Making Dreams Come True

The Stories Behind Our Story:  Episode 4

Join us as we uncover the remarkable endeavors of Chesapeake Public Schools in revolutionizing the educational landscape. Tune into this fascinating discussion with Dr. Kelli Jordan, Supervisor of the Chesapeake Virtual Academy (CVA), and Cadence Weaver, a CVA student, to discover the unique features and successful program. Hear firsthand how even kindergartners have adapted to the virtual learning process and how the CVA caters to students with individual needs.

Next, we focus on the high school academies at Chesapeake Public Schools.  With Dr. Shonda Windham and Meredith Strahan, we navigate through the academies, specifically the Governor's STEM Academy, IB Academy, and the Science and Medicine Academy. Imagine your academic journey taking a leap into fields like engineering, robotics, or aerospace engineering!

For more details on these exciting programs, head over to cpschools.com. Gear up and lend your ears to this episode of Amplified: The Chesapeake Public Schools Podcast!

The Stories Behind Our Story

Chapters

• 0:00 The Stories Behind Our Story
• 16:24 Chesapeake Academies
• 27:58 Dreams Come True at CPS

Transcript

The Stories Behind Our Story

Matt Graham 0:00

Welcome to Amplified the Chesapeake Public Schools podcast.

Richie Babb 0:13

Chesapeake Schools is located in the Hampton Roads area of southeastern Virginia. We serve 40,000 students in 45 schools and three centers. This podcast is designed to tell the stories behind our story and to introduce and celebrate the people and programs that make us one of the premier school districts in Virginia.

Matt Graham 0:32

Welcome everyone. This is episode four of Amplified the Chesapeake Public Schools podcast. This is Matt Graham, and I'm here with Richie Babb, and it is November. We're almost near Thanksgiving.

Richie Babb 0:44

I know it's getting close. You'll find, as you get older, time goes even faster and faster.

Matt Graham 0:48

Yeah, I'm starting to figure that out with my kids.

Richie Babb 0:49

Yeah, Right, it's crazy, it is you doing anything?

Matt Graham 0:52

cool for Thanksgiving.

Richie Babb 0:54

What we do. We do Thanksgiving day with my wife's family, which is considerably bigger than my side, but then we do a Thanksgiving Saturday with my family.

Matt Graham 1:03

Okay.

Richie Babb 1:04

And it's good, because if you have two Thanksgiving celebrations on the same day, by the time you get to the second one you're full. You don't really want to eat, and that's usually where the better food is.

Matt Graham 1:13

Yeah.

Richie Babb 1:14

I'm not saying that's the case in my case. So doing it on Saturday gives you an extra day to prepare, extra couple days really to prepare. There's no rush, people don't have other obligations. So we've done that for the last probably four or five years.

Matt Graham 1:25

Yeah, I love Thanksgiving. Last episode you mentioned the fall, like how much.

Richie Babb 1:28

I love fall yeah.

Matt Graham 1:29

I think Thanksgiving is probably one of my favorite holidays because there's like no other than eating and preparing food. There's no other pressure, just enjoy the day.

Cadence 1:39

Yeah, just relax with the people you love. Yeah.

Dr. Shonda Windham 1:43

You know and be thankful for them.

Matt Graham 1:45

Yeah, right, and speaking of thankful, we got two major programs out of many out of many, out of many that we're going to highlight today, that we at Chesapeake are very thankful for yeah, Correct.

Richie Babb 1:56

So you have CVA, the Chesapeake Virtual Academy, which we'll have a. We talked to a student and that student's very thankful for that. So stick around for that, and then we'll also talk about our other academies, our high school academies, including IB, which is International Baccalaureate, science and Medicine, and the Governor's STEM Academy at Grassfield. So a lot of information and a lot of thankful people actually on this episode.

Matt Graham 2:21

Absolutely All right. Stay tuned. All right, how's it going? This is Matt Graham, again here with my wonderful co-host, mr Richie Bad.

Richie Babb 2:33

Wonderful, I've been called a lot of things.

Matt Graham 2:35

I'm not sure. Wonderful, oh yeah, you are wonderful. Everybody loves you, richie.

