Slowly... but surely

In the Fall, PAGE will begin its fifth year of supporting parents of gifted-identified children in Keller ISD. In the beginning, PAGE Communications was a strong point - Website, The PAGE Pages, PAGE on-1-page, hard copies going home with children - an action supported by 3 dozen gt specialists at many KISD campuses.

In the last year (especially) PAGE Communications has taken a hit, analogous to that of many other parent groups, and parents that want-to-be-a-group throughout the State: not enough hands-on-deck, distracted by school funding events, mired in the struggle to do all that's possible on a highly localized (personal, my child) basis - in order to have our children come home happy, engaged, and academically fulfilled to their ultimate, individual limits !

Well, most of those communications vehicles are, more or less, back in place - with some new ones added, albeit not as current as they all need to be - the Website's sparse, but cleaned up a little, you can follow us on Twitter, find us on Facebook, there's again been a PAGE 0n-1-page attached and embedded in a few recent e-mail blasts, a few remaining gt specialists continue to get the word out, and even This 'Ol Blog shows some little signs of "current."

So for your "day job," or from your work-at-home desk, or in a previous life: are you a marcom person, a communicator? If so, there's help that you can lend, in these times of (funding) trouble - now, perhaps more importantly than ever, we can create and spin out to our parents "The Benefits of Belonging." We can raise funds to create and make available new incremental enrichment opportunities for our learners. We can support the social and emotional needs of our children, and our parents, through the SENG model discussion group that we'll offer again in the Fall.

There are Board positions still available, there are new Bylaws (to be official - June 7th) and with them, yet other positions and functions to better serve our members, and others in the North Texas educational community - there is a newly approved TAGT Parent and Community Advocates Division, there is a new Keller Science Council (teachers collaborating to create incremental opportunities related to science, and STEM), there is a district-originated 24/7 learning opportunity using the cutting-edge Safari Montage delivery platform ("Go on Safari," kids!), there are pilot programs of new instructional models on campuses throughout KISD, there is a new forum for parents, educators, and other advocates to voice opinions, make suggestions, and collaborate regarding the transformation of teaching and learning, there is... more.

The current financial (funding) climate (budget constraints and cutbacks), has created new dialog, and new collaboration. A lot (positive) has either happened, or is happening.

We haven't been the very best at communications recently, but we haven't been sitting still. Some of the old "mechanisms" have still been occurring - parent meetings in September, January, February, and May - the Parent Open House in November (part of the TAGT Annual Conference), the Picnic in October, Summer Scholarships awarded in May, a Statewide survey with an uptake of nearly 5% of all the families of gt-identified children in Texas!, a SENG group last Fall, a fundraising effort culminating in helping to send two Keller teams to the DestiNation Imagination 2011 Global Finals tournament - and one team that returned with a Third Place in the World, and a Renaissance Award to boot!

Communications... maybe a great way to start, would be to write info@kisdpage.com, or leave a VoiceMail message for a return call on 817.948.4903 --- and say: "I get the Benefits of Belonging," and "I may just be able to help, too" --- it only takes a minute.

If you were into Social Media, how would you help spread this word?
Here's to The Fifth Year of PAGE 2011-2012!