BRAGTS Upcoming Events:
The next BRAGTS Board Meeting will be held on Tuesday, November
11, from 7:00 - 9:00 PM in the Camellia Room of the IRC
Building.
The IRC (Instructional Resource Center) is located at 1022 South
Foster Drive - next door to the school offices. We will elect
officers and Board Members at this meeting. Please consider this
invitation to participate in BRAGTS.
BRAGTS
is looking for persons interested in serving as Officers and
Board Members. Several of our members have extensive years of
service and their children have either graduated or are near
graduation from the EBRPSS. BRAGTS is established to support
Gifted and Talented Education in the EBRPSS. We will accomplish
this goal best with a diverse membership representing all areas
of the parish.
Recent School Board Actions and
Improvements to the Gifted Program:
The EBRPSS School Board held its regular meeting on Thursday,
October 16, 2008. At this meeting, school administration
officials presented an update from the EBRPSS Task Force that
met over the summer to discuss the BRAGTS proposals and other
recommendations.
At this meeting, the school administration recommended and the
School Board unanimously approved a motion to:
1) Establish Talented Services for all Grades at Woodlawn HS in
Fall of 2009.
2) Establish Gifted and GREAT Scholars programs for grade 9 in
Fall 2009 and add one grade each year through 2012.
Other recent actions:
In April, the School Board approved accelerating the addition of
Self-Contained Gifted classes at Parkview Elementary. Parkview
has Gifted classes for K-2 this year and will have
Self-Contained classes for K-5 in Fall of 2009.
The GREAT Scholars program has been added at all Gifted Middle
and High School sites.
Advertising and publicity has increased and the Gifted/Talented
Programs were included in the EBR Mania event in 2007.
A procedure for Universal Screening of Kindergarten students for
Gifted services has been implemented for the 2008-2009 school
year. To help accomplish this, a four member dedicated appraisal
team has been established to focus on testing and evaluating
Gifted/Talented students.
These changes were supported by BRAGTS Officers, Board Members,
BRAGTS Task Force members, and supporters of Gifted/Talented
education over the past year. THANK-YOU to everyone that
attended the meetings, contacted school administrators and
School Board members and attended the School Board meeting on
Oct 16 and previous meetings over the past year. Everyone's
efforts combined to make a difference in these programs and to
assist with the changes that are being made.
BRAGTS Recent Events:
10/14/2008 - General Fall meeting was
held.
06/04/2008 -
There will
be a general meeting of our Association on Monday, June 9th,
from 6:00 pm until 8:00 pm in the Veranda Room of the IRC
Building on South Foster. We will be discussing the latest
developments with regard to the proposal (link at our
website) which we submitted to the School Board and EBRPSS
staff in March. Please try to attend if possible so that we
may get your input in this important endeavor. Feel free to
bring your children.
03/04/2008 - The BRAGTS Task
Force has completed its recommendations addressing critical
issues in the EBR Gifted Program. The Task Force
Recommendations have been posted to the web site and are being
circulated among EBR System Administrative, Professional and
Board personnel. We are asking Members to support these
proposals and contact their Board Member with personal comments.
11/14/07 – BRAGTS hosts the 2nd
Task Force meeting with 18 in attendance.
At this meeting, the leaders of the
subgroups report on their progress over the prior two weeks.
Mr. Paul Vallas speaks of his experiences in establishing
programs in Phildelphia, Chicago, and (currently) New Orleans
school districts.
11/01/07 – BRAGTS hosts the first
Task Force meeting with 15 in attendance.
At this meeting 6 subgroups were formed to
deal with specific issues relating to areas of interest and
breakout brainstorming sessions were conducted.
10/23/07 – BRAGTS Fall General
Meeting
At this meeting, many parents of gifted
children and gifted teachers spoke passionately about their
concerns for the future of the gifted program. The majority in
attendance strongly favored dedicated gifted sites. A Task
Force of volunteers is formed to address how to best implement
dedicated gifted sites. Approximately 120 were in attendance.
10/16/07 – BRAGTS Board Meeting with
EBRPSS Superintendent and Staff
At this meeting, the BRAGTS board asked
Charlotte Placide, EBRPSS school superintendent, to form an ad
hoc committee to determine how best to establish dedicated sites
for the 2008-2009 school year. However, Ms. Placide is pursuing
a more cautious approach and does not see the need to created
dedicated gifted schools at this time.
October 2006 – BRAGTS conducted a
survey of its membership. 140 completed surveys were received.
Over 98% of the respondents strongly favored the created of
dedicated gifted schools.
Current
enrollment statistics for the EBR G/T Program
(click here, *.pdf requires Adobe)
Background history of our Dedicated G/T Schools Agenda
(click here, *.pdf requires Adobe)
