Halloween Party 2013

We had a great time celebrating Halloween this year!  Check out the awesome costumes!

Our ISACS site visit is underway

As many of our families already know, we have been undergoing the process of receiving full accreditation from ISACS, the Independent Schools Association of the Central States, for the past three years. We were provisionally accredited by ISACS in the spring of 2010, and since then we have done a constituent survey, written a long self study addressing all areas of our curriculum and operations, and had an audit. It has been a long process, but a very good one for the school. ISACS has been helpful and kind, and has provided educational and administrative support the whole way through.

The culmination of the accreditation process is the site visit, done by a team of educators from other ISACS schools. We have a mix of people from schools in the Midwest, including Horizon Academy and St. Paul's Episcopal Day School in Kansas City, Elgin Academy in Illinois, Laurel School in Ohio, and Eton Academy, University Liggett School, Detroit Country Day School, and Greenhills, from here in Michigan. It has been such a pleasure to get to know these good people, and to learn from them as they evaluate the Academy. We have heard back from them so far, several times, about how dedicated our teachers are, and how kind and respectful our students are to each other and to the other members of the school community. We know we have a great school, and it's been a lot of fun to show it off to the visiting team!

The site visit began on Sunday evening, with a kick off potluck dinner attended by current families, board members, and alumni and their families. It was a great way to introduce the team to who we are as a school, and they all raved about the food and the company. Over the last two days, we've met with the team and they've observed classes, as well as met with the board, parents, teachers, and students. The team donates their time, and many of them are here on their spring break. We are very grateful, and are eager to hear their commendations and recommendations tomorrow. We won't find out the final decision from ISACS until several months from now, so it will be hard to wait, but in the meantime, we've learned so much and made so many good connections that our plates will be full.

Thank you to the visiting team, and to all the members of the Ann Arbor Academy community who have worked so hard over the past three years to get us to this place!


Update: We received word in July that we had been granted full accreditation from ISACS! Thank you to everyone who made this happen - we appreciate all the members of our wonderful Ann Arbor Academy community!

Science Fair 2013

Yesterday, after two snow days worth of delays, we held our annual Science Fair. Eppie organized it and guided the students as they worked hard for 5 weeks to develop a question and gather and present data to test a hypothesis. This was Eppie's first year at the helm of the Science Fair, and she did a wonderful job! The students had interesting questions and did a great job presenting their data and discussing their work with the judges. Thank you to our judges: Matt Larson, Tim White, Don Wilson, and Becky Hankin. It's the judging that makes the fair really shine, and we appreciate your time and expertise!

Today I had the pleasure of accompanying three of our National Honor Society students and Grant, our NHS adviser, to the Red Cross in order to present a check for $101.01 to the Red Cross for disaster relief. NHS, led in this by Alexey Perkins, raised money to help victims of Hurricane Sandy this fall. The students ran a penny drive, and we are delighted with the results. The Red Cross was very grateful, and presented us with a certificate acknowledging our donation. We were treated to a tour of the facilities after the check was presented, and we hope to involve our NHS students in some volunteer opportunities at the Red Cross in the future. Thank you to Grant for helping the students put this together, and Brian for taking the photos. Meredith