A+ Gears Up for School Year
By David Trussell, A+ Director | Monday, August 27, 2012 1:46 PM
As you gear up for a successful academic year in 2012-2013, don’t forget to include A+ Academics on your back-to-school to-do list.
• Online registration is available on the UIL website (www.uiltexas.org/aplus). Each campus that participates in A+ Academics must register with the state office school year. The process takes only a couple of minutes, and when you register we’ll send you a packet of important information, including a complimentary copy of the 2012-2013 A+ Handbook.
• Schedule your district planning meeting for early September if you plan to host a fall/winter A+ district meet (meets scheduled for Dec. 1 – Jan. 31). Remember that the district meet director must turn in meet information and request contest materials with the state office. For fall/winter meets the deadline to submit this information is Sept. 25 – meeting this deadline is critical to ensure that you receive the contest materials you need for your meet. The meet information and materials order form can be completed online; the online form will be available by the end of August.
• Remember to order any study materials you need for your campus as early as possible. Art is in the second year of a two-year cycle, so materials are the same as they were last year. The Music Memory and Spelling lists change each year, so materials for those events are new for 2012-2013.
• Chess Puzzle Solving will continue as a pilot event in 2012-2013. All districts will have the option to select Chess Puzzle Solving when submitting meet information online. We will continue to offer three divisions: grades 2-3, grades 4-5 and grades 6-8. As with other contests, districts may also choose to offer a separate division for each grade level. In October, the UIL Legislative Council will vote on whether to adopt Chess Puzzle Solving as an official UIL A+ event. If approved, it would become an official event effective 2013-2014.
• There are no changes to official sources for A+ contests. For Maps, Graphs & Charts, we will continue to use the 2008 (or newer) copyright of the Nystrom Desk Atlas. For Dictionary Skills, we will work with the 2004 and new copyrights of the Merriam Webster Intermediate Dictionary. For the dictionary, there are three copyright dates involved – the 2004 edition, the 2009 edition (which contained mainly minor revisions) and the new 2011 edition. All tests will be checked against all three editions to ensure that all test questions can be answered with any of the three. The 2004 edition will no longer be used beginning with the 2014-2015 school year. For both Maps, Graphs & Charts and Dictionary Skills, contestants may always use for competition any edition of any atlas or dictionary – the official sources are those that are designated for use in creating the tests.
• Check the A+ section of the UIL website regularly for additional contest information, news and updates throughout the school year.