Meeting Minutes
September 22, 2008
In attendance: Don Jennings
(president), Anita Haywood (VP – Programs), Judy O’Dell (at large), Holly Hart
(at large), Michael Kearney (at large)
August minutes – Anita moved, Michael seconded - voted to approve
Reports
·
Treasurer: Balance = $8729.
·
Programs: October General Meeting
will be held October 14, 2008
Website
·
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 Task Force (Task Force formed by EBRPSS to address March 2008 BRAGTS
Proposal)
·
1st meeting held 5/27/2008. School System staff distributed a DRAFT
report dated May 2008 titled “Staff Report: Gifted and Talented Programs Review
Committee”. This report listed pros
and cons of our 8 recommendations and a staff position statement on each.
·
2nd meeting was held 6/12/2008.
At this meeting, BRAGTS officers distributed the BRAGTS response to the
above-mentioned Staff Report. Our
response was not discussed at the meeting, but we were told it would be at the 3rd
meeting which has yet to be scheduled.
·
Mr. Sam presented a progress report
on the Task Force at the June 19th School Board meeting.
·
3rd meeting was held 8/13/2008.
Don Jennings was scheduled to present the BRAGTS response to the EBRPSS
Staff Report. This did not occur.
The team instead divided into three “action” teams to study the three
issues of 1) enhancing the programs at McKinley HS; 2) Implementing parish wide
screening for Gifted; and 3) Marketing strategies for the G/T programs.
Teams to meet then present at the next meeting.
·
4th meeting was held 9/22/2008.
This meeting was billed as the last meeting for the team (this particular
team will only meet again if the EBRPSS wants it to).
The items covered were an extensive discussion of adding G/T services to
o
o
The group boiled the options down to:
§
Add talented services (all grades) only to WHS for Fall 2009
§
Add talented service (all grades) and a ninth grade Gifted program to WHS for
Fall 2009 (adding a grade each year thereafter)
§
Same proposals as above but for a different – not identified – more
geographically centered site.
§
In the end, the Task Force members voted on the options, and the resulting
priority that will be presented to Ms. Placide is:
§
1)
Add talented service (all grades) and a ninth grade Gifted program to WHS for
Fall 2009 (adding a grade each year thereafter)
§
2)
Add talented services (all grades) only
to WHS for Fall 2009
2 people voted for talented only services, and the rest of the task force voted
for talented and 9th grade gifted.
o
Three “Action” Teams reported:
§
Marketing Team: has developed a
12-month calendar of marketing and publicity events and supporting data to build
an ongoing PR system in support of the G/T programs.
The information looks like a good base to progress with.
As a side note, due to hurricane Gustav, the EBRPSS will not have EBR mania this
year – instead having a series of open houses at the magnet and Gifted schools.
§
Screening Team: Has proposals for formalizing and organizing test and evaluation
data and using it to identify students.
Not as many specifics as the Marketing team – but still progress.
In addition, the EBRPSS has designated dedicated personnel to be
responsible for Gifted/Talented screening (a significant improvement that has
been discussed for at least the past two years).
§
McKinley HS Improvements Team: Mr. Brown was present but did not present the
team report which is still being developed.
o
Don Jennings presented a PowerPoint showing the original BRAGTS proposals with
the Staff Report Evaluations and the BRAGTS response to those evaluations (now
posted on the website). The
presentation was a series of excerpts from the three reports covering each
recommendation. There was limited
time for discussion for the presentation and some questions were raised by
School personnel, but it went well and was received well by the Task Force.
A point that was stressed in the presentation is to not view the G/T
programs as static in numbers but to instead view the recommendations as a path
to doubling or tripling the participation.
·
EBRPSS School Board is set to discuss Gifted and Talented Programs at the
October Board Meeting (October 16, 2008).
·
BRAGTS Board agreed to a plan of:
Next BRAGTS Board meeting Monday, October 13 – focus: review BRAGTS/EBRPSS Task
Force progress and set plan for Fall Open meeting on October 14.
Post reports on website and use e-mail to notify membership of reports
and Fall Open Meeting. Open Meeting
Tuesday, October 14 – focus: review of BRAGTS Recommendations and EBRPSS
Response.
BRAGTS Officers
·
Elections are needed for some positions.
Plan is to conduct the elections after the Fall Open Meeting – with new
Board members recruited from the meeting.
The members present at the August meeting unanimously approved an
exception to the By-Law requirement of August elections in order to conduct
elections after the Fall Open Meeting.