New school hours Not to add another issue to the list however, I hope that someone has taken the new elementary school schedules into account when planning the Center schedule for the school year. From what I understand, not every school is being affected by the shift. AIG schedules at the Center will be even more compromised if two schools are scheduled to attend together that are on different daily schedules.
AIG Center Attendance Schedule This is the schedule as it currently stands (it could change, but maybe not with the school year so close): Monday 9:15 Cleveland Elem Dixon Rd. Elem West Clayton Elem West View Elem Tuesday 9:00 Corinth Holders Elem Four Oaks Elem Meadow Elem Micro Pine Level Elem Riverdell Elem Wednesday 9:15 Cooper Elem Riverwood Elem Selma Elem West Smithfield Elem Wilson's Mills Elem Thursday 9:00 Benson Elem Benson Middle (5th grade) Princeton Elem Glendale Kenly Elem Polenta Elem Friday 9:15 East Clayton Elem Powhatan Elem South Smithfield Elem McGee's Elem Students who attend at 9:00 are dismissed to the bus at 2:00, students who attend at 9:15 are dismissed to the bus at 2:15. There is a first period class of one and a half hours (with a half hour lunch), a second period class of one and a half hours and an elective class of one hour.
Board of Education Just a reminder that the Board of Education meeting will be held today at 2:00. There will be a vote on revising the AIG Plan. The changes are of great concern to many parents. Please plan to attend to show your support for AIG. The meeting will be held at 2320 US 70 Business E in Smithfield. Look forward to seeing you there.
I can't be there and it's killing me!!! Can't get off work. PLEASE go to the meeting if you can. EOGs were never supposed to be on the kids and this is just another way to improve them. The AIG and above-level kids are going to be hurt over this. The at-level and below-level kids will suffer as well. Ever seen a bored kid in class?? They are disruptive..... Frogger
why do they have to haul them off to some other place? the liability insurance alone on those transactions has got to be eating up some pretty serious money. why can't they address different learning groups within a group of kids right where they are? can the teachers not handle teaching to more than just the lowest common denominator at one time? (i think they could) has the concept of flex groups or targeted learning completely escaped these people? parents should be upset that every school isn't serving aig kids, lowballers, and everyone in between efficiently. why can't the regular schools just serve every kid at their own level? a question for the ages i suppose. it was the same way 30 years ago when i was in the local school system.... imho, of course
All kids who are AIG cluster are supposed to be taught at different levels within their home schools now and in my kids' schools that is just what is happening. I don't know if that is because I have been lucky and gotten good teachers or if that is the case all around. The AIG center is something beyond AIG cluster, though. All AIG kids do not qualify to attend the center. The purpose of the AIG center, as I always understood it, was to provide a learning experience that went beyond just teaching at a more advanced level. The AIG center classes are less traditional. There is a lot more "hands on" learning and more emphasis on the arts and on developing creativity and imagination. Part of the AIG center "experience" is attending school with kids from all over the county. I don't know if that was the intention or not, but that is one of the things my kids liked most about attending the center. I was a bit skeptical about the center when my first child began attending - worried it might be wasting time that could be better spent on core subjects. I am not an "artsy" person, but I have been happy with the center and what my children have learned there. I hope it survives whatever changes are to come.
I'm just joining this board although I've been in this fight from the beginning. I just want to add what no one seems to have addressed. If one reason of bussing these kids to two sites rather than one is to increase instruction time, how is that going to happen? My child attends Benson and currently comes to Smithfield once a week and if the proposed split were to happen as proposed a few months ago, he'd still be coming to Smithfield once a week. So what time is reclaimed in that commute? I think the Board is trying to pacifiy us long enough to get the attention to die down and then they'll go ahead with what they've planned. They've hand-picked their committee who will give them recommendations that we, the parents, are suppose to go along with because our "peers" were included on the committee. I really hope that by continuing to attend the board meetings, by continuing to contact the board members and the Superintendent and his staff that we can eventually come to a positive result that will benefit our children. Communication is a big factor in all this and unless Dr. Parker and his staff are willing to be open and honest and give explanations that make sense and we can understand rather than simply saying "it's for the good of the children", there are going to be a lot of dissatisfied parents. And as for the Center itself, it's needs to stay as one as it is a wonderful program! The kids that attend are exposed to so much that their base school teachers do not have time to cover with them. The hands-on, student-student & student-teacher interaction cannot be matched simply because of the dynamics of the classroom at their base schools. The AIG Center kids thrive on the interaction with peers their own age and it's a wonderful learning tool for them. And I do think that the program should be stretched to five days a week but I will take the proposed two days that someone threw out. My child loves going to the center - it is the highlight of his week. To say it's a waste of time is nonsense.
