Talk:Saint John Paul II Academy/Archive 1

I have deleted the following section:


 * Harvard University
 * Duke University
 * Notre Dame University
 * University of Pennsylvania
 * Massachusetts Institute of Technology
 * University of Florida
 * Washington University in St. Louis
 * University of Chicago
 * Northwestern University
 * Georgetown University
 * Wake Forest University

While admirable, there are a multitude of high schools that can make this claim. It is simply not important to place in the article. A statement regarding the "high caliber of colleges graduates attend" might be includable if there was a sufficient third party neutral reference to support this.

Consider looking at some of the better articles written about high schools. This information is virtually never included. It makes the article sound too much like an advertisement. LonelyBeacon 16:08, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

erroneous sentence needs to be deleted
This sentence needs to be eliminated. It is poorly worded and without reference. "In part due to the preference toward private school students and in part due to Boca Raton's high median family income ($77,861)[2], the student body consists primarily of students from affluent families.[citation needed]". I deleted it once and someone reverted me. I am not going to get into an edit war over this but if you want to make this a good article that gets a decent rating on Wikipedia, you need to improve on this poor selection of words and lack of reference to support this statement. NancyHeise 01:34, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Need a disambiguation
There've been a springing of new Catholic High schools bearing JP2's name (like Pope John Paul II High School (Washington) and there should be a disambiguation page to sort it all out, and this article could be renamed to include the city name cuz there's another JP2HS in FL -Just a suggestion Rebel shadow 04:04, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Might I suggest that "Pope John Paul II High School" should be redirected here: Pope John Paul II Catholic High School, while this article should be renamed "Pope John Paul II High School (Boca Raton, Florida)" or something. Rebel shadow (talk) 04:53, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

opening paragraph
I have made the opening paragraph a summary of the entire page as it is supposed to be done per WP:GA criteria. I am trying to expand this article and would like to spend my time adding proper references instead of battling whoever is eliminating all of my work without discussion or explanation. The person doing this has no user name and does not come to the talk page to discuss issues before deleting all my work. NancyHeise 01:45, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism
I have added to this article extensively yet a user with no user name keeps deleting my entire work to replace it with a stub article that has almost no information about the school. I would like to work on this some more but I do not want to get involved in an edit war. I am referring this situation to an admin for some clarification. NancyHeise 18:50, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Edit warring
Hello editors!

I couldn't help but notice that we are getting pretty hot and neavy into the early stages of an all-out edit war. That's not a good thing!

If there are any editors who are involved (though as far as I can tell, only one has a user name), could they please state their cases on this page so that maybe we can work something out? I would also ask that, for the moment, let's put a temporary hold on editing/reverting/ etc. LonelyBeacon 22:03, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I've heard a bit from two editors here who are very passionate about this article. I am including this in an attempt to provide some guidance, hopefully to get some consensus about this article. I think it has the possibility to be a very good article.

To keep things on a neutral footing, I am going to refer to sections from the WikiSchools Project. I am going to recommend that this article come under their auspicies. Hopefully some more expert editors can give even more advice.

First off: what to include:

Infobox — Give the full official name of the school and detail about its location (town/municipality, county/state/province, country). Add a few facts about the school that make it unique. Provide the name of the founder and founding name, and affiliation with any larger school system, if applicable. Include brief statistics on the number of pupils/size of the student body (always state the date when the information is current and be cautious about having too many statistics that will need to be updated frequently). Ideally a picture of the school should be included if a free image is available.

So far so good. History — Describe the history of the school, including noteworthy milestones in its development. Campus/school site — Describe the overall shape and size of the school site/campus. Mention any famous buildings or stadia and their architects. A separate section on architecture is sometimes appropriate.

This may need to be broken up in the article. I think the opening paragraph is a little long. The opening paragraph is usually very minimalist. Something like: Pope John Paul II High School is a Roman Catholic Secondary school in Boca Raton, Florida."  The rest of that inforamtion could go into either the history or campus sections.  They might even be combined under "history".
 * I have addressed this comment.NancyHeise 05:24, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Curriculum — Provide a brief description of the school's curriculum. Does it follow a National Curriculum or does it set its own subjects? Focus specifically on aspects of the curriculum which are unique to the school. Is it the only school in the locality which teaches Mandarin, Latin or Greek? Does it have a culinary academy?

