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While most students anticipate summer break as a time to let down and recharge, others spend the summer months planning ways to get ahead during the next academic year. For those over-achievers, there are many options to choose from, between summer school opportunities and accelerated programs once the regular school year rolls around. If you are a student looking for fast-track opportunities, or a parent of one of those ambitious students, we have the tips you are looking for to get a step up on the high school years.

This video offers some tips for time management and organization.

Advanced Placement

This tried and true program offers high-pressure demands and challenges comparable to a college-level course. So why undertake Advanced Placement classes in high school? According to the , Advanced Placement, also known as AP, offers a myriad of benefits to high school students, including:

• The ability to pick and choose the subjects for acceleration
• The chance to impress prospective colleges
• The opportunity to earn college credits while still in high school

Currently, there are more than 30 AP subjects available, although the options may vary from high school to high school. If you excel at writing, an AP English course may be a perfect choice. Math gurus may prefer an AP math class, while aspiring scientists can find AP courses in biology, chemistry or physics. Even history buffs will find a

College and professional sports teams have a medical staff to screen players and keep them healthy on and off-season. However, high school athletes rarely have the same services available to them. Many cannot afford medical care on their own, and family physicians may not have the time or knowledge to help these young athletes achieve their top performance level in the safest way possible. In San Francisco, one organization hopes to change that by providing high school students with the medical care they need to stay at the top of their game.

About PlaySafe

According to the , PlaySafe is a program provided by the Sports Medicine Center at the University of California, San Francisco. The program is designed as an outreach serving student-athletes throughout the Bay area. The program was created in response to the death of a San Francisco Unified School District football player in 2002. PlaySafe strives to avoid similar tragedies in the future through comprehensive screenings and medical care both on and off the field.

Services provided by PlaySafe include:

• Education – Training for coaches, parents, and officials, periodic conferences and community outreach programs, and internships for students interested in careers in sports medicine
• Sports Medicine Care – Both on-site care and coverage of sports events, as well as training room development
• Medical Screenings – Physical examinations, cardiac screenings, and wrestling weight management programs
• Referrals – Access to the UCSF sports medicine referral network, priority admittance to the sports

In the need to inspire more students to STEM fields today, some schools are hiring more science teachers. However, without the proper equipment, these teachers may be fairly limited in what they can teach their students. Fortunately, high school and middle school students in Hawaii will not be at a loss for the proper science equipment any longer, thanks to a budding partnership between the large school district and the University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine.

Repurposing Creates New Opportunities

The reports that the partnership between the public schools in the state and the University medical school began three years ago. At that time professional development program at the medical school teamed up faculty from the Center for Cardiovascular Research and local high school teachers to enhance the quality of learning for high school science students in the state.

The original purpose of the partnership was to provide professional training to high school science teachers, allowing them to see firsthand the latest techniques in the school’s advanced medical procedures. Teachers were able to take the knowledge they gained back into their classrooms. However, the assistant professor at the center who was leading the training, Rachel Boulay, discovered that most of the schools in the state did not have the equipment necessary to bring teaching to a real-world level.

Boulay’s discovery led to an expanded partnership between the college and the public school district. Today, donations of thousands of dollars

Math and science are the backbone of the education system in the United States today, as STEM fields come to the forefront of the global marketplace. However, if one examines the test scores of U.S. students, it becomes clear that students in this country are not taking sufficient math and science to make the grade. As the U.S. continues to fall in math and science rankings on a global scale, many educators and business leaders are leading the charge for more rigorous math and science requirements in high schools. Will more math and science really make the U.S. more competitive?

U.S. Lagging Other Industrial Countries

Last year, William Bennett, the former U.S. Education Secretary, reported at that the United States scored 23^rd in math and 31^st in science among the 65 top industrial countries in the world. The also issued a report, citing a warning in a report from the United States National Academies that stated the U.S. was losing ground in both math and science skills. Even as the U.S. has made some improvements in math and science test scores over the past decade, the country still lags behind many other countries across the globe in these key areas.

In addition to losing a global competitiveness, the U.S. may be cheating itself out of future math and science advancements. The CNN article also reported that only 26 percent of the high school seniors in this country score