Bergen County Academies Totally Explained

Everything about The Bergen County Academies totally explained

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 Daniel Jaye; the vice principal is Russell Davis. Dr. Raymond Bath is the Academic Dean; Dr. David Ostfeld is Admissions Chair.

House and grounds

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 outside the building are used for academic purposes. A two-floor addition has recently been built and has opened on 4/28/08.

Program

The school's strengths are evident in its academics, extracurricular activities, and notable faculty, many of whom hold doctorates in their respective fields. 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, a cooperative education or internship program through which seniors work and learn for the full business day each Wednesday instead of reporting to school. The school is 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. The school is one of only 16 schools in New Jersey to offer the IB program.
   The school is divided into seven college-preparatory academic programs. An eighth program, called the Global Leadership Exchange (GLE) exists for the graduating classes of 2008 and 2009, but doesn't exist for any later classes.
   The school day is from 8:00 AM to 4:10 PM, accommodating a traditional high school education and higher education in specific fields. Students are permitted to enter the building much earlier than the time school begins.
   While the academies are treated as a single school within the district and the state, students apply to colleges and academic programs under their respective academy, rather than BCA as a whole. Bergen County Academies itself has no CEEB code.
   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.
   Among students, there's an elected government, or council. There are three branches to the student government: Student Council, Class Council, and the Superintendent's Congress. Each graduating class elects its own Class Council with required council experience to perform functions limited in scope to a single class. The Superintendent's Congress consists of representatives from every academy recommended by teachers.
   The school itself also changed its name numerous times, from "Bergen County Regional Academies" to "Bergen Academies", to "Bergen County Academy" and to the present "Bergen County Academies".
   In 2001, a major dispute initiated by the Bergen County School Administrators' Association focused on what Paramus Superintendent Janice Dime called "elitism." 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. For the 2006 - 2007 school year, districts paid annual tuition of $6600 for each student.

Admissions

Though it's a public school, the admission process is selective. The number of successful candidates for admission is widely thought to hover around 15% of those that apply. A math and english test, as well as an interview by a panel of teachers, is required for admission.
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. 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."

The Academies

The academies are listed here in order of identification numbers. The first two academies (AAST and AEDT) share parallel schedules and science courses each year; they merge in core classes. The last three (ATCS, ACAHA, and AVPA) have science courses spread through the four years similarly, also sharing courses and classes. The academies are commonly referred to, not by their acronyms, but rather by single-word nicknames. Medical students typically take literature and history courses alongside business students.

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, New Jersey restaurant.

The Academy for Telecommunications and Computer Science (ATCS)

This academy has a primary focus in the world of computers and the Internet. Its students are well-prepared for careers as computer programmers, software engineers, networking technicians, and other computer-related professions. ATCS students study material from Cisco Systems and Oracle Corporation and compete in competitions against other schools and colleges.

The Academy for Visual and Performing Arts (AVPA)

This academy is unique for being subdivided into two main divisions: Visual Arts and Performing Arts. Under the Visual division is the Visual Academy. Under the Performing division, there are the Theatre and Music Academies. Visual, Performing, and Music students have performed at venues in nearby New York City. Depending on their focus, students in AVPA take classes in drawing, painting, printing, acting, and stagecraft, or music and music theory.

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. It was initially designed to give its students the state high school requirements in two years, with International Baccalaureate courses being later added to the program. Much of its focus and goals are now being integrated into the Academy for Medical Science Technology. The GLE program only existed for the classes of 2008 and 2009. (loose reference).

Advanced Algebra II and Trigonometry

ightarrow

Math Analysis I or
Adv. Math Analysis I

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Math Analysis II or
Adv. Math Analysis II

This prepares the student for Statistics or AP Statistics, or the more common calculus sequence:

Calculus I or
AP Calculus AB or
AP Calculus BC or
AP Analytical Calculus (BC+)

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Single Variable Calculus or
Multi-Variable Calculus or
Linear Algebra and Ordinary Differential Equations or
Advanced Topics in Mathematics

ightarrow

Topics in Advanced Mathematics or
Data Structures

Students place into a course in the pre-calculus sequence and continue up, taking one course in each group. The full sequence requires six years; fewer than twenty students from each graduating class reach Topics in Advanced Mathematics, which isn't unexpected given the advanced nature of the course. The BCA course catalog states:

This is our most advanced course. Designed for the exceptionally well-prepared student, this course covers material that's two years beyond the curriculum of BC Calculus. As such, the material varies from year to year, currently covering a sweeping introduction to three cornerstones of Mathematics, namely, Linear Algebra, Abstract Algebra and Real Analysis. Vector spaces, linear operators, groups, fields and rings, and the topological underpinnings of Calculus are covered. Emphasis is placed on rigor and proof.

