Good morning Seahawk Nation!
We hope you all had an enjoyable Labor Day weekend with family and friends. We have a very lengthy report, but please stay with me, as it is all incredible news to share regarding DMA and DMA Athletics!
As you all know, in 2019 DMA was selected as a National Blue Ribbon School. In order to be selected as a Blue Ribbon School, there are certain criteria you must possess to apply and be considered for the recognition. Earning your Blue Ribbon is a very prestigious recognition and in the education world is one of the highest achievements you can obtain as an educational institution. In a similar manner, the NIAAA (National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association) offers a similar award, the QPA (Quality Program Award). This award recognizes and commends excellence in the implementation and administration of outstanding high school athletic programs.
The NIAAA has become the first association to receive accreditation from AdvancED. The NIAAA champions the profession of administering athletic programs in our nation’s high schools and middle schools. No other body values, promotes, preserves, supports and stands ready to uplift the cause of the athletic administrator, as does the NIAAA. The NIAAA award recognizes excellence in implementation and administration of a high school athletics program. The Quality Program Award (QPA) also recognizes the continuing research and implementation of professional benchmarks and best practices through Evidence Based Criteria of Philosophy, Educational Compatibility, Mentoring Staff and Students, Program Safety and Risk Management, Program Access and Equity, Budget and Supplemental Fund-Raising, Personnel and Program Assessment, Technology, Sports Medicine, Innovation and Creative Leadership Strategies.
This past June, we submitted an application for the Quality Program Award (QPA) providing evidence of meeting the QPA standards. In order to be selected as an award winner, you must earn at least 80% of available points in each of the ten categories.
The NIAAA office informed us that that they will recognize Delaware Military Academy as an Exemplary Athletic Program! The Delaware Military Academy athletic program has been identified as a 2022 recipient of the NIAAA Quality Program Award at the Exemplary Level, the highest obtainable level! DMA is one of three schools in the entire country to receive this recognition this year. This national accreditation is something that makes us extremely proud! This validation process has given our school and community a great sense of Seahawk Pride, knowing that our educationally based athletic program is following the highest Best Practice Industry Standards in the country.
The Quality Program Award (plaque, banner, and commendation letter) will be presented to DMA at the 2022 NIAAA Annual Business meeting, held during the NIAAA/NFHS National Conference in Nashville, Tennessee. In addition, the Delaware Military Academy athletic program will be featured in the NIAAA Interscholastic Athletic Administrator Journal, on the NIAAA Website and in the E-Newsletter, as well as media releases to the local news outlets.
Big shout out to Mr. Jeanne who decided this was something he was going to take on and have DMA athletics recognized at the National Level! To be clear, no school in the State of Delaware has ever won this award and it is due to Mr. Jeanne’s persistency and dedication to DMA to make our school stand out from the rest.
We hope our cadets will see that through hard work, persistency and the desire to succeed, anything is possible. We will be acknowledging and celebrating this achievement in the very near future with our cadets and we look forward to bringing home the banner and hardware! DMA Athletics and DMA continue to Raise the Bar and challenge not only our cadets, but also ourselves as professionals to give our cadets and DMA family the very best, we possibly can! BRAVO ZULU Mr. Jeanne on an outstanding accomplishment. Thank you for caring so much about the Seahawk Nation!
In addition, we have a significant project currently underway to enhance our campus even further! Last year, we began discussions on renovating/transforming our parade field into a synthetic turf field and the black top track around it to a full pour track system. The purpose of this renovation is twofold. One, it will dramatically improve the aesthetics of our campus and two; it will provide all of our DMA programs a useable and safe surface for activities.
DMA has engaged the services of Sports Field Partners out of Florida for this project and we are very excited about the newest upgrade to DMA! Of course these projects cost money and we are reaching out to friends/foundations and others to help offset the cost. The project comes in at roughly $750,000.00, so it is no small undertaking to raise such significant funds. We will be reaching out to our DMA families for financial assistance in the coming months to see if you are in a position to help us obtain our goal of $50,000.00 from the DMA community!
As you can see, DMA does not just talk about what we are going to do, but there is action behind what we say. Again, we hope this leadership style resonates with our cadets and families and they see that anything is obtainable if you are willing to put in the work.
We will continue to reiterate to our cadets that the key to being successful and achieving your goals is to remain steadfast in pursuit of your goals, learn from your mistakes along the way, stay positive and stay the course!
All good things happening for DMA as we celebrate our twentieth year and we are thankful and humbled by how far we have come in two decades. We would not want to be on this journey with anyone else other than our awesome cadets, our alum, staff and families!
Kindly,
