1st meeting update

All I can say is wow! What a great start to our new group! There are so many things we want to accomplish and can! I thought I’d be lucky to get 30 people there on a Wednesday night in the rain, especially since I had heard from so many who said they couldn’t attend. I ran 30 copies of the registration form & quickly ran out. I’m guessing attendence to be over 60 people! That is quite remarkable.

Now we need to get more formalized with some volunteers to help keep the momentum going. These are some of the board positions we’ll need pretty immediately:

President
1st VP – Programs
2nd VP –  Membership
3rd VP –  Funding
Treasurer
Secretary
Parliamentarian
Legislation
Communications-newsletter/webmaster

Someone at the meeting had suggested having a game night for the kids & I think this would be a great idea. I think it’d be a great committee position. There are I’m sure lots of other committees that could be formed. Please email me as to which committee or position you might be interested in helping with.

I will also work on putting together a survey so we can find out the best meeting night, programs, dues (yes we need dues to operate), etc.

Finally, here are some notes on the meeting last night. Many thanks to Robbie Hague for taking notes directly in my computer so I didn’t have to retype them.

GT Parent Support Group  9.16.2009

Josh Waitzkin “The Art of Learning”

RichardsonGifted.com

Goal: To have an open communication between all the parents involved.

Brainstorming

-         Experiencing frustrations at schools.  Would like to know what district’s commitment is to GT.  Specific magnet school for GT kids?

-         Anxiety about children getting bored in class . .losing interest.  Why are there no other classes available?  How can we challenge our kids?

-         Improve what RISD offers.  Pullout system vs. separating classes by ability.  Need to work together closely with district while not becoming “those parents.”

-         More differentiated instruction between level groups in heterogeneous classes.

-         Resources dealing with social and emotional issues.

-         Game night for GT kids.  Bring board games, buy pizza and kids get to hang out with other kids like them in a non-educational environment.  Possibly at same time as parent meeting?

-         Could the classroom teachers get some GT training so that they know how to teach our kids?

-         There is no communication between REACH teachers and classroom teachers.

-         Info on self-paced program to maybe be used in schools?  If it’s already in place, are the teachers using it?  (Reggio learning. . ..emphasizes creation collaboration and creativity.)

-         How do we motivate our kids to get through the “boring” work to get to the more interesting work.

-         It seems that district can pullout for reasons like ESL or reading when they want to.  Why can’t they pullout for GT?

-         Want to get the point across that differentiated instruction does no equal “more work.”  It is different work that is tailored to the GT needs.

-         “Teaching Gifted and Talented Kids in the General Classroom”

-         What can we do at our own home schools?  In non-adversarial way to support our teachers

Sorry for the lengthyness of this email, but there was so much to cover. Please check the website throughout the weekend for updates on other events. Don’t forget to email me the area in which you can help!

Bonnie Abadie