By Michaela Etienne
The ACS program was an idea thought up by former principal Douglas Guthrie, and overseen by Mr. Delgado along with Ms.Clements (none of whom are currently at AHS). Academic Consortium Scholars or ACS is a program that rewards hard-working students who have at least a 2.0 GPA. ACS rewards students with items that have the ACS logo presented on them. The higher your GPA the more items students receive. All these items were made possible by the Apopka community, and local businesses through their support in various ACS fundraisers. “The program helped academic achievement in a significant way. Many students were encouraged by the prospect of receiving apparel, and recognition. It caused them to work harder than they ever had before,” said Mr.Delgado.
After Mr.Delgado’s departure, Ms. Willard took over the ACS program last March. “In March, I was handed the spreadsheet that showed 1/3 of the students that qualified for the ACS items didn’t receive them last year. We attempted to try and fulfill the demand, but what we found was that they were lacking. The reason behind that was that they didn’t get the correct size. Nothing had been ordered that year to make a replacement, and nothing could have been ordered in time to make it to the end of the school year. We were able to locate a few boxes, and I tried to take care of whatever seniors I could because they wouldn’t be here next year to receive their items. That’s basically what happened towards the end of last year.” The huge deficit of apparel caused Ms.Willard and Mr. Arnold to change some items that they were giving out because most of the items weren’t being utilized.
The surplus in rarely used apparel has resulted in new items being reintroduced. Ms. Willard said “The polo shirts didn’t seem like it was a big go-getter, the same thing with the heavy jackets–it’s Florida. Mr. Arnold asked me to look over the program. I sat down with him and at the time Mrs. Ramirez and we looked at what we could do to make the program better. We decided to go with a few other options instead of just clothing.” The shirts are staying the same, any student who has a 2.0 – 2.49 GPA will still receive the ACS t-shirt. Anybody with a GPA of 2.5 – 2.9 will receive the ACS T-shirt and also the new tumbler cups with the ACS logo on it. The 3.0 – 3.49 GPA will receive all the 2.0 -2.9 GPA items plus a new light-weight pullover hoodie that can be worn in the summertime, or simply if your class is cold. The 3.5 – 3.9 GPA will receive all the previous items plus a brand new laptop case. The final category is new, it’s for people with 4.0 and above GPA and they will receive a big thick gray hoodie. Ms. Willard and Mr. Arnold decided to keep the thick gray hoodies and the T-shirts the same because they believed that it made a positive impact on students. Ms.Willard explained, “These items are done once a year, it goes off of your final year to date GPA which of course doesn’t get calculated until late July, which is why we couldn’t order ahead of time because we had to wait to see how many students were going to qualify for each item to ensure that we didn’t run into the problem of students not getting their items. It’s matter of its taking a little longer so that it’s done right this time. We’ll have the assembly either late December or early January. We want to make sure that students don’t have to wait again.”
What do students think about the ACS program? Senior, Noah Altenbach said, “It’s nice to have something based on your academics. It’s kind of that little bit of incentive as opposed to getting nothing because teens don’t really get much for their GPAs or grades. It’s something that people got excited about.”
