February 2018 Sponsor's Update Part I

Dear Sponsors:
 
Part I of this month’s update will focus on paper preparation. Part II will cover paper submission in more detail.
 
First, thank you to those schools who submitted their VJAS School Membership Applications and Membership Fees by the January 15 deadline. Second (for those schools who have not yet joined VJAS for the current year), if your school has students who plan to submit VJAS papers later this month, we strongly recommend that your school join VJAS as soon as possible! This will allow time for our office to generate the VJAS Membership Certification letter to the Head Sponsor that includes the school’s VJAS School Number. The VJAS School Membership Application can be found in Appendix B (http://vjas.org/handbook.html).
 
Reminder: The VJAS Paper Submission Deadline is Wednesday, February 21st!
 
VJAS Paper Preparation:
Below are some main highlights of the paper preparation and submission procedures. As always, please refer to our Handbook and Appendices for complete, detailed information. These documents may be accessed at http://vjas.org/handbook.html.

• All paper submission forms can be found in Appendix C. For your convenience, they are also posted as a separate PDF file on our website for easy download and printing.

• Please submit the papers in proper categories (Handbook pages 14-16).
• For easy identification of 12th grade seniors, we ask that for all 12th grade/senior papers, an “A” be placed following the school number at the top right of each form (Student Entry, Readers and Judges Evaluation Forms).

• For easy identification of 8th grade students, we ask that for all 8th grade papers, a “B” be placed following the school number at the top right of each form (Student Entry, Readers and Judges Evaluation Forms).
• For your convenience, we have a “Checklist for Paper Submission” in Appendix A. We encourage that both you and your students refer to this Checklist as they are preparing and finalizing their VJAS papers.
• Please remember that the Certification Statement Form (right after the Entry Form) is now a REQUIRED form with BOTH student and sponsor signatures needed at the bottom. All entries must check the “general safety certification” statement (bottom right corner) as well as any other applicable statements.

 
We would also like to remind that we have very detailed specifications for the structure of papers. Please refer to the Handbook section that has the full requirements for the papers as well as information regarding assembly of the paper.
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VJAS Paper Submission:
Stay tuned for Part II of the Sponsor’s Update next week.
 
Handbook Error Update:
We would like to clarify that the VAS Best Research Paper is for 9th – 11th graders only. Middle school students (7th and 8th) and High school senior (12th grade) students are ineligible for this award. We apologize for the inconsistency in the current revision of the VJAS Handbook.
 
Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or suggestions.
We greatly appreciate all that you do and look forward to processing student papers!
 
Susan Booth, Director, VJAS, 757-897-3104, susan.science@gmail.com
Se Jeong, VJAS Committee Chair, swj3af@virginia.edu
Carolyn Conway, VAS Associate Executive Officer, 804-864-1450, vasoffice@vacadsci.org