West Briar VPAC Meeting Minutes

February 21, 2011

The meeting started at 4:15 pm.

In attendance:

Mr. Ohl, Ms. Hoyt, Ms. Fitzgerald, Ms. Robey, Jane Miller, Valerie Breunig, Laura Grobowsky, Cynthia Stange, Tara Blood, JulieAnn Baker, Sherry Campbell

Mr. Ohl

Mr. Ohl thanked parents who worked on the Open Houses. He also said that it was a good idea to have two Open Houses.

GT Parent Advisory Committee - Laura Grobowsky

Ms. Grobowsky is on the GT Parent Advisory Committee. She gave the contact names for people on the advisory committee at the different school levels:

Elementary – Ann Sledge. She would like to implement GT common planning, training for teachers and GT expos.

Middle school – Anastacia Lindo-Anderson. She has plans to work on the integration of GT projects and additional school training for school administration.

High school – Esti Arriaga. She wants to change to a springboard curriculum which would better align the curriculum. She also has ideas for an A.P. diploma, an AP celebration Saturday for AP teachers and a leadership summit for administration.

This committee can help to enforce high quality district programs. If you have any ideas for the task group, please tell Ms. Grobowsky.

Hamilton Middle School

Hamilton Middle School is working on a Texas Performance Standards product. The students work on it during advisory every day the whole year. It’s an independent project and it starts in 6^th grade. Administration felt that if West Briar took on something like this, it would be an 8^th grade project.

Laying the Foundation

Students will take the tests online at school at the end of the year. There will be a total of approximately 2100 tests being taken. Because of that high quantity, there’s a concern about the server.

GT program at West Briar Mr. Ohl asked parents at the meeting if West Briar is meeting expectations of what a GT program should look like and whether they want quality or quantity of work.

6^th grade comments

Science – Parents seemed happy with science. They commented that the students worked on an earth project which incorporated science, math and writing skills. It was interesting and challenging for the kids.

One parent mentioned that she felt it should be mandatory for students to keep a notebook for their science fair project. Reasons were that they’ll have to have one in future science fairs and it helps them keep organized on their project.

Math – Parents liked the POWs because it taught students to think “outside of the box”. Sometimes the problems are so tough that the parents can’t even figure them out. As far as frequency of POW assignments, it was agreed that once every two weeks is good. Once a week would be too often.

For 7^th grade algebra, Ms. Khurana and Mr. Inman will recommend which children should take that class. It will count towards their high school GPA.

World Cultures – It was mentioned that there are a lot of worksheets. One parent was not impressed with the class. It was suggested that maybe they do more writing.

Overall, the 6^th grade parents felt that 1 to 1 ½ hours of homework a night would be appropriate. Some were happy with the amount of homework given now, others felt that it wasn’t very much. Parents of 7^th and 8^th graders felt that 6^th grade was easy.

7^th grade comments

Parents were happy with science, history, algebra and English. They said that there was a lot of homework in algebra, but that was okay.

8^th grade comments

8^th grade parents would like to see more writing. They would like to see students have to answer some research questions to get them ready for high school.

Concerns about GT Funding for next year

The only real cost to the GT program is Ms. Fitzgerald’s salary. GT teachers are paid the same as other teachers. The only effect the budget cut may have on GT classes is that they may be more crowded.

The meeting was adjourned at 5:45 pm

Tara Blood

West Briar VPAC Recording Secretary, 2010-2011