Board of Education Meeting on August 12th Summary: Board of Education Meeting on August 12th Summary: At the Board of Education meeting on August 12th the room was filled to capacity. Others who arrived to attend the meeting were not allowed in due to fire codes. I believe that the strong turnout and the presence of the media influenced the final decision by the Board to delay the vote (for one month) on most of the AIG Plan. People have asked me to summarize the events of the meeting for those that were unable to attend. However, before I do that, I would like to address some misinformation that has been published in the media and announced by the administration at the Board meeting on August 12th. A couple of months ago, the parents sited an AIG expert from Connecticut, Dr. Gubbins. She had said that the proposed AIG Plan was poorly written and contradictory. During the August 12th Board meeting and in local newspapers ( http://www.theherald-nc.com/front/story/9027.html ), the administration claimed that the parents only sent Dr. Gubbins 20 pages of the AIG Plan, and she only thought it was poorly written because it was out of context of the entire document. This is untrue. Dr. Gubbins was not ‘sent’ anything. Rather, she was given a link to the web site http://www.aig.bravehost.com where she downloaded the entire 100 page AIG Plan in .pdf format just as many other people in our community have done. When you download a .pdf document, you do not have a choice to download only specific pages; rather the entire document is delivered to your computer. Dr. Gubbins was asked by the parents to explain and assess the heavily edited sections, but in no way did she see those pages in isolation of the entire document. That being said, I will now return the focus to the Board meeting summary. There were three parent speakers. Board member Donna White made a motion for the public to speak after the AIG presentation by the administration. Kay Carroll, the Board chairman, said that he would allow the parents to speak only before the administration’s presentation. A speaker asked the chairman to speak after the administration’s AIG presentation as it might answer some of the parent’s questions, or could raise additional questions. The request was denied. The first speaker spoke mostly on the legality of the AIG plan, since the revised Plan violated NC Statutes Chpt. 115, Article 9B. This Article mandates that the Board assign a committee of parents, school community, representatives of the community and others to help develop the plan. This was not done. The AIG Advisory Council had not been convened in over a year. There was also verbiage on the major changes to the document. The conclusion was that the philosophy and ability to teach above grade level should be clearly spelled out in the AIG Plan. There was no rush in pushing the plan through because it was not due to the state until 2010. The Board was urged to revise the AIG Plan in adherence with Article 9B, by including parental input. The AIG Advisory Council should be reconvened. This entire speech can be viewed at: http://www.aig.bravehost.com/BOE_speech_Aug12.html The next speaker told board members that their history of taking action on school issues with little public notice “leads people to assume that you have an unstated agenda”. He said that there were major communication issues between the Board and the parents and that the Board needed to address these issues to regain the trust of the community. He said that if the AIG Plan was watered down that the school system would risk losing their highest achieving students as parents turned to other options such as private schools, charter schools, and home schooling. The last speaker spoke on how if the administration continued to remove services from AIG without putting anything back in, that at some point you end up with nothing. She said that when the administration takes something out, they need to put something back in so that services would continue to be provided for the children. After the parents spoke, Keith Beamon, the Associate Superintendent gave a long presentation on the changes to the AIG Plan. Many parents felt that some of the important points he made were inaccurate. There was then discussion between board member Donna White and Mr. Beamon about the proposed change to AIG teacher training. After this, Ms. White asked Mr. Beamon for clarification on the proposed third grade testing. The discussion on the testing went on for a good length of time and requires some background information: In past years, the school administration has given an aptitude test (Otis-Lennon) to all third graders. For this coming year, the administration replaced this aptitude test with another aptitude test called CogAT. The administration then added an additional test, an achievement test, ITBS, to the equation. The intention is for all third graders to be tested for AIG, including those already in the program. When Donna White pressed Keith Beamon on whether these 3rd grade tests were purchased already, before the Board vote, he answered in the affirmative. When Ms. White asked whether the new tests were in the budget, Mr. Beamon admitted they were not. His defense was that the administration replaced the Otis-Lennon test with the CogAT test and that they were of equivalent cost. That might be the case for the change in aptitude test, but he didn’t mention the extra costs associated with the addition of the achievement tests. In the end, the Board passed the new testing component. They also passed the new teacher training. Per Donna White’s motion, the rest of the AIG Plan was tabled so the AIG Advisory Council could study the plan. The Council will present their findings at the September 9th board meeting. Let us hope that this is a fair and unbiased recommendation. In other news, the AIG Center building and program study committee has been established and will meet five times over the next few months. Again, let us hope that a fair and unbiased recommendation is presented to the Board by that committee. A parent I spoke with had an excellent assessment of this meeting. She said that she wasn't satisfied with the administration’s statements at this meeting as she still hadn’t heard anyone say exactly how these changes were going to help her child's education. She pointed out that the administration kept saying that they are doing this for the children, but they didn’t explain well enough, in a way that she could understand, what exactly they were doing and how it would benefit the children.
