The varsity boys broke the school record for most games won in a season, with an 11-8 record! Ranked 5th in the region, the boys recently competed in the state tournament, marking the end of a historic season for ACA basketball.

In recognition of his leadership this past season, Coach Franklin (back row, right) was named Coach of the Year for the GHSA Class A Public Divison!

This year during Black History Month, we invited speakers from around Atlanta to come to school on Friday afternoons and speak with upper school students about their own stories and how they shed light on and contribute to history as it has been made in our city and country.
 
Melvin Everson, Vice President of Economic Development at Gwinett Technical College (bottom left) began our series and delivered a message about perseverance as he recounted his path into state politics. Donna Lowry, award-winning journalist from Georgia Public Broadcasting (top), an award-winning journalist, discussed her upbringing in North Dakota and told our students about the importance of forming strong relationships and learning to tell one’s own story in an engaging fashion. Finally, Dr. Andra Gillespie, Associate Professor of Political Science at Emory University (bottom right) shared elements of her academic research in political science and demonstrated how she has used her professional work to help answer her most pressing questions about justice and equity in America.
 
We are thankful for how these three talks, taken together, illustrate the way in which the stories of individual people intersect with the wider telling and study of Black History. This is the first year we have dedicated time during the school day to hosting external speakers on this topic, and we hope to learn from and build on this experience as we ornament our curriculum with special contributions on such particular occasions in the future. We are eager to take these and other opportunities to foreground examples of our virtues in practice in the world.

This month, we officially launched the ACA House System in the middle school! We named each of our four houses for ancient cities with rich histories: Alexandria, Carthage, Constantinople, and Damascus.

8th graders and middle school teachers were sorted into predetermined houses in the first of the sorting ceremonies. 6th and 7th grade students were sorted later in the week by drawing one of 4 house colors out of a hat. At this second sorting ceremony, the houses also competed in their first competition, and the first-ever house points were awarded. The first point was given to 7th grader Ginger Respess from House Damascus for her display of virtue in the past week (pictured second row, left). The second was given to the House with the best cheer: Alexandria (pictured second row, right)!

“We are very excited to be launching the House System this year in our middle grades,” said Mr. Schepps, Upper School Assistant Principal. “We hope it will provide an important cultural layer in our Middle School. As it grows, the House System will instill a sense of citizenship and ownership that can be unique to ACA as it gives students new opportunities to lead, serve, and compete. Special thanks to Mr. Holt (5th grade) for serving as our founding Dean of Houses, to Mr. McClatchey for creating our logos, and to Mr. Rosenzweig, the Founder of the Feast, for bringing this idea and structure to us!”

Congratulations to two of our seniors, Mary Catherine Adams and Charlie Wessinger, who earned the highest scores out of the Class of 2022 on the SAT. Charlie and Mary Catherine scored in the top 1% of all test takers, scoring high enough to qualify as National Merit Semifinalists.

To celebrate their achievement, we asked some of Mary Catherine and Charlie’s teachers to share insight into their experience with these exceptional students in their classrooms:

Mary Catherine Adams

• “She constantly works to help her classmates understand when they are struggling. In this way, she embodies both the moral and intellectual virtue ACA seeks in its students.”
• “She has excelled in math for two important reasons: she has a patient determination that compels her to wrestle with any problem until she finds an answer, and she has a curious imagination that allows her to make connections and predictions about new problems.”
• “Over the five years I have known her, she has continued to amaze me with her dry wit, wide range of extra-curricular skills, and superb work ethic. Adding yet another feather to her cap, she received an honorable mention in the Georgia Laws of Life Essay Contest last year.”
• “Not only has she been a splendid Latin student, but, as a leader among her classmates, she has consistently wielded a strong positive influence towards the culture of both her grade and ACA as a whole.”

Charlie Wessinger

• “I don’t even want to think about what I am going to do to replace him next year.”
• “So central is the role that Charlie plays in the senior class and in the high school as a whole that everyone seems to assume that he is a member of the student government, even though he is not.”
• “I have come to know Charlie better than any other student that I have never actually taught. I first became acquainted with Charlie as the champion of ACA’s first-ever National Geographic Bee in 2018, where he made it all the way to the state competition. I have also come to know him through his membership in the Quiz Bowl team, including participation in national championship qualifying competitions. Charlie has also revealed his sense of humor and acting skills through participation in several Coffeehouse comedy skits.”
• “Charlie’s greatest strength is not academic, but personal. Sure, he gets good grades, he scores well on tests, and the like. But I respect him much more for his unassuming attitude towards his achievements than for the achievements themselves. It is his humility and his humanity which I admire, things that can never be captured in a test score.”

Last Thursday, a number of our talented faculty and staff took the stage for our annual Faculty Showcase. Performances included piano, strings, guitar, skits, poetry, and more! Last year, we were unable to host this event due to safety issues related to COVID-19, but this made for an especially energetic evening of performances this year.

“I am always so impressed by the talent and the varied interest of our faculty and staff,” said Mr. Bryan Franklin, ACA Fine Arts Director. “This event is important because, at its core, it demonstrates something we are hoping our students grab hold of: a willingness and openness to be well rounded and to experience all that life has to offer. This idea is fully embraced by our faculty and was clearly ‘showcased’ Thursday evening.”

This summer, ten of our Lower School teachers attended training on the Orton-Gillingham Approach, the model our lower school teachers use to teach literacy.

Teachers began by learning different ways to divide words into syllables. They then practiced creating nonsense words and dividing those into syllables. This helped to model how students experience unfamiliar words as they learn to read.

“Because reading is the foundation of all learning, phonics, and comprehension skills are heavily emphasized here at ACA,” said Mrs. Leah Adams, ACA Literacy Coordinator. “The Orton-Gillingham method of instruction consists of an explicit, multi-sensory, and sequential approach to reading and spelling. This approach gives all students the knowledge needed to become proficient readers. This reading foundation will then enable our students to comprehend and appreciate the more complicated literature selections they read in upper grades.”