a confidence in your thinking you feel a lot of ownership over your work and I personally have felt like I've grown so much as a student completing tva's over you no sympathy Regents I just I saw a question about that in the shop. I thought I did okay I'm thank you very much so we've had a number of questions in the in the chat just about the admissions process and it seems like there are p who are you know who just like to know you know one message said it sounds like a great school how do we know that we're doing the right things in order to get in I'm going to put a link in the chat to our web page and run along the top of our webpage there is drop down menu for admissions and the very top item says how to apply and so that's something that that would be your first step is to take a look at that if you find that's not sufficient there is an f a that will hopefully answer or anticipate as many of your questions as possible there are a couple other questions in the chat about essentially do we have to put Deacon Hazard Top Choice in order to be admitted we tip a they have you know last year we had a we admitted about 350 students there were over 12,000 applications and so if you think that Beacon is your Top Choice you should indicate it as your Top Choice I'm not I don't think that we are actually privy to the details of how many students got in if they put it as their second choice or anything like that so I wouldn't risk it if I was you if you really think that you would have liked what you heard or you for good things about the school then is your top choice I would not Bank on the idea that you could put it as a second choice and then somehow get it I would suspect that's probably not going to happen so we do have a bit of time thank you to everybody who has for the this evening we are going to stay until 7:30 and try to answer as many of your questions as we can and so if you will please kind of raise your Zoom hands and we will get to them in the order in which we see them if you can please try to make your question short and then please if you can just ask one question at a time that would be great cuz we would like to to to hear from as many people as possible and I'm certainly not going to answer all of them OfferUp those of us that are here from the school students and teachers if there's something that you really would like to speak on please please do so but yes so question there was a question the chat about do the Consortium schools use the same essay answer is yes and one question was essentially how should we prepare for the essay your student should just be themselves I know that that is nerve-racking a student should be themselves our goal in the high school process is the same as our goal in the college process are going to calls process is to match a student with the school that is right for them and that doesn't always mean a school with the most prestigious name or the most prestigious pedigree what that it should be the school that is right for the students and that has a that it has all kinds of aspects to it big or small local or far away is urban or rural all kinds of different things and so I'm we really really really try to not Chase and so we we kind of want the same thing for the high school process I'm so we really want this to be that the right place for you and that's one reason why we're so happy to offer sessions like this I'm so without any further ado I believe it's at least I believe you can unmute yourself what's your question I was wondering about the baseball team do you just have Varsity or do you also have junior varsity great great question presently have a varsity baseball team just won but there are 9th graders that are on the varsity team thank you you got it there were some other questions that I work all about us Sports there's a question. Do we have a swim team definitely not the PSAL which is the the body that governs public school high school sports they often do allow a student to participate in a sport at a different school if that's not offered at their school so for Vin if there was a swimmer who really wanted to be on a swing team and Deacon doesn't have a swim team what can happen is that that person hopefully would be able to participate on the swim team that might be at a school that's close to their home something along those lines that's the decision is made by the PSAL was not made by us but in the past they have allowed that many students are there per class on the class limit is 34 so there should be no more than 34 students 9th grade class Ross and fairly big as the horses as the years go on some of the courses I'm you will find smaller classes especially in some of the ap's but the the class size of 34 is his typical oh I see Stella please hi um I was wondering about the debate team like do we have one or no we do have a debate team actually currently they have they participate in that you the league and they are competing in this year of 18 have to have a lot of debate and political current events Focus clubs in this club students get to talk about running legislation I'm so yeah there's a ton of options clubs and academic medical scrubs thank you very much Terry please hi I just want to know if you and your school grading your own answers UBC 12000 applicants what be the application process admission process has changed a little bit in the past couple years and so we last year we worked with a system of grading with our school and three others that are also Consortium schools and so I'ma say I've been raided by a a mixture of people from different schools and then the information was shared Mister Jacobs would you like to try it on this one sure no problem I think yet so the application we've all Consortium schools was 12,000 I'm great I may be wrong I'm a tell you but that's what I thought their application to begin with a little bit smaller than that and so we had a huge team of Beacon teachers and other administrators other beacons. Members who were trains around our problems around our rubrics