Academics

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Parents, Check Out These Great Back-to-School Resources!

GCP parents, it's time to get focused on helping our sons and daughters get ready for their best school year yet. Here are some helpful resources: Readiness Check: You know what grades your kids got last year, but how much of the material do they confidently understand? Does a C in math for the semester mean that your child [...]

Insider Tips on the College Admissions Process

Yesterday GCP and Independent School Diversity Network (ISDN) hosted an "Insider’s View of the College Admissions Process" on Martha's Vineyard, featuring key admissions representatives from Columbia, Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania discussing the admissions process. Once a year GCP and ISDN fill a living room with kids of color and give them the opportunity to meet with the [...]

Thoughtful Thursday: Rita Dove on The Pleasures of Reading

The selection of today's Thoughtful Thursday offering, "The First Book" by the celebrated poet Rita Dove, was inspired by yesterday's post about LeBron James' wonderful new IPromise public school in Akron Ohio. The school is designed to inspire middle school students who are performing below their grade levels. Helping them with reading skills will surely be an important part [...]

Inspirational: LeBron James’ I Promise School

LeBron James may have taken his talents to the LA Lakers, but he is leaving something very valuable behind in Ohio: a chance for 240 at-risk third and fourth graders in his hometown of Akron to get a brand new public school designed to help them achieve. James and his LeBron James Family Foundation have partnered with The Akron [...]

Summer School for Parents

GCP Parents, hope you and your families are having a great summer! Now is a good time to focus on making sure that your children start the school year right. Have you been combatting summer slide with your children? If not, there is still time. Wherever you are in this process, we've got tips to make it easier. Several [...]

It’s National Summer Learning Day!

Did you know that today is National Summer Learning Day? (We didn’t either, and thanks to Bill Lewis for bringing this to GCP’s attention.) With over 6 weeks to go until the end of August, there is still plenty of time to encourage your son or daughter to focus on sharpening his or her skills during the summer. No [...]

Thoughtful Thursday: Independence Day Offerings

On the day after Independence Day, today's Thoughtful Thursday offerings give us food for thought about celebrating these United States at a time where we feel so far from united. The first is a series of excerpts from Frederick Douglass' "What to the Slave is The Fourth of July", a powerful speech he gave to a group of New [...]

Good News: Twin Brothers Heading to MIT

Miles and Malik George, twin brothers who were co-valedictorians at their Woodbridge High School graduation last week, are both headed to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the fall. The George brothers, who got their last B's in third grade, both set their sites on MIT as high school freshmen, and worked towards this goal, both making near [...]

Beat Summer Slide with Summer Stride!

You may have heard about “ summer slide”, where over the summer students can lose two to three months of progress in math and reading and fall behind when they return to school in the fall.  But did you know that by the time a student gets to the 5th grade, the summer learning loss can add up to [...]

Thoughtful Thursday: Blessing the Boats by Lucille Clifton

Hello GCP'ers! Yes, it has been a while, and while it is not actually Thursday, (let's call it "Thursday Plus") here is a lovely Thoughtful Thursday poem for you all, "Blessing the Boats" by the renowned African American poet Lucille Clifton (1936-2010). Born in Depew, New York in 1936, Clifton's first book of poetry was published in 1969. She [...]