Richie Babb 2:39

Oh, that's very nice.

Matt Graham 2:40

Yeah, so, and also with us is Dr Kelly Jordan, who's the supervisor of Chesapeake Virtual Academy, and we also have one of the students with the Chesapeake Virtual Academy, cadence Weaver. So Dr Jordan, or recently Dr Jordan, right, correct Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself?

Dr. Kelli Jordan 2:59

Yeah, sir. So I have lived all my life in Chesapeake. I'm a product of Chesapeake Public Schools.

Richie Babb 3:04

You can say Great Bridge. Yeah, I was going to say I graduated from Great.

Dr. Kelli Jordan 3:07

Bridge.

Richie Babb 3:08

High School, no problem, absolutely.

Dr. Kelli Jordan 3:09

Yeah, a little bit of green and gold in there. I taught at Chesapeake Public Schools for 15 years. I taught at any River High School and Hickory High School.

Matt Graham 3:17

Oh, you went to the Hawks I did, I did.

Dr. Kelli Jordan 3:19

I know I'm not a Great Bridge people I don't know how they'll feel about that one but then I went over to the Hawks and taught there and then I moved on into administration, in which I served as the supervisor of instructional resources, before taking on this role as the supervisor of Chesapeake Virtual Academy, and I've been in this role for the last two years. It's been really exciting to see it grow. I did serve in the capacity of the committee that really was thinking about this and thinking about this really pre-COVID. This has always been an idea pre-COVID to have the virtual academy and have this option for students. It wasn't a response to COVID in any way, shape or form. It's been really cool to be able to be a part of this since he grew into this K-12 program that we have.

Matt Graham 4:01

Awesome, great, all right, cadence, can you tell our listeners a little bit about you?

Cadence 4:06

What would you like to know? She's not just giving up information. That's right. I don't think so. That would be better.

Matt Graham 4:13

So, before Cadence has brought on to the podcast, we found out a couple things about her. You are a junior right, yes, sir. And you are a full-time student with CVA and you've been there since.

Dr. Kelli Jordan 4:25

Eighth grade Yep. You've been with us for your entire high school career, right, yeah, sorry.

Matt Graham 4:31

Ninth grade and she said, and I quote Dr Jordan said you have thrived in this program.

Dr. Kelli Jordan 4:38

Well, yeah, you have All of her teachers talk about how amazing she's done, and that was actually the exact words that they've all used is that she has thrived and flourished in our program Nice.

Richie Babb 4:48

That's nice. So what's your home school?

Dr. Kelli Jordan 4:50

Western Branch.

Richie Babb 4:51

Western Branch. Wow, so you made the drive all the way out today I appreciate that. So, dr Jordan, tell us just give us an overview what is CVA all about?

Dr. Kelli Jordan 5:00

Okay, yeah, so Chesapeake Virtual Academy is a virtual option for any of our Chesapeake Public School students K-12, which is really exciting. It is a virtual placement where the students get to learn from their home. But it is a little bit different in all three of the levels. At our elementary program it is a pretty much synchronous program with built-in asynchronous options throughout the day, but it does model our brick-and-mortar setting pretty similarly. In our middle school option it's a little more asynchronous where the students have a little more flexibility throughout the day, but again they are having that synchronous instruction.

Dr. Kelli Jordan 5:35

And then in our high school option, it is a completely asynchronous program, but I always quickly follow up and say that students do have a synchronous option available to them, with our teachers teaching live synchronous instruction every single day. But it does offer no matter where you are time, place, flexibility, pace to all of our students. We found that our students like the flexibility, they like the options that it offers them, they like being sometimes in the comfort of their own home. They just they like all of those options that it brings to them.

Richie Babb 6:07

Yeah, so, kaden, so you find that time management is something you had to learn when the bell's not ringing and you're going no, I think I've always been good at time management.

Cadence 6:18

For sure, wow, cause I would be, it would be a disaster for me, yeah.

Matt Graham 6:22

I'm still using post-it notes and things to write down my agenda, just to make sure, right.