and then those were assessed over a period of a few months after the admissions deadline closed so our portion of the admission process really was reading and assessing no. and then looking at the other components student grades or other filters that may have been put on the admissions process was really done on the central side on the deal. My question is my daughter is only at 5 to begin and so she's the reason that she's applying to Pekin cuz she put down I was freezing and water or they pay because it's created by people outside weekend would that be call Papa no sweetie would never been so when we talked about that we created with other schools they were other schools within our Network which is called the Consortium Network so the admissions prompt is General to all of those schools that are somewhere La Sophie we all use PBA as we don't use Regents exams so you know if your daughters only putting Deacon put begin that's her number one if that's what she wants is her number one and the essay will be assessed by someone who knew the problem is familiar with weekend and understands what students are reading about thank you Paula please wondering what a daily schedule would look like okay great that's a great question so first thing is and I'll do the same charges as quickly as the school day begins at 8 and the school day goes until 2 20 M our after-school program is is very robust and and many many students participate in after-school activity of some kind so many students are in the building until well after 2:20 the classes are 50 minutes. 50 and there is a five-minute passing. In between classes that was something at somebody in the chat asked as well and so in any given week a student might have let's say 6 I'm going to day obviously with lunch and then I'm in any given day one of those sticks might be what's called a free. And so you would have time to use as you wish I'm either in the library doing your work maybe in the hallway maybe talking to friends make me an appointment or seeing something a teacher so what you expect is up to seven classes a day with lunchtime and then advisory our advisory program runs on Friday so that is a class. On Friday in the okay thank you Peter please what's the homework load like for freshman's Alice look what you think I think it really depends on what the day and the time of the year that you're in I mean some nights you might not have very much homework at all and some nights you might have more homework and get a project Iran sfsu and he's amazing that I really stress a high school that you really learn how to budget your time how to manage your time and if you are able to as you learn to sort of manager time or effectively and to plan out your time effectively not saving that essay until like the day before if you learn to as you learn to do that work becomes really manageable and you can have time to hang out with your friends and attend clubs in other extracurricular activities yeah I would say my freshman year workload was not Wyoming at all the work would definitely increases as the grades go on but it really does depend on the teachers you have I remember getting I think about one like 2 hours freshman year thank you okay great let me see is it Alicia Alicia thank you had a situation where a student wanted to place out of both algebra and geometry yes we have it it can happen it certainly has happened that very rare but it certainly happened before and we have had no problem putting 9th graders in Algebra 2 if they're ready for it so that would be something we would handle kind of case-by-case, but that's certainly that's certainly in Play Beautiful Things you got it David how are you thank you I'd like to know how big of a fact of the lottery is in your admission process let me see a Christian has worked probably the closely with the admissions process of anybody here so Christian I'm going to defer to you I'm so I was apart of the last you're not really a huge part of the admissions process this year so I'm not really sure what I can tell you is to be honest that's really on the Keowee side of it so the way that those ranking for handles they're the ones who look at where soon the ranked begin they're the ones who look at those lottery numbers they're the ones to our third of taking our score to the best and then Computing all of that to produce emerge so yeah so unfortunately I wish I could give you a better answer I wish I could give you the magical formula to get in mission of how many students who sends the day away with bicycle to the same score or do you use a full range of scores when he grabbed the SI sort of students tend to land in a few few levels we do use a full range of scores of the wearer big works is it hundreds of students get a score out of 100 thank you for Madeline please can you tell us about fun social events like crumbs yes sure so there are a lot of events put on as you probably heard some of them throughout the meeting today one examples at the end of the year we have the art show where are you from what time is the beacon is displayed and parents and students and teachers can take a look there also our music program has really really strong so they're pretty frequently concerts at our house I think I should just wondering how this week break for Halloween and then I need a program for tone down shows throughout the course of the year and then there is his senior prom at the end of senior year yeah it was like to address a general question no we do not have grade dances at least like as long as I've been in Pekin the main dances senior prom and it's offered for only seniors and I believe some Juniors if you have like if your plus-one to a senior but other than that we a lot of events and also like sporting events are a great way to become involved too with your friends lot of fun I'm in the one of the thing is it kind of goes goes along but it should be a requirement for everybody at our go to go to at least one dance performance like as an audience member in your four years because