First, let me say I appreciate Mike's schoolboard work. What a great guy to have on the BOE.
I know that people's email addresses are theoretically public info, but I am not going to publicize them unless the GPAC members say it is ok. I'll probably set up an email alias (yahoogroup or something like it) with the GPAC members on it. My first rule is not to surprise anybody ;).
I will send docs as attachments. Which ones do you need? GPAC meeting information has been posted to the Parent Resources page of the district gifted programs website at: www.chccs.k12.nc.us/Gifted.
As for the goals of GPAC, those I listed are a start. We need to develop, as a parent-lead group, the most important goals for the group. I anticipate we'll start doing this over the summer via email. I intend to capture the PAGE input from various emails, and try to develop a consensus within PAGE for the top 3 items that we should address. We'll see what the other GPAC members come up with, as well.
The main GPAC will meet four times- in September, May, and two times in-between. The Sept date is 3 Sept.
GPAC school representatives are tasked with meeting with the parents at their individual schools 3 times during the school year to report on progress and gather issues. I imagine they'll want to coordinate with individual school PAGE reps. We'll need to put them in touch with each other.
I think it is likely we'll create subcommittees to further work throughout the school year on specific GPAC issues.
I will work with Carol Horne and Jacques to figure out how to get a list of AG parents put together over the summer. I'll definitely work with Jacques to learn from the SNAC group.
I think putting together short progress reports for the BOE and Dr Pedersen is a good idea.
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From follow-on mails, so far I have the following issues:
High School:
* Lack of honors-level introductory courses (M Kelley)
Middle School:
* Deficit of academic electives at Phillips in comparison to Smith (M Kelley, others)
Elementary School:
* LEAP- why are so many kids coming from one school? What is the difference? (D Bauman)
* Children's progress- how do we know "is our children learning?" Once a child scores a certain level, it seems like their progress isn't measured further. (D Bauman, june2bwed)
* Lack of differentiation. For example, grade-wide math differentiation via flexible grouping was removed. (D Schanzer)
General:
* Parental involvement. How do we get more opportunities for parents to volunteer & fundraise? (D Bauman)
* Gifted Ed program evaluation at each school. How can parents evaluate how each school is doing? (D Bauman)
Emily Martine's work:
Emily Martine is the Scroggs PAGE rep, and she has been quite active.
On 8 April, she got together with AG parents from Scroggs.
I'll let her post the bulk of her information.
From her notes, here are the top concerns of the Scroggs PAGE parents:
| Parents have no way of knowing if child's needs are being met. Not enough communication on how/whether my child is being challenged. |
| We cannot wait until 3rd grade to start educating gifted kids! Need to catch their interest early when they are "on fire" and eager to learn or they will get bored with school. (Note: Several parents were passionate about this issue. Within the past year four very bright K-2 AG or N&E students have been pulled out of Scroggs to be home-schooled or sent to private school. Three of the four were exhibiting physical symptoms of the misfit between educational environment and their needs, which promptly disappeared when the children were removed from the school setting. We clearly have a problem addressing the needs of our highly gifted K-3 students.) |
| Lack of acknowledgement, other than LEAP, that there is a large spectrum of ability levels within AG and different kids have different needs. 175 and 125 IQ are as different as 125 and 75. Highly gifted has different needs than moderately gifted, etc. One size does not fit all. |
| Science! |
| MATH! (Too easy, too much arithmetic, not enough problem solving, need acceleration.) |
| Too much time wasted waiting for kids to be identified AG. |
| Entire process needs clarification. (Identification, testing, In class work, Pull-outs) |
Regards,
Rob Perkins
919 260 4309
GPAC co-chair (with Jacques Morin)
PAGE GPAC representative
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