Dr. Kelli Jordan 6:26

Yeah, and I think that's kind of one of the things that with our program it teaches the students, particularly if they stay with us K-12, because they slowly become an asynchronous learner. The asynchronous component is built when you move from K-5 to 6-8 to 9-12. There's more asynchronous built into our program, so I think that helps them become more of that independent learner, compared to just kind of jumping in with both feet, and so I think that offers them that opportunity to grow in that independence Right.

Matt Graham 6:59

And just to clarify synchronous is when you are receiving instruction the same time that the students are there at the same place. Asynchronous is kind of the students are doing the assignments or part of the lesson at another time and then they come back in to meet and discuss it Correct, exactly yes. Okay, cadence, what led you to CVA? What kind of sparked the interest to be a part of this program?

Cadence 7:21

Really COVID, honestly, yeah, yeah. Fun fact, the last full day of school that I went to in person for was on Friday, the 13th of March 2020. And now it is Friday the 13th. Oh, it is.

Dr. Kelli Jordan 7:35

What Interesting. Yeah, how about that? Wow, a circle memory right there, wow.

Richie Babb 7:41

So you walked out on that, covid, when everything shut down and didn't go back.

Cadence 7:45

No, I did not go back until this year for the Career Center. Right? So you're at the Career Center.

Richie Babb 7:51

Yes, okay, oh, that's cool. So that brings up a good point. Being in CVA doesn't keep you from being able to do some of these other things, right?

Cadence 7:59

Not at all it's. You can still be very flexible with your schedule and do it perfectly.

Matt Graham 8:05

I love it. So what's your kind of daylight Cadence?

Cadence 8:09

Well, now I go to the Career Center in the mornings and then I end up, starts at like 9.30 and ends at 12. Then I come home and then I do my work for CVA.

Richie Babb 8:22

Okay, what are you taking at the Career Center?

Cadence 8:24

Early childhood education Okay.

Matt Graham 8:26

Oh wow, how about that?

Dr. Kelli Jordan 8:27

And just the piggy back off what she was saying. That is one of the really cool things about our program as well is that students still get the opportunity to really benefit from all the things at their zoned home schools. So they still get to be a part of all the athletics that are available at their home school, the clubs, the extracurricular activities. You very much can still attend prom, you can still go and be a part of the basketball team, you can still be a part of the chess club or NHS, or you can still, if you're in our K8 program, you can still go on the field trip. You can still do all of those different things that are happening at your home school. Just because you've chosen to be a CVA student doesn't exclude you from those things.

Richie Babb 9:05

And are there any limitations to the courses that are offered through CVA, or can they take everything that's in there?

Dr. Kelli Jordan 9:12

Not everything. We don't have the flexibility to offer everything. Just because of the nature of our setup and students being home, we can't exactly offer every single thing that the brick and mortar buildings do have the ability to offer. But we do have a wide variety of courses that we are able to offer. And to piggyback off that, there is the idea that we get to offer some of the classes that some schools can't offer Because they just don't have the ability to offer that, they don't have the staffing to offer that, or the class doesn't make because they just didn't have enough students interested in it.

Dr. Kelli Jordan 9:46

And so in those instances, particularly with CVA High, we have a lot of students who will enroll in the class because it's just not an option in their home school, but it is an option with us.

Richie Babb 9:56

Right, so you can still. There's still an opportunity to take, for instance, weighted classes and all that kind of stuff.

Dr. Kelli Jordan 10:02

Yeah, we have our academic classes, honors classes, AP classes, DE classes. We offer them all.

Matt Graham 10:08

Now do some of the teachers that teach CVA. They're full-time CVA as well.

Dr. Kelli Jordan 10:13

Absolutely. We have full-time staff members, and then we also have part-time staff members as well.

Richie Babb 10:18

Okay nice, and so every class that you take at CVA you're getting a Chesapeake Public Schools teacher.

Dr. Kelli Jordan 10:24

Yeah, that's probably one of my favorite things about it is that they're real people. Me too, yeah, they're real Chesapeake Public School teachers that have all been a part of Chesapeake Public Schools. Following the Chesapeake Public Schools curriculum, the Chesapeake Public School pacing using Chesapeake Public Schools Chromebooks, you know, curriculum resources, textbooks, all of those things we're not using anything different than brick and mortar schools are using.