they are awesome they're so fun the so much energy in the room is really tremendous so I'm supporting each other is really one thing that our students do really really well and so as you've heard from from drama to music to sports to dance it's a it's a really full experience Caroline the friends that sounds really interesting would you mind to I'm not what it consists of I can I take it so she's also as they're actually but it's a very Hands-On class we have Labs all the time so basically once a week we have a lot we learn about thanks to our previous unit was how to process a crime scene and it typically consists of doing a lab in which we actually deal with things like Gathering evidence so that got to get an understanding of it we have two consequences and you do not have any tests in that class we only have unit project at the end of it and which we can demonstrate our understanding of the unit and units vary from things like the process and crime scenes collecting evidence trace evidence of arson it is an intense at the end of the year are PBA includes this year at least dissecting a pagan trying to figure out how it died so it's really a full experience thank you color what is your question thank you for taking it from the presentation which I thought was very good by the way thank you so much I'm so getting the general feeling is I'm getting to know Beacon that you guys are more of like a Core Curriculum school is that a fair statement with the kids basically go through you know their English Math Science History language requirements and then and they have electives that they can take but it's not necessarily the school with like a strong focus and Science and Engineering or strictly in world history or just English is that fair that you guys are more of a note around Core Curriculum School would like to take that secret would you like to pick it up I would definitely say that although we are a very well-rounded School especially with electives can all it straight up from sophomore year you got to choose so I went to change my off I decide to choose from sophomore year to specifically focus on theater up and that's allowing a lot of different opportunities to grow up and grow on that especially if I want to pursue it in college and university I would also say that when it comes to like the sciences and English and history we've got and math we've got so many amazing electric that are offered in like senior year if you wish. friends as Meehan said she's a junior just like me and she's taking traffic right now it's just because we're like all right it does not necessarily mean that you don't get to choose much as early on thank you. I'm calling you. Answer your question I believe so I guess so I guess it's a follow-up you wouldn't necessarily say that you're strictly like a stem and engineering school okay thank you so much thank you malaria yes hi so I apologize in advance if this question already asked about I join you I was at the meeting that was no more very recently so I was what language do you offer everything is possible that I can get to a dual diploma in language do they say that maybe the students interested in learning more than one language to the language if it's possible thank you Jacob no problem French and Spanish as a part of our world language program if he can we have had students take both that's really only an option later on just because of the way the schedule works the number of classes students would have during their freshman and sophomore year it's very difficult so we have had students in their Junior and senior years double up on language that's also depending on their being space in the classes right so we would first make sure that everyone has their first language class but everyone is an appropriate inappropriate class and the cops they want and then if there's rooms doing may be able to take a second language class okay thank you Andy will be a placement test message before I mean when a freshman and we started before the second yes so both for math and for language students take a placement exam in June of their 8th grade year and we use the results of those play some exams to place them into an appropriately challenging course for freshman year the Jacob Jack question hello Jack, hi I'm sorry I just unmuted myself I mean I've seen a variations on this question from several people on the call but I think what want to know is if you stayed list Beacon first but if our child is in the tier 2 bucket what chance do they have of getting into your school do you offer make offers to Cheer One children who have the higher grades before you make offers to cheer two or three or four children okay so according to the open house we have last year grades are weighed significantly less than say that says what's important that I say is what is rated the most least liked in this stage of begin what begin does is we take those we take those we great it we rank it and we get back on Studio B at the deal we have the algorithm where they also and put the grades and stuff like that that's the information from my understanding that was given of the last open house just answer any questions is open Grades essays stuff like that and how big we bring students based off of stuff like that the deal we have the algorithm that inputs all that and also keeps them to mind their ranking of each student with 80% that's how important it is and thank you for expanding on that Iana what's your question hi I wanted to know if your classrooms are traditionally place in terms of like seating or if their place in terms of like cables that depends from class to class some teachers will set up their room chairs chairs and desks in larger groups of them move in the middle desks into a larger table and then you have table made out of town most of classroom setup but some teachers that might change things around occasionally yes all the individual tables are put together into a larger group table okay thank you thank you what's your question you have a re-engagement