[CSPS] Express Concerns to CSISD Board--7:00 p.m. Tuesday, January 18, CSISD Board Meeting

[Paul Parrish]

Lisa,

I'll be there as our "official" CSPS representative to this meeting.  I'll 
be staying for the entire meeting.

Paul

At 05:52 PM 1/17/05, Mahajan, Arvind wrote:
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>Regarding letter from CSPS member Lisa Ellis below, this is a good 
>opportunity to express your concerns to the CSISD board. Please let her 
>know  (<mailto:kellis at politics.tamu.edu>ellis at politics.tamu.edu) if you 
>can join her.
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Lisa Ellis [mailto:ellis at politics.tamu.edu]
>Sent: Friday, January 14, 2005 1:42 PM
>To: 'Jonathan Coopersmith'; 'Karla Eidson'; Paul Kellstedt; David 
>Peterson; Joan Wolf; 'Mike'; Mahajan, Arvind; 'Lisa Halperin'
>Subject: join me at the next school board meeting: 1/18
>
>Dear Friends,
>
>I'll be at the next school board meeting (7 pm, next Tuesday, January 18, 
>CSISD Board Room, 1812 Welsh, College Station).  I would dearly love 
>company.  I'm going to be complaining about the drastic cuts College 
>Station made this year in their funding for gifted and talented students.
>I know that there are other more pressing issues in the world of 
>education.  But this one is hitting my daughter, Susie, directly.  Susie 
>has special needs that the schools are not addressing.  They are so 
>short-staffed at College Hills this year that kids doing pull-out 
>enrichment rotate on and off for six-week periods.  This means the already 
>inadequate once-per-week enrichment is only available half the time.  With 
>TAKS and other tests coming up, the kids will be spending far too much of 
>their time doing worksheets, and far too little engaging their 
>intellectual curiosity.
>The district is committed to what's called the "SEM model" for g/t 
>education, and this model calls for at least one specialist per 
>campus.  This year, they are only able to fund one for every two campuses.
>I don't think it's a good idea to wait and hope that the legislature will 
>rescue our schools.   So  I'm going to ask the board to restore this 
>funding (you show up and sign a card to speak at the very beginning of the 
>meeting: thus, anyone who joins me will not have to stay for the whole 
>meeting, but can go home, or head out for a nice beer with me, instead).
>Thanks for reading all this!  Feel free to forward this message to anyone 
>else you think might be interested.
>All the best,
>Lisa Ellis
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Paul A. Parrish
Regents Professor and Head
Department of English
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77843-4227
(979) 845-3890
(979) 862-2292 FAX
p-parrish at tamu.edu
http://www-english.tamu.edu/pers/fac/parrish/