Great Academics for Pearland

(formerly Gifted Advocacy for Pearland)

Building a Bridge to Excellence!


 

[Under Construction]

Dr. Cain: PISD will have a staff member on GAP meetings to keep notes and circulate minutes.

 The purpose of this meeting was to present 12 key actionable concerns that GAP has concerning education excellence in Pearland.

Present: Watson, Cain, Cary Parton.

Lee Sterling: grad student from UH, consultant.

 

Watson: GT services are focus. TAGT convention 1999. Met president of TAGT, was told that Gifted Advocacy was needed.

 

Cain: breakdown in GT at administration level. Takes blame. What can we do?

            Minutes

            Rick Olencheck? President of NAGTC.

            Hired Lee Sterling to find problems.

            30 days hire. (Is that enough?)

            Lee Sterling will be present at GAP meetings.

            Make plan (Short and Long term Plan)

            Dr. White—San Antonio: Audit May talk to students, parents.

            Follow up with Board with audit report after Spring Break.

 

Disconnect between steering committee and administration communicating with parents (Bernadette’s example). Tracking system

 

Suzy reads the list:

  1. Children need to have admission to university of their choice. Now Pearland is a bedroom community. Not a rural community any more. Need to shore up our identity by having great schools.
  2. Commmunication system. GT School to parent is hard. Parent to parent is harder.School will be a mediator . Jeff: a sub group needs to be formed to address communication plan.
  3. Excellence track: optional
  4. IB at all levels.
  5. GT specific issues. Should kids be dropped? Sterling will address.
  6. Seamless system of GT education, K-12, defined philosophy.
  7. Generalized GT training ?
  8. Earlier cross-cultural identification. Consistency is not there.
  9. Establishment of school-within-school at E, M, J levels needs to be pursued.
  10. GT budget should  not be sidetracked to other purposes (Overhead, minimum expectations) Budget needs to be increased generally.
  11. GT and all that it entails should be accountable to the GT specialist. ??? Teacher support? Raise the bar at all levels.
  12. FPS e.g. available all through school.

 

Lee Sterling: Need consistency in GT at all levels of program. Looking for lots of outside activity. How do we as a district meet the needs of our students?

 

Lee Sterling will come to the next GAP meeting Feb 22nd 7pm in CR D.

 

Need to have a separate meeting for newly identified.

 

Overall, have a new plan all the way.

 

Bernadette will have list of “should do’s” to admin.

 

There needs to be an ongoing planning process with interaction from GAP.

 

IB program information needs to be disseminated.

 

ABILITY GROUPING

 

Feb 10th touch base—meet and get informational meeting.

 

March 29th, Information on IBO.

 

Summary:

            The parents group and the administration need to focus initially in four general areas:

 

1)      We need much better communication and follow up between GAP, GT Steering Committee, GT Parents, PISD Administration, and PISD Campuses

2)      PISD needs a more comprehensive and formal orientation for identified students.

3)      Ability grouping at the Elementary level is a very acute pain point for parents, students and teachers and needs to be addressed soon.

4)      PISD needs a comprehensive plan to raise the excellence bar at all grade levels.

 

 

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Last modified: 10/27/04