I think it was obvious from Beamon's speech - which how convenient that they decided this time to let him speak after the public speakers on the topic so that he could, as he did, attack what they had to say - and from how he answered Donna White's questions that he and the rest of Parker's staff had been assuming for some time now that their changes were going to be made and had been making plans (i.e. the new AIG teacher training) and purchases (i.e. new tests) based on their assumptions. I still feel that Parker and his staff are set on making their changes, as they most likely made sure to load the committee with people that think as they do. I only hope that they will make either the meetings open to the public or minutes from them immediately available to the public so that we can contact members with our thoughts and questions. Otherwise, we are truly being left out as we had no say in who was chosen for the committee and therefore have no voice otherwise. It just makes no sense that they are trying to make all these changes (i.e. splitting the Center into two, major changes to a plan that was just changed last year) and are trying to rush those changes through so fast and without any parental or, from my understanding, teacher input. Just looks fishy. I honestly still get the feeling that we parents are being railroaded into changes that we do not want as we feel they will not benefit our children. I would like to see, in writing, just how these changes will benefit not only the AIG students but all students, as Parker and his staff continue to profess. Simply saying they will benefit all and then throwing out words and phrases that only those “in the know” understand and can follow isn’t helping us to understand. I do believe communication is key but that has to come from both sides. Neither side can be so adamant about their wants that they dismiss entirely what the other side has to say. If both are true in what they say, then everyone wants to see the AIG Center, the AIG students and all Johnston County students benefit from an excellent program. But if Parker and his staff continue to try and make changes on the sly, it only leads to distrust by the rest of us which will only make this process a lot harder than it has to be.
AIG Council, membership list THere are two different AIG councils that have been put together, one for studying the AIG Plan to be presented to board on September 9. The other for studying program and Center. I only have one of the membership lists, which is the group for studying the program and Center. These members are listed below.Make sure if you have opinions, questions, comments you share them with one of the members. Dorothy Johnson, Board Member Susan Alibrandi, Parent Harwood Bond, Parent Haywood Daughtry, Parent/Advisory Team Member – Glendale Kenly Crystal Roberts, Parent Deborah Rosenberg, Parent Lori Key, Parent Lisa Gainey, AIG Teacher Becky Russell, TISS Nan Massengill, Advanced Placement teacher Sonya Kiser, High School Teacher Bobby Cox, Media Specialist Debra Westbrook, Middle School Teacher Rose Hayes, Elementary Literacy Specialist Ambar Mejia, English as a Second Language Teacher Michelle Casey, Exceptional Children Teacher Kirk Denning, High School Principal Dee Edmondson, Elementary Principal Kathleen McClamb, Middle School Principal Sheila Singleton, Middle School Principal Brian Vetrano, Elementary Principal Keith Beamon, Associate Superintendent – Curriculum and Instruction Services Ann Williams, Associate Superintendent – Facility Services Chris Godwin, Executive Director-General and Gifted Education Kay Hewitt, AIG Center Director
I sincerely hope that some of the schools' PTA/PTO/PTSA groups are considering Candidate Forums this fall so 'We the People' can truly get a glimpse as to which candidates will be a voice for the Parents on the Johnston County Board of Education or a voice for Dr. Parker. I challenge the PTA/PTO/PTSA's to hold Forums all across the county so 'We the People' have the opportunity to meet the candidates across every area of the county.
This is one of the threads in which Lori Key was instrumental in organizing folks last year in regards to the AIG. Thoughts and prayers to her family.