Matt Graham 10:52

That's great. Are there any teachers that you want to give a shout out to while you're here. Cadence that you that you have enjoyed as being your teacher for the past couple of years.

Cadence 11:00

I'd say definitely Mrs Lenny Shirley.

Dr. Kelli Jordan 11:02

I love her so much I am not surprised Really.

Cadence 11:05

Yeah, I'm surprised, definitely my best friends at this point. I love her for two years. I love her for both World History I and II. She doesn't just teach us, she also actually talked to us. So whenever we finished doing our work, she would actually talk with us and hang out. So yeah, building those relationships yeah if you just built the relationship up, that was me, her and one other student usually in the class.

Richie Babb 11:29

Okay. Do you find that your teachers are very flexible in getting one on one time, so you're not just stuck out there by yourself? No, yeah, if you need to meet with a teacher, you can do that right.

Cadence 11:40

I can. Of course they have like a thing can set up on the calendar. You can select what time you want, but you have to do it like a day ahead at least to give them heads up saying, hey, I want to meet on this day at this time and he'd help with this assignment or that other assignment or whatever.

Richie Babb 11:58

Yeah, that's great. That is yeah. I've heard that from a lot of CVA students that how they really are building relationships with their teachers more than they would have had they been in the brick and mortar school 100%.

Matt Graham 12:11

Yeah, now, cadence, would you recommend CVA to others and if so, why would you do that?

Cadence 12:17

I definitely would, just because I think it's easier to learn that way. You know, you can actually focus on your work more and get to know your teachers better and they can help you better, because it's it's just easier to talk to them and understand things.

Richie Babb 12:34

Yeah you've been doing a lot of head nodding during our conversation, so you seem really enthusiastic about.

Cadence 12:43

CVA, you seem to really like it, I do, I love it so much. I love it. Wow, great, that's awesome.

Richie Babb 12:50

Did Dr Jordan tell you to say all these things? No, Because you couldn't be a better representative for.

Cadence 12:55

CVA. I know, I know I love it so much and I'm very grateful to have it in my life.

Richie Babb 13:00

That's awesome, that is awesome. So scheduling is coming up. Is it work so that every student that applies gets in, or there are limited numbers of seats, so to speak?

Dr. Kelli Jordan 13:13

Yeah, so there is an application process in regards to that. Students will need to fill out the application that will be available on our website. The application process is a little bit different for K-8 compared to 9-12. There is no limit in regards to that. We don't have like a capacity or something along those lines. We don't review applications and do any acceptance until we determine that you know we have enough to have the class make and staffing needs and things of that sort.

Dr. Kelli Jordan 13:41

But basically, after we've received all the applications, we review them, building administrations at the homeschools have approved them based on the requirements that are displayed in the application and then we go forward from there. Yeah.

Richie Babb 13:54

So you said the K-8 program. We have kindergartners doing virtual learning. Right, we do, it is the sweetest thing ever.

Dr. Kelli Jordan 14:01

Oh my gosh, they're amazing. I can tell you that those kindergartners know how to mute, they know how to use emojis, they know how to use the chat, they know how to do polls in Google Meets. That's amazing, that is.

Richie Babb 14:15

It is really cool.

Matt Graham 14:16

It's really cool, yep.

Dr. Kelli Jordan 14:19

They are so tech savvy by week three they know how to do all the things in a Google Meet that you would never imagine. They can navigate Canvas like nobody's business. It's pretty impressive.

Richie Babb 14:30

So it won't be too many years before they'll be kids graduating that never actually went inside a building to take classes. Yeah, when you put it like that, if you think about when they left with COVID.

Dr. Kelli Jordan 14:40

Yeah, that would be exactly the case.

Richie Babb 14:42

Wow, that's crazy. Starting to get, that is crazy.

Matt Graham 14:45

Wow, well, this has been.

Richie Babb 14:46

Very interesting, very lightning, yeah, very interesting.

Cadence 14:49

This has been an amazing conversation, yeah.

Matt Graham 14:52

I mean, and I've definitely learned a ton about the CVA program just by having you all both here, and obviously there's a huge success story sitting with us with cadence.