Looking at the curriculum section, I think the list of AP classes is likely not necessary under this directive. AP classes in this day and age are not really unique. Mentioning that students can get some kind of credit through Lynn U. (if I am reading this correctly) would certainly fit here. The opening paragraph mentioning that the school has a variety of AP courses is ilkely good enough.
 * I removed it from the opening paragraph to make it more concise and I left it under the curriculum section since it is no where else now. Let me know what you think.NancyHeise 05:24, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

As an aside: I commented a while ago that the academic prestige section really reads like an advertisement. I know having students go to these places is a mark of pride, but I really don't think it comes across the right way. My take would be "a lot of schools do this ....why is this so worthy of mentioning?" The item about 95% of students going on to colleges is noteworthy, but it really should have citation from an independent source (not the school's website).
 * I eliminated the list of colleges in this section but this section is not completely addressed yet.NancyHeise 05:24, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

The Mission Statement is, I think, important to include. While inspirational, and I have immense respect for the late Pontiff being both Polish and Catholic, I'm not certain the two following statements belong here. These statements are more about the Pope and his vision. I hope they are found in some form in his article, but really don't belong here. This would be true for any school named for a person.

Spiritual Charism -- This is certainly important to mention in any article about a religous school. Make sure there is no repetition here. Most of this is school history, and I think is already covered. Mentioning Kairos is pretty important.

Extracurricular activities — Mention the sports team(s) of the school and what is notable about them. Here is also a good place to mention specific traditions of school, like students' union/student council activities, a student newspaper, clubs, regular activities, etc. The heading may be changed accordingly in regard to the importance of sports, clubs, traditions, students' unions etc. For example, alternative headings could be Students' Union, Sports and Traditions or Students' Union Activities. Mention significant championships for the sports teams.

This is pretty minimal in the article, and that's fine is that is the way it should be.

Notable alumni — Provide a bulleted list of notable alumni with a short description to explain why they are famous. Alumni without their own Wiki articles should always have third-party references. Notable teachers/faculty — The names of current and former teachers should only be included if they are notable in their own right (for example, they are published authors or they have won a teaching award) or they have been the subject of multiple non-trivial press coverage. Former headteachers/principals — A list of former headteachers/principals, with a short description of their achievements, is often useful. Long lists should be split into a separate article (such as the List of headmasters at Eton College).

This is not a part of this article. Especially given the school's relatively short lifetime, there may not be an especially long list of notable alums yet .... though that may change with time.

References — Provide verifiable reliable sources of information about the school, that are independent of the school itself. An article should not rely solely on what its subject has to say about itself (as with any article in Wikipedia). A school's own website is not an independent source. References from third-party sources are particularly important for school awards and contentious statements. For private schools in North America, an accreditation body or government source should be provided to show the organization is a legitimate school. If a resource is online (which is ideal) consider that potentially it will go offline (newspapers often allow free reading only for recent stories) and provide sufficient information so that the story could still be found (author, publication, full article title, date, etc). See Wikipedia:Footnotes for the technical details of how to do this in a standard format.
 * I am seeking out references that the school may have accumulated, (newspaper articles and such). I will spend time on references and put them in inline citations at that time.NancyHeise 05:24, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

External links — Give a link to the website of the school, preferably one in the English language. Include other informational links that might interest readers, but whose contents might be beyond the scope of inclusion in the article (for example, links to the school's Parent Teacher Association).

[edit]What not to include Shortcut: WP:SCH

I'm not even going to comment, because there was nothing in this article that is on the WNTI list. That's good.

Some more suggestions ... comparing Nancy's last and Adam's last version of the article:

Tuition: as a former Catholic High School student and teacher, this changes every year, and I would advise not even mentioning it anywhere. Besides, it can comes across as "advertising", and that is discouraged.
 * Eliminated per your comment. NancyHeise 05:24, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Admission: again, this comes across as something found in advertisements. If this is covered on the school web page, I think that this is where prospective students can find it. I would not even mention this.
 * Eliminated. NancyHeise 05:24, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Staff: Always good to mention how many, how many have masters or above. I'm not sure the part about fingerprinting needs to be there. Most juristictions that I know of require it for teachers now (I know I had to).
 * Done. NancyHeise 05:24, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Technology: I would mention the TV produciton studio under curriculum, but the rest reads more like advertisement
 * Improved, please see again.NancyHeise 05:24, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Clubs: Do clubs only meet on Wednesday? If that's so, then that is pretty unique from where I stand. I would only mention any really unique ones.

