Have You Started ECAP? Then Please Read!

I guess there's more to post. This came from the CCCC recently:

May 23, 2020
Dear Students and Families, 

The Arizona Department of Education has decided to not renew the AZCIS system, the online platform in which students complete the state required ECAP (Education Career Action Plan) portfolio. While students will still be required to complete an ECAP during their high school years, but it will not be on this platform.

For students in the CLASS OF 2021: it is extremely important that if you've started or been working on your ECAP resume for your Senior Portfolio you log onto the AZCIS system by June 30th to save & download what you have of your resume so far. If you do not do so by this date, all your work will be lost. For those that have not started their ECAP Resume, there is no action to be taken. Instead, you will use the Resume Template on the UHS Senior Portfolio to complete your resume:

www.tusd1.org/uhs/seniorportfolio

End of Year

The year is officially over - I have posted your grades and submitted my paperwork. But I'm not going anywhere, so if you need help with anything (including studying for the make-up AP exam) go ahead and contact me.

I do have one last task for you. You might already know that I am the graduation coordinator, and I am going to assume that next year graduation will be back to normal (I have no idea if that's true). That means I need some information from you. Please fill out this survey for me:

http://bit.ly/uhs2021info

I will be adding the email you submit to a Google Group to form a mailing list - please check your SPAM folder in the next week or so for an add confirmation, and mark it "not spam." I won't have access to you on Synergy next year, so this list will be my main way to get information and deadlines to you.

You can also join my Reminds. Here are the codes to text to 81010:

Last name A-H: @grad2021h
Last name I-R: @grad2021r
Last name S-Z: @grad2021z

Here is a final cat picture for you:

Grades!

First I just want to say good job to everyone that tried to take the AP exam yesterday. Some of you are done now, but some weren't able to submit your answers and will be taking the makeup. I am still available to help you practice, and I will still be scoring FRQs on AP Classroom.

Now, on to grades! I have to submit grades by end of business day on Thursday, May 21st (Monday for seniors). I am going to start posting them now, but I can change them up until Thursday. Remember, YOUR SEMESTER GRADE WILL NOT BE POSTED LOWER THAN YOUR Q3 GRADE, no matter what Synergy says. If you think I've made a mistake, LET ME KNOW IMMEDIATELY.

I want to say thank you to all of the students that had a perfectly decent Q3 grade, but chose to complete their physics work anyway. This shows the sort of work ethic and intrinsic motivation that universities and employers look for, and I would indicate that in any recommendation letters you may ask me to write next year.

If you would like to try to raise your grade in the next week, you can! You have a lot of options:

• I'm accepting retakes of all tests, including the rotational dynamics take-home test that literally said "no retakes" on it. Just email me to request the retake of any test.
• Turn in any missing work at all, no matter how old it is. Then when nothing is missing, you can do extra credit until you have 100% in the homework category (can't go higher though)
• Fix labs
• Take the optional electricity unit test. You only get one shot at that, but I also only put it in if it helps your grade.

Note that, as stated in the syllabus, I will round a grade up if nothing is missing and you are 0.5% or less away.

Please email me or use Remind if you have any questions or need any help, even after next Thursday.

And now, a cat photo.

AP Test Update + AP Classroom Practice

This update is really for people taking the exam. If you're not, just ignore this one.

From the College Board:

Two Days Before Each Exam

• Confirm that registered students have located their e-ticket. Two days before each exam, students will receive an email with their unique exam e-ticket that includes their AP ID. On exam day, students will use their e-ticket to access the exam. If a student hasn't received their exam e-ticket by email, they can access it through their student account on My AP. E-tickets are nontransferable and shouldn't be shared with anyone. Students who haven't been receiving College Board emails still have time to confirm their contact information.

• Remind your students to complete the AP Exam Day Checklist (.pdf/513.39 KB) for each exam they're taking. Students should complete this checklist and keep a printed or handwritten copy with them for reference during testing. Completing the checklist will help students feel confident they're set up for success.

On Exam Day

• Remind students to click their e-ticket to check in 30 minutes before exam start time. Students should allot 80 minutes for each exam—30 minutes to enter their AP ID, name, and other information, and 50 minutes to draft and submit their responses. Make sure your students know their local testing time, since each subject's exam will be taken simultaneously worldwide.

• Ensure your students know what to do if something goes wrong. If a student accidentally closes the browser, their device crashes, or they temporarily lose internet access, they can quickly click their exam e-ticket again to return to the exam. They should continue the exam, and if they feel at the end of the exam that the temporary disruption negatively impacted their performance, they can request approval to take the makeup exam at cb.org/requestmakeup. Students can also request a makeup exam if they've lost too much time due to a technical problem, can't connect to their exam, or experienced some other serious disruption.

Practice Problems in AP Classroom

Remember that there are practice problems in AP Classroom, which you can access through your student account on My AP.

There are three places you can find practice problems: Assignments, Optional Student Practice, and Progress Checks. When you submit an FRQ, I will then have to grade it. I think I have found all the ones that people have submitted so far, so go take a look if you've submitted any in the past.

I will check for submitted FRQs often in the next couple of days, but if you think I've missed yours email me directly.

If you just want to see the answers for the FRQs, then submit them blank. I will "score" them as zeros, but then you'll be able to see the scoring guide.

Please email or Remind me if you need help with any AP prep. We can also schedule a meeting on Zoom if you think that would help. Please note that tomorrow the teachers are going into school to clean their rooms for the summer, so I will be unavailable for a few hours in the late morning.

Here is a cat photo:

AP Update + Locker Cleanout!

First, the College Board asked me to share some stuff with you. I'm just going to paste exactly what they sent:

• Share the 2020 AP Testing Guide (.pdf/10.37 MB) and watch the overview video. The comprehensive guide will help you walk your students through exam preparation, and the video gives a high-level overview of this year's exams.

• Encourage your students to practice with the exam demo. You and your students now have access to an exam demo. Students should use the demo to practice the different ways to submit exam responses. World language students will be able to practice with the AP World Languages Exam App beginning the week of May 11.

• Share the required and recommended resource list with your students. Make sure your students know what resources they can use during their exams and how they can access them.

Next, tomorrow you'll be allowed on campus to clean out your lockers! They've divided you up into time slots to minimize the number of people on campus at once. Check all of your communication lines to find your slot (which I don't know) - ParentLink, StudentVue, ParentVue, your cohort Remind, email, whatever! If you can't make Thursday they're going to let you in on Monday too.

9-11th graders will be able to come back on Thursday and Friday of next week to get their yearbooks.


At noon on next Wednesday seniors can DRIVE THROUGH the Arcadia lot and we will give them UHS graduate signs to put in their yard/homes and they can also get their yearbooks in the Auditorium.