Only ten students school-wide were academically ineligible for the first quarter.

While the administration doesn’t keep statistics on ineligibility, Vice Principal for Academics Gary Scholl estimates that 40 students are academically ineligible each quarter on average.

“That’s a pretty dramatic reduction. To drop by 30 students is pretty significant,” Scholl said. Scholl admits to never seeing such a drastic drop during his time at JC.

“Go JC! People want to start off the year in a good way. It shows that students are dedicated to their sports and are trying harder to keep their grades up,” junior Jackie Mooney said.

According to Scholl, the administration speculated that the new advisory program may have played a role in the drop in ineligibility.

“Advisors were encouraging students to meet with their teachers to get their work done if they saw assignments that were not turned in and encouraging students to get their assignments in. This may have had a real impact on the quarter grades,” Scholl said.

“I can’t say whether [the drop in academic ineligibility] is a direct relation to [the advisory program], but the feedback that I’m getting from both students and teachers and administrators is really positive . . . Students are getting more individualized attention on their grades and academics,” Advisory Program Coordinator Danica Zavodny said.

And fewer ineligible students means that more students are able to stay involved in extracurricular activities, a change that the Athletic Department also believes is a result of the Advisory Program.

“Before the season even starts, advisory is helping coaches a lot, seeing that their students needs are met academically,” Athletic Director Larry Dukes said.

“Students now a have an adult mentor in school, and they can interact with them in a closer way,” Outreach Director and varsity basketball coach Tony Martin said.

But according to Scholl, the lower number of ineligible students is no indication of lower academic standards.

“Our approach has always been to present a rigorous college preparatory program to all of our students, and there hasn’t been a new approach that would lower standards. To believe that a lowering of standards would occur simultaneously among 60 or 70 different faculty and would end up in this kind of result just doesn’t make any sense,” Scholl said.

Joey Hoff can be reached for comment at [email protected].