Cadence 14:59

Thank you.

Matt Graham 15:00

So it has been a pleasure having you all both on the podcast and sharing all things CVA with our listeners and our community. Is there anything else that you would like to share or say about CVA? I mean, I think it's awesome.

Dr. Kelli Jordan 15:14

I think it's a really cool program.

Matt Graham 15:16

There you go.

Dr. Kelli Jordan 15:16

Thank you, I think it's a great opportunity for families to meet the needs that they have, and they're all different kind of unique needs. It's for students who just want to be home because of a variety of medical reasons or just personal reasons. There's all different types of unique needs that our families have as to why they're choosing this option.

Richie Babb 15:38

Sure.

Dr. Kelli Jordan 15:38

I like the fact that we're affording our families an opportunity to meet them where they are.

Matt Graham 15:44

Right.

Dr. Kelli Jordan 15:45

And it has become a really cool lens on my side to see and hear the stories as to why they're choosing our option and to know that Chesapeake Public Schools has provided that avenue for them where three years ago this wasn't an option for them. And to know that I get to be a part of it is really exciting. But, more importantly, to know that students like Cadence have this opportunity is just really awesome.

Cadence 16:10

Yes, I love it so much. I think it's very helpful. This is just a very big help to me, so I thank you for creating it.

Matt Graham 16:25

One of the best ways that you can get notifications from your school is to download the Chesapeake Public Schools app. You can choose your schools that you'd like to follow and also receive information from the district. So make sure you download the Chesapeake Public Schools app from the Google Play Store or the App Store today. It's Everything Chesapeake in your pocket. A big part of our story here at Chesapeake Public Schools is our academies, so we have with us Dr Shonda Windham and Meredith Strahan to share with us what our academies are all about here in Chesapeake Public Schools. So welcome to the podcast, both of you.

Meredith Strahan 17:09

Thank you. We're happy to be here. Thank you.

Richie Babb 17:11

Fantastic and, as you, if you've heard our podcast, we start off trying to get to know you a little bit. Let's start with you, dr Windham. How many years you've been in?

Dr. Shonda Windham 17:17

Chesapeake. So this is actually my 24th year in Chesapeake. I have a total of 26 years in education, varying positions from teaching to technology integration specialists to CTE supervisor, principal and now currently the director of college and career readiness.

Richie Babb 17:35

Yeah, and you have a son who graduated just graduated, last year, right, I do. And what's he doing? How is his college experience?

Dr. Shonda Windham 17:42

He is living his best life in college, unfortunately. Unfortunately. I wish he lived a little bit less but nonetheless he is definitely enjoying his time there.

Richie Babb 17:55

Great, don't ask me how I'm doing. Okay, I can almost see how you're doing. Actually, I mean, yeah, now in your younger son. What grade is he in?

Dr. Shonda Windham 18:03

He is currently a junior.

Richie Babb 18:04

Okay, man.

Dr. Shonda Windham 18:06

Time flies.

Richie Babb 18:07

It does, I mean. I remember when they were like little kids.

Dr. Shonda Windham 18:09

Knee hat to a duck. Yeah, yeah, basically.

Richie Babb 18:12

How about you, meredith? How long have you been in education?

Meredith Strahan 18:14

Well, this is my 17th year. I'm actually a career switcher, so I was in hospitality prior to coming into education, so a big shift. Whenever I came into education Before I was the governor's STEM Academy coordinator I was the avid coordinator and avid elective teacher at Oscar Smith High School.

Richie Babb 18:34

Okay, great. So, we are here to talk about academies, and I think that's something that people have heard about and maybe don't know a whole lot about. So what are the academies and how do they work in Chesapeake?

Dr. Shonda Windham 18:47

So we have three specialized academies in Chesapeake. We have the governor's STEM Academy, which is Meredith's Academy. We also have the IB Academy at Oscar Smith High School, as well as the Science and Medicine Academy at Deep Creek High School, and so basically these three academies serve all students in Chesapeake. So we take in students from all seven high schools. The Academy School becomes their home school and the students are provided transportation from their homes to the academy that they have been accepted into.

