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Thanks Bruce,
I encourage anyone that would like to come and hear about this school in school idea to please come to this community meeting. Sponsored by local PTA's!
debora

Thank you to all the parents who came out to the meeting tonight.

I think there were some people who were surprised by a couple of PTA Presidents calling a community meeting.

Actually National PTA is a 100 year old ADVOCACY group. The mission of PTA is to advocate on behalf of parents and teachers, and this meeting should be a very normal part of what PTA can offer to parents and the community.

We have to begin to work as a team in this community for the best interest of the kids.

I know this is not currently the case. But if we want to work towards a cohesive, collaborative community, we have to start somewhere.

Thank you to parents for showing up to be seen and heard. And thank you to GCS staff and BOE members for showing up to hear us.

I believe we can work together to create the best possible transition for our kids.

The New Northern schools will be so great, and the Principals we have on board, Joe Yeagar at the High school, and Sam Misher at the Middle school are ready to work with the parents.

We can do this.

Terrina Picarello
Summerfield Laughlin PTA

"Your determination to success is more important than any other one thing"
Abraham Lincoln

Terrina,

Who from the BOE and GCS Admin showed up???

Alan, Darlene, Amos and Nancy came, and Dr. Thompson from staff. We presented alot of questions, acted fairly well, got a little cranky with some questions, and had good dialogue. Thanks to the community! And Terrina, and NWHS for letting us use their space!
debora

Debora and Terrina,

What kind of an invitation do you extend to board members to entice them to attend your meetings?

It must be nice to have a board member represent your district.

Susan, do you have to be confusin'
We're losing out minds, wastin' our time.
No other rep could ever take the place of you,
Though you've been hurtin' we,
those who'll always be, thinking of you.
Girl we love you...

The kind of invitation I gave was just the truth. We had lots of parents who needed to know what was going on with the planning for the new schools. There was quite a bit of confusion over just the Grandfathering issue, so we felt a meeting was needed.

We contacted our Board Rep, Darlene Garrett, and told her we felt there was a need to meet with our parents. She was supportive and offered to come to the meeting.

We also invited Alan Duncan, as the schools in his district were also involved.

Alan is very busy, but always tries to be at everything he can. He comes to almost every Council PTA event that we have. Even though he had a conflict, he made it to our meeting.

Darlene offered to ask Dr. Grier to have someone from staff attend to hear what the parents had to say. He sent Peggy Thompson and the new Principals. (Thank you, Dr. Grier) By this point, I felt I should extend the invitation to the whole board.

To be honest, I GAVE THE BOARD MEMBERS VERY SHORT NOTICE. I just had to grab a date and get it going, but I really did not give them proper notice.

Dr. Routh came, and also Amos came even though he had a conflict and had to run over after his other meeting. (Thank you, Amos)

Dot Kearns and Kris Cooke certainly would have been there if they were not out of town at the Legislative conference.

Again, I gave the board members less than a week's notice, and I appreciate the response I received.

I think board members have a lot of meetings to attend, and they try their best to make them all.
They put alot of time in for very little pay.

I appreciate the support from Dr. Grier and his staff. Peggy Thompson was just coming to "listen" but she was a great sport and answered questions for us. (Thank you, Peggy.)

The Principals, Mr. Yeagar, Mr. Misher and Mr. Stewart have been very open to parents.

And it is nice to have a board member represent our district! Thank God for Darlene.

Terrina

Sobering fact, not everyone is so lucky. Hey, that reminds me, what was losin' Susan's excuse?

Like I said, I gave her no real notice, and she was out of town. She did take the time to respond to me with her regrets.

It sure must feel nice to be so loved in that part of the county. What' the secret, Terrina? We couldn't even get our rep to SWH's graduation.
Only Nancy Routh came.

Several school board members went to others.

Thank you Nancy!

You are appreciated.

Susie's term is about up. She hasn't represented North High Point/Jamestown her entire term, why should she start now? She's got her mind made up anyway as to which map she likes--just as soon as Alan tells her that is.

I am officially, as a parent of a SWH junior who will be there as a marshall, inviting every school board member, Terry Grier, Mr. Becoats, Sonya C and whoever else from Central Office wants to come to the Southwest High School graduation this year.

I truly understand if you have to be at another graduation in your school district that day. Many of us would like to see some support for our school too. I think the time has come.

I would especially like to see our school representative there since it will be her last chance to show her support for the students of Southwest.

I hope Alan will come as Chairman of the Board and say a few words to our grads. We are proud of all of them.

I don't have the date off hand, but I know many of you read this blog, so you can check with Central office for the date to mark your calendars early.

We sincerely appreciate you coming out to see our children graduate. We are not just "High Point". We are Guilford County Schools (at least we want to be.)

Thank you and I hope you can fit us in.

Sincerely,

Barbara Ann

I will send an e-mail to all of your closer to the date, but please mark your calendars.

I think it is terrible that NHP parents have not been represented or supported by their board rep. THis is a representative democracy, so the deal is those that serve are charged with represeting their parents. Darlene certainly gets that, and it is just wrong for the NHP parents to have no one advocating on their behalf.

I still believe we should have the ability to recall board of education members. If you have a board member that flat refuses to support their parents and students in the interest of another agenda, parents should not be stuck with them for 4 years.

We need to lobby our congress reps to have recall legislation here.

COME ONE, COME ALL!!!
This Is An Invitation For The ENTIRE County...
If you are fed up with presenting your case to the Board of Education, only to get no answers, feeling frustrated... and have them simply do what they intended to do all along (waste our tax dollars) HERE is the next plan.

After talking to a few of the County Commissioners and asking their advice, we were told by one of the Commissioners, that the next step for us is to prevent the School Board from getting the additional funds needed to fulfill their redistricting dreams. So, come one... come all, to the Commissioners meeting this coming Thursday night, and enlighten them of what the School Board is really asking them to fund. Again, we were given this advice from a few Commissioners, who feel it will help us hinder this redistricting. The School Board is attempting to push this through very fast, before anyone can catch on to what they are really doing here, so let's do all we can. See you Thursday night. Remember, strength in numbers... let's make a show!

Just so everyone is clear, the meeting is at the Eugene street BOE location not the Court House.