In November of 2015, National NASP® leadership and a group of NASP® educators and students met to discuss ways to further enhance the 15 year old program. One recommendation was to establish a uniform incentive and recognition format to recognize and promote academic achievement for participating NASP® students.

The concept of a NASP® Academic Archer was born. In its first year of implementation, AA finished with 8,517 students enrolled. Educators from 38 US states and two Canadian Provinces implemented the NASP® Academic Archer Program with their students. Easton Technical Products, a long time supporter and manufacturer of the only approved NASP® arrow, began discussions with NASP® leadership about the success of the program. Easton quickly recognized the value of the AA recognition program and gladly jumped on board as its financial sponsor.

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Now in its second year, the academic recognition program has currently reached over 10,000 students in 39 jurisdictions for their success in the classroom and enrollments continue through April 30th.

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Roy Grimes, president of NASP® said, "We are so pleased that schools and educators continue to see NASP® as a tool to motivate their kids through AA. We are certainly excited, along with our partner, Easton Technical Products to be able to recognize our students with this type of recognition.

Dr. Tommy Floyd, NASP® Vice President and General Manager was elated that the numbers for AA have continued to climb. "Educators tell us that AA is a tool for them to motivate their student archers to succeed in the classroom. We are especially excited about those students that have to work just a little harder to qualify as an Academic Archer – In doing so, NASP® is indeed achieving one of its long-standing goals of helping to motivate students for success in the classroom. "

"Our next step with Academic Archer will be to help provide messaging to all NASP® participants on the importance of being prepared for College and Career. While our students continue to remind us that they want to know about archery opportunities beyond NASP®, we want them all to be thinking about the appropriate steps that each of them need to take to be ready for life after high school, life after NASP®."

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For more information on beginning the Academic Archer in your school: Please visit the toolkit at: http://naspschools.org/instructors/

For specifics about AA criteria, visit

http://naspschools.org/instructors/attachments/1472614732.pdf

Or
Contact Dr. Tommy Floyd at: tommy.floyd@naspschools.org

It is our hope that every NASP® jurisdiction will enroll students in AA. We'd like to

see the AA numbers top 50,000 students someday.

It is our intention to increasingly

send the strongest of messages about how teaching archery as part of the in-school

curriculum can be important to the mission of educators. We believe that the more

we emphasize in-school archery as an extension of the classroom, the more that

educators can use programs like AA, and the greater likelihood that NASP® will be

around to motivate countless generations of young students!"