Richie Babb 19:22

Okay, what's the whole concept behind having academies? I mean, because I'm assuming they're taking courses that they're not having. There's not enough interest for them to be offered in their high schools, right? So we're concentrating sort of advanced classes or very specific classes that you wouldn't necessarily take or be able to take in your home school. To concentrate, in other words, right.

Meredith Strahan 19:44

That's exactly it. We're looking for students who are highly interested and highly motivated in whatever academy they plan to attend, and so our classes are specialized. They're only offered within the academy. They have other components to their classes as well, from field trips to final projects and culminating experiences, but they're definitely highly specialized for people who really want an in-depth experience in that particular area.

Matt Graham 20:12

Great, and so you're the coordinator of the STEM Academy right. So can you tell us a little bit about that?

Meredith Strahan 20:19

Sure. So the STEM Academy at Grassfield has three different pathways. So when students apply to the Governor's STEM Academy, they are either interested in learning more about engineering and technology, programming and software development, or global entrepreneurship and technology, and so they take six classes within six elective classes, within their pathway and to really get a full education in that particular subject area.

Richie Babb 20:46

So they go there for all four years a high school right.

Meredith Strahan 20:49

They do. They go all four years. So if they're in the Governor's STEM Academy, they are a Grassfield Grizzly and they are a different Fully engaged, like they could do the sports and all that. Yes, music, anything. They are there. They are Grassfield, Grizzly and they're bleeding red, white and blue.

Richie Babb 21:03

Yeah, and you find, like my daughter went to the IB Academy at Oscar Smith, and you find that those Academy kids get very involved in their school. They do Like, frequently, your student government people, a lot of the people in sports, the people that are heavily involved are a lot of times these Academy students. So and I'll point that out because I don't want it to sound like that the Academy kids go into a high school and they're segregated and they're not really part of the school. They really are part of the school.

Dr. Shonda Windham 21:32

They absolutely are 100%.

Matt Graham 21:34

Yeah, I used to coach tennis for Grassfield back in the days and I had a few of those Academy kids and they played on our team. But yes, they were in SCA, fully in it and just loving it.

Richie Babb 21:46

So I want you to know this is about our fourth podcast we've recorded and Matt has been able to work in the word tennis in every single podcast.

Matt Graham 21:54

That's right. He was able to get that in Every time. Every time. You gotta find a way, man, every time.

Richie Babb 22:01

So we hear about students in some courses getting industry credentials to go out into the world of work. Do we have those at the STEM Academy? Do students get those?

Meredith Strahan 22:09

Absolutely. Students have lots of opportunities to get industry credentials. One of the brand new ones that they're gonna have this year is project management, and I mean that is hot in the world today for just about everybody. So our senior capstone leadership class, those students are going to take the project management certification this fall. So pretty exciting.

Richie Babb 22:31

Wow, that's exciting.

Matt Graham 22:32

That's awesome.

Richie Babb 22:33

So you mentioned, like the paths within the STEM Academy a little while ago. I don't wanna just brush by them. If you go through those with me again, that'd be great.

Meredith Strahan 22:40

Sure, absolutely. So. Starting with engineering, our students take two foundation courses one in ninth grade, one in 10th grade. It focuses a lot on robotics, so it's pretty cool. Then they take aerospace engineering. We have a great flight simulator. Hi have to say that I've never been able to get off the ground.

Matt Graham 22:59

But the student oh, I'm coming to Grassfield Well is. Some of that too was showcased at the air show recently.

Meredith Strahan 23:05

Absolutely Well we didn't have our big flight simulator out there, but we did have our smaller ones, but we do have a full surround one that we can program. Like take off from Norfolk International Airport and you need to land in Richmond or in New York. They take civil engineering as well and electrical engineering, and then all of the pathways have a capstone course and there's they're given a budget, they have to solve a problem, they come up with prototypes and they present in programming. The students take a computer science course and they're working with VR headsets and creating video games. And then our global entrepreneurship students are taking entrepreneurship leadership development. They're also taking marketing classes and global commerce classes, so they are ready to go.

Richie Babb 23:51

Are they beating down your door over there at the STEM Academy? It sounds like they would be, to say the least.