An often-noted shortcoming of this otherwise rigorous curriculum is its lack of geometry, which spans a full year in traditional high schools. As of 2007, geometry is briefly covered in the introductory course "Geometric Concepts", a one-trimester elective, in Analysis I (for the first trimester) / Advanced Analysis I (for six-weeks) or in various six-module projects dealing with geometry.

Scheduling

Students currently observe a form of flexible modular scheduling.
   Prior to the 2007-2008 academic year, the full school day lasted from 8:00 am to 4:10 pm and began with a 10-minute IGS followed by 24 modules (commonly referred to as "mods") that last 17 minutes; there were 3 minutes after each mod. (Each three-mod block was 60 minutes.)
   A revised schedule was implemented in the 2007-8 school year. Two minutes were cut from each mod (to 15 minutes), IGS was cut by 6 minutes, the three minutes after each mod was preserved, and the number of mods extended to 27, with the day still lasting from 8:00 to 4:10. 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.
   Although the AAST Math Team is open to all academies, it's 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 a current events website known as FreshAngles and was located at freshangles.com. FreshAngles is a project where students participate by taking electives in Journalism and Wire Editing, where students learn how to acquire articles from the AP wire. 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 site debuted on January 27, 1997, originally located at teenvoice.com and known as in-site, later changing its name to Teenvoice. In 2000, Women Express, Inc., publisher of Teen Voices magazine, threatened with a copyright infringement lawsuit for using the name Teenvoice, so the name of the website changed to FreshAngles on May 9, 2001.
After a crash of the server around 2005, FreshAngles started back up in 2007, run by the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

Sports

The Academies shares its sports program with the Bergen County Technical High School. 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. Bergen Tech has been placed in the Northern New Jersey Interscholastic League (NNJIL) for the start of the Fall 2006 athletic season. The tennis team and baseball team advanced to the North I Group IV State playoffs in 2005, with the tennis team continuing on to the semifinals after winning sectionals.
In 2006, the football team reached the playoffs, falling to Randolph High School 29-0 in football. The boys soccer team advanced to the 2006 state tournament, winning in the first round before losing to Memorial High School in the semifinal game.
Numerous sports are offered for boys and girls, including basketball, bowling, golf, lacrosse, soccer, track, tennis, and volleyball. For boys, offerings also include football and wrestling. For girls, the program also includes cheerleading (club program) and softball. During the 2007-2008 school year, a varsity fencing team was initiated by a coalition of several parents along with the Athletic Department, and as of now the team has obtained a coach and looks to be moving forward. If a particular sport is offered by the student's home district but not by the Academy (for example ice hockey, swimming), that student may join and participate with his local school's team.

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, 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.
   The Bergen County Academies is also home to a large Amnesty International student group. Students from the chapter perform many activities and attend local, regional, and national conferences on human rights.
   The Academies' policy debate program finished first in Bergen County in 2005-2006, beating Tenafly High School and the Dwight-Englewood School.
   Besides FreshAngles, there are two other student-run publications present at the Academies: The Academy Chronicle and The Academy Advocate, which focus on in-school news and activities, also discussing international and domestic affairs, social issues and business news.
   The Bioscience Research Program enables students per year to learn how biologists work as scientists in the research laboratory.
   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 qualified to compete again in a 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. It won the NAQT New Jersey State Championship at Rutgers in 2007.
Volunteer based clubs include Red Cross, Teens Against Multiple Sclerosis, Help Our Planet Earth, World Wildlife Fund and Alzhiemer's Club.

Awards and recognition

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.
   In 2007, 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).
   For the 1997 - 1998 school year, AAST was cited by the New Jersey Department of Education as a Star School.
   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. 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".
   In 2005-06, BCA averaged a 2015 combined SAT score, second-highest statewide.
   In 2007, a student was named valedictorian at New York University.
In 2007, Class of 2003 student was awarded a Winston Churchill Scholarship to the University of Cambridge, the highest national honor conferred for collegiate mathematics and science excellence.

Notable alumni

Harry Altman, class of 2005, appeared in the documentary Spellbound
Meetu Chilana, class of 2002, singer/actress/producer
Glenn Clements, class of 1996, field producer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
George Hotz, class of 2007, first person to claim that he'd hacked the iPhone, allowing it to be used with networks other than AT&T.
Kaavya Viswanathan, class of 2004, author of the controversial novel entitled How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life.

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