policy at the Beacon School re-engagement what do you mean look you want to speak to that other someone else I mean I can just like it really depends teacher to teacher so if you are failing a class and you need to get a no credit for that class then you can make it up there in front of you in class that you can work on making up that working and getting credit for that class over the summer and look into the next semester I to resolve any class that you didn't let you fail then you got lucky no credit for but with respect to individual assignments that's really up to thank you Luke Joey Joey Pallino what's your question I just wanted to know like going more in-depth and what we need to like I know that the essay is 80% of our like application like how like determine if we get in Topeka or not but I wanted to know more based on like grades and attendance like if you're in Priority One but then let's say your attendance wasn't good last year for a certain reason like what would would like be ranked in like I know that even though that I say is very important like with grades how was it like the Turman mr. Jacobs again all of that data about grades and attendance all of that that's actually not something that we are at are able to see on our ads on the beacon and that's something that's all done on the central side so just like seeing what bucket someone may fall into we can't see. I mean even after we got our mission blessed we are still not able to see what bucket those students had fallen into so you her Freshman Class were not able to see that so I wish I could give you a clear answer for that but that's really on the gioi side so we're not really able to black Western thank you mr. Jacob thank you Laura hello thank you what kind of stem and computer electives you offer and do you offer AP Computer Science we don't offer AP Computer Science but we do have a Computing and code elected as a not you I can put a net during freshman rotation or you can choose to take it in your lady is thank you big bro magali thank you good afternoon any music classes as colors or jazz band and another question I just want to make sure I understand in order to get into Beacon okay I understand that we have to put Wiccan as a first toys then that's a on so that means we don't need any other there like in 3 view or fotofolio right sofa clarification on that you do technically have to bring it hi it's just the deal we does the algorithm for it so your preference is considered in their algorithm but we have no other details on exactly what that algrim looks like for them and then into answer the music question for a range of music classes the current ones are music production and Sound Engineering than so that's the teaching of how to teach various of how to play various instruments in addition to learning how to be in a band and that can be a jazz band depends on what the band may decide we have band after school that can be teacher assistant lead and we do have a big jazz band at the weekend and we also have a good time song writing classes and other musical opportunities in our theater and musical program additionally if you're interested we have a very cool physics of sound class which involves a lot of sort of math and science involved the sound and I know I've not taking the class but it involves you know building your own instruments and I've heard very good things so thank you both Clara what's your question I have multiple questions can you ask one of them so they're in here a little bit later in the zoo meeting I was wondering what like drama and arts programs be good offers secrets you want to share with Clara has itself and then it comes to tea one which is a sophomore junior cause it's your next and you basically the main player who is study is designed Lori Park she's great we're actually going to a Broadway show as a field trip for tomorrow and also that we have if I'm currently in as a junior the main place that we focus on during this is Shakespeare Jim which is a very funny unit as well as angels in America by 20 Christian error which is an amazing play yours truly be too if you had the chance and then be. Which is the theater company itself within can we have multiple multiple factions within so you don't have to be an Australian actor or you don't have to be on stage to be involved in theater you can be a sterile technician technician you can build the sets there many opportunities for you if you'd like thank you secret we happy few we have time for one more question Masala what's your question hi so for the core classes like math science and social studies English for each unit like a good topic faces that we go over how long is it like a proximate like a moth like a two weeks like how long around Miss Hines Tijuana sure will for English would really depend on the text we sent each other a lot of kind of whole class text so if the longer novel kind of elastic there's not like a set amount of time but I would say that there is definitely a priority and seeing different types of tests and working a little bit of a balance on one thing for anyone. example this year we just read fences by August Wilson and kind of writing a person around that so 324 McKnight be standard but I got it really depends on what the unit is focusing on okay so I thought we were done by Ethan you have the last question and then we'll wrap Okay so what is the average class size I think this is already addressed that around like 32 students Max usually varies depending on you know how competitive it is to get into the class especially senior year thank you so much Alice and thank you all for coming to this open house how competitive is it to get into a class and how do you guys decide that was an address so we cannot answer your question Deborah on our website and we have two more open houses on November 3rd and 7th so if there are any questions that you have that you could not ask this evening please come back and we'll be happy to answer them enjoy your evening Published October 27, 2022 Print