Pope John Paul II High School is a college preparatory Roman Catholic secondary school with a 30 acre campus in East Boca Raton, Florida,
 * I think this is much better so I kept this version. NancyHeise 05:24, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

compared to

Pope John Paul II High School is a highly competitive Roman Catholic secondary school with a campus in East Boca Raton, Florida

This can cover a lot of other points in both versions of the article, but I want to advise caution:

What does "highly competitive" mean? In colleges, I seem to think there is a pretty set definition for that term. Is there one in high schools? If not, then that description is an opinion (perhaps one that many, many people share and agree with), but an opinion nonetheless, and shouldn't be included.
 * Eliminated. NancyHeise 05:24, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

There is a mention of the Carmelites no longer being with the school. I think Nancy's version covers this with a third party reference. Coming from the Marist tradition of schools, this is not unheard of, and is notable (Marist College, not many people know is no longer a Marist school).
 * Replaced. NancyHeise 05:24, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

A description of the athletic facilities would likely only be warranted if they were somhow unique (like if the football stadium were artificial turf, or the lacrosse stadium hosts a national touranment every year, etc. This would go under "campus".
 * Done. NancyHeise 05:24, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

OK .... that was a ton! Before anyone goes making big edits again, comment a bit here first .... take some time ... there's no deadline to meet.

I do want to say that the editors here both show great passion for this subject. That alone says something about the love for their school, and how much they want a good article here. LonelyBeacon 03:51, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

=Tackling this to do list= Dear LonelyBeacon, thank you for giving this article such a thorough review. I appreciate your time and attention. I am going to address each one of your issues as I get the time to do so. I have unfortunately been spending too much time on Wikipedia trying to bring another article up to Featured Article status. If that one goes through, I will enjoy dabbling on this article for fun next. I have wondered if the other editor who reverts my edits is an employee of the school. I have contacted the school asking them to provide me with references that I can use to add relevent material to the article and to politely ask the other editor(if a school employee) to allow this information to be added without the edit war business. I have not heard back from the school but they said they would try to find out what was happening. Perhaps the other editor is not a school employee but someone from a rival school who does not want a good article to go through - I don't know why anyone would not want more information really. I thought more was always better. Anyway, I will be using your outline of suggestions to improve the article as I am able to do so without edit wars. Thanks for your kind attention to this article. NancyHeise 04:22, 31 October 2007 (UTC) =message to Adam12399999= I am trying to make the article Pope John Paul II High School more informative. I have two children in the school and a third applying for next year. Kids and parents look at Wikipedia to obtain more information on subjects they are interested in. May we please come to agreement in an amicable manner as to what should and should not be on this page? I am not here to vandalize but to improve an article that seems to me to be full of Point of View issues and full of comments that will eliminate prospective students, not attract them. Stating that the school is "highly competitive" and eliminating the facts that it is "college preparatory" and sits on a 30 acre campus does not enhance. Stating that tuition is $8600 without mentioning that significant discounts are given for various reasons will really be successful in chasing away prospective students. Leaving out important facts like the facilities and extra curricular activities while including whole paragraphs about the Dominican Sisters and their charism is not helpful to a high school encyclopedia article. Please do not eliminate my edits without giving a good reason. Please try to think of who is going to be looking at this article (parents and prospective students) and may want to know about the things I have included (I included them because these are the things I wanted to know). Let Wikipedia be a tool of information. By the way, Fr. Guy is at a high school in Chicago. Having a History section without mentioning Fr. Guy is incomplete - he is practically the father of the school and deserves mention.NancyHeise 04:39, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Adam12399999" NancyHeise 04:40, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Pjplogo.jpg
Image:Pjplogo.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 14:19, 8 March 2008 (UTC)