Meeting Minutes -- December 9, 2008
In attendance: Don Jennings
(president), Debra Borskey (president-elect), Holly Hart (VP Public Relations),
Sherry Scardina (Member At-Large), Anita Haywood (Member At-Large), Hongwei Zhao
(Secretary)
November minutes – group voted to approve
Finance
·
Balance = $8729
·
Discussed having dues at some point – but not yet.
Advantages include finances and members feeling more as stakeholders,
disadvantages include disincentives for members to join.
·
Motion made and passed for BRAGTS to sponsor up to $50 per grade level for the
spring Gifted grade level activities. Motion:
All G/T program on 1st week of April, $50.00 per grade (prek-5th
grade), total: $350.00 Holly Hart, Anita Haywood, second.
·
Discussed ways to support teachers taking classes for Gifted certification.
Potential of some form of scholarship for G/T Teacher certificate, (50 hour
training). No decision made – will
have to evaluate further.
Website
·
Don will email June – Nov meeting minutes to Holly to add to the website.
·
Holly has been adding the BRAGTS and EBRPSS G/T reports to the website – website
is progressing well.
·
Near Term: Holly Hart will
transition with Richard Truman to keep the current website up to date.
·
Longer Term: Holly will lead effort
to evaluate options including rebuilding website from scratch on a different
service provider. All recognize
what a significant undertaking this would be, thus the need to study our
options.
Gifted/Talented Office Report (Sherry Scardina)
·
“Spotlight” Magazine is out, Catalog of schools is coming.
·
Two EBRPSS Schools listed in the December 4 US News and World Report listing of
best schools: Baton Rouge Magnet HS
(Talented Program) and McKinley HS (Gifted and Talented Programs).
BRAGTS will try to get a link on our website.
·
The number of identified Talented students is increasing.
·
The Gifted Assessment Team has set up a staggered schedule for site referrals.
·
EBRPSS is preparing a Gifted Letter to send to Kindergarteners testing in the
top 10%.
Future BRAGTS Meetings
·
Discussed a Winter Meeting in February in which we invite speakers representing
summer programs for Gifted/Talented children to present information on their
programs (as was done in February 2008).
Also discussed having several subjects presented at once in separate
rooms (summer programs in one room, other topics in other rooms).
Board will finalize plans in January meeting).
·
Spring Showcase will again be held in April.
·
The Board voted to conduct future meetings at 7 PM on the second Tuesday of each
month – meetings had previously been held on Mondays but the Board decided to
make the change as Tuesdays were a better fit for everyone’s schedules.
·
Next Board Meeting: January 13, 2009.