Springfield International Charter School (SICS), opened its doors in September 1995 with 450 students. Sixteen successful years later, SICS serves 1,500+ students in grades K-12 and strives to prepare them for success in college and beyond. Demonstrating SABIS®’s ability to prepare graduates with the knowledge and skills that universities seek, for the eleventh consecutive year, 100% of 12th graders from the SABIS® International Charter School (SICS), were accepted to college or a university. And topping that remarkable achievement, the 129-student graduating class of SICS was awarded a total of $9 million in scholarships. What a tremendous accomplishment!
The SICS graduates who were awarded scholarships were primarily recognized for their academic merit. In fact, 76 members of the graduating class were awarded the John and Abigail Adams Scholarship based on the strength of their state exams. This is the highest rate of qualification of SICS students to date for the prestigious scholarship that provides students with a full tuition waiver to any Massachusetts state university for a period of four years.
Not only are SICS seniors awarded scholarships based on merit, but often their financial need is considered as well. One such scholarship program, the MassMutual Scholarship, recently announced their recipients, and out of the 40 available awards, six SICS graduates earned $5,000 awards, renewable for four years. The awards were given to students who maintained a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or above, demonstrated financial need, and planned to pursue a career in financial services, business, or information technology.
College and universities from all over the country recognize the academic readiness of our graduates. This year over sixty institutions of higher learning, including University of Pennsylvania, Williams College, Wesleyan University, Boston College and a host of other schools from around the country, will visit our campus and recruit our students for admission to their college and university.
Our tenth – grade students regularly attain some of the highest scores in the Commonwealth on the MCAS exams and our participation rates and our passing rate has skyrocketed over the last few years on our AP curriculum.
It’s not just about the academic programs either. Our interscholastic athletic program was recently named the most successful small school program in the Pioneer Valley by the Republican newspapers as six different teams earned league championships during our last academic year.
Also, I am very pleased that SABIS® Educational System developed and implemented this year the Worldwide SABIS® Alumni Association. This will provide our students the ability to contact or seek out SABIS® graduates from any SABIS® school in the world, at any point in time, thus creating a network of viable contacts for everyone.
As we look ahead of the 2011-2012 year, we are confident that we will continue to hold our place atop the most successful and prestigious public high schools in the area. Our graduation rate, our college acceptance rate, our standardized test scores and our out of the classroom accomplishments will continue to speak for themselves as we solidify our place within the community.
Karen Reuter,
Director
Tel: (413) 783-2600 