Meredith Strahan 23:57

Yeah, I mean we really try to get out there and connect with the students at all levels. I think one of the cool features of it is that every class has their own specific field trip, and so we go out all the time. I am actually laugh, because I drive that activity bus like it's nobody's business and I even have, and that's not a simulator either.

Richie Babb 24:18

No, it's not.

Meredith Strahan 24:20

Yeah, good for you, I actually have a chauffeur hat that I do wear occasionally to liven it up a bit.

Matt Graham 24:27

That's awesome. Now, Dr Windham, can you tell us a little bit about the Science and Medicine Academy and the IB program?

Dr. Shonda Windham 24:34

Yeah, absolutely so. As Meredith just shared, the academies are highly sought after by our students. One of the perks of being in the IB program is the potential to obtain an internationally credentialed diploma, which means these students can apply to universities and colleges across the globe. Additionally, they can earn college credit from their coursework From ninth to 12th grade. The students are co-ordered, meaning they have their IB classes together with other IB students and they develop very strong relationships with one another. On the flip side of that, we have the Science and Medicine Academy. They have wonderful community partners from Chesapeake Regional to EVMS, chkd, odu, allowing the juniors and seniors the opportunity to job shadow and intern in the Hampton Rose community. So we're very grateful for those partners. They definitely help to beef up the program.

Richie Babb 25:32

Yeah, no doubt.

Meredith Strahan 25:33

And the cool part about all three of the academies is we really do collaborate a lot and sometimes we'll go on field trips altogether All together yeah, okay, I'm going to say it they're great All together, All together.

Richie Babb 25:44

All together.

Meredith Strahan 25:45

Airplane, but so the students really have that opportunity to collaborate and to really work together. Last night we had our first Academy night at Indian River Middle and we all had student representation and it was so neat to see the students go. Oh hey, you know, I remember you from middle school and all in their different academies.

Matt Graham 26:08

So tell us about that Academy information.

Meredith Strahan 26:10

Yes. So we tried to make sure that we hit every single student and family, and so have eight, had eight family parent nights planned at all of the different schools, as well, as there will be a virtual opportunity coming up on the 30th of November as well, in case you want to listen in your pajamas, which I totally get. So that the families have that opportunity to really find out what's going on in Chesapeake. Okay, right.

Richie Babb 26:37

So I have an eighth grader. Let's say I'm fortunate that I do not. But let's say I have an eighth grader and I hear this and I'm like man, you need to go to one of those academies. What do they need to do? What's the process?

Meredith Strahan 26:49

So that's actually really easy. The application itself opens up on December the 1st. It'll be on the division's website as well as on all three of the school's websites for the students to go to. They just need to open up that application and apply. The application itself is super simple. Now the more difficult part is the assessments that they'll take in late January, early to late January and early February. Each one of us have several Saturday testing dates, and so the students choose from those dates and then they will come in and they will complete their assessment.

Matt Graham 27:22

And if you're that eighth grader, maybe thinking of multiple academies, do they have the ability to apply to more than one?

Dr. Shonda Windham 27:29

Yes, they can, so the application lends itself to do that.

Dreams Come True at CPS

Meredith Strahan 27:33

They can select one, two or all three and be considered for each academy If you have an interest, we want you to apply, we want you to be a part of any one of the academies. They are all excellent opportunities. They're all designed to challenge you, they're all designed to motivate you, and I personally kind of take it on as a challenge, as I am your very godmother. We sit down and try to make all of your dreams come true, whatever that is for their next enrolled and listed service academy, employed from day one. So we work very, very hard all of us do to make sure every student has an amazing experience.

Richie Babb 28:14

So it's tough for you to remember whether to wear your fairy godmother hat or your chauffeur hat.

Dr. Shonda Windham 28:19

A lot of hat, a lot of glitter, a lot of glitter, right, right.

Matt Graham 28:27

Thank you for listening to this episode of Amplify the Chesapeake Public Schools podcast. If you are interested in any of these programs, please visit cpschoolscom to learn more today, or to even apply and make sure that you follow Amplify the Chesapeake Public Schools podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts.