Here’s a great video from our coverage of Principals’ Academy held Thursday at Douglass High School. (Check out the blog post below.) Kudos to our intern, Lyntoria Newton, who serves as the executive producer of this video in collaboration with our media production team of Scott King and Armon Moore.
UPDATE: Watch the complete video of the experience here. Watch video of cadets in a Black Hawk helicopter here.
You know APS media production team members Scott King and Armon Moore are taking their coverage of APS’ JROTC troops seriously when they report back via text that they’re sampling MRE’s (“meals ready to eat”) along with the rest of the troops! King and Moore joined our JROTC cadets out at Fort Benning this week in a strenuous summer training exercise that will literally give them a taste of military life.
Of the 375 Georgia cadets, 143 hail from APS high schools (Carver, Douglass, Grady, Jackson, Mays, North Atlanta, Therrell and Washington). The routine an obstacle course and a hydration training exercise. Cadets ended the day on Tuesday with a land-navigation course in the woods. On Wednesday, the cadets took flight in Black Hawk helicopters.
Although excited, some admitted they’d never even flown in an airplane before, much less a helicopter. “Ear plugs a must!” noted King of his first helicopter flight. Mays High cadet Tracey Gardner added, “The experience was terrifying, but it helped me overcome my fear of heights, and flying.”
We’ll have more information on this exercise later in the week. In the meantime, enjoy these compelling images from the front lines of education.
It’s graduation week, so we thought we’d share this video presentation introducing you to the valedictorians and salutatorians of our high schools — most of which have been beneficiaries of our High School Transformation Initiative. This project has taken our traditional campuses and divided them into small learning communities with academy leaders under the supervision of one principal, or small schools — each overseen by an individual principal. You’ll learn more about the progress of this initiative, which includes the fall transformation of Grady, Mays and North Atlanta, in the upcoming issue of The Atlanta Educator. For now, enjoy this up-close-and-personal look at our Vals and Sals as they share stories of their own transformation. Big thanks to APS Telecommunications Specialist Luana Slaughter and Media Producation Associate Armon Moore for their work on this presentation.
You can also learn more about our valedictorians by checking out this PDF file profile page.