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Submitted by Mary Jo Davis
1. 8 people were able to make our meeting; 4 steering committee members and 4 others. We suspected that a meeting in May
would not be well attended due to the ramp up of activities, however we felt attendance would be even poorer if we tried to
compete with the Tom Jackson presentation on April 19. Next year our last meeting will be in April!
2. REACH would
like to publish one more newsletter before the end of the school year. Please submit any articles to Paula Muhs at pmuhs@umich.edu
by June 1. The newsletter will be published electronically and sent to everyone on this email loop as well as put in the
display racks at all the school buildings.
3. We are still trying to get a summer book discussion group going. There
is interest by a few people for either a Mon or Tues evening group. We would start in late June or early July and go for
about 8 weeks. I would like to have a minimum of 5 people, preferable at least 8, to start a group. There are many great
books that deal with gifted/highly able children- the group will decide at the first meeting which book we will read. If
you are interested in participating, please email Mary Jo Davis at rmjdavis@peoplepc.com before June 3.
4. We discussed
the newly revived WC-AGE, Washtenaw County Alliance for Gifted Education. This group is an affiliate member of the Michigan
Alliance for Gifted Education (MAGE). Members of WCAGE are automatically members of MAGE and receive their wonderful newsletters
and invitations to conferences. MAGE is a major lobbying force for improved education for our gifted/highly able children.
WCAGE sponsors parenting seminars throughout the year as well as a Michigan Mentorship summer program for high school students.
WC-AGE also maintains a great library of books that members can borrow. We are encouraging all our REACH members to join
WCAGE as REACH decided we were not quite ready yet to be an organized affiliate of MAGE, charge dues, etc. Parents throughout
Washtenaw County are invited to join WCAGE. Dues for the year are $25 (which includes the money sent on to MAGE for your membership).
An individual membership to MAGE alone is $25.00 so this is a good deal. If you would like to join, please mail a check (made
payable to WC-AGE) to Ms. Marilyn Geiger, WC-AGE, 2680 Brassow Drive, Saline, MI 48176. Include your name, address, phone
and email address. Membership year runs April 1, 2001 until July 1, 2002.
5. Important dates for the next school
year were discussed. The steering committee will be meeting Monday June 4 at 1:30 and Thursday August 16 at 1:00pm, both
in the Brecon room at the district library. These will be organizational meetings for next year. If there is enough interest
by other parents wanting to join our steering committee, we will consider moving the August meeting to the evening if that
is necessary for other parents who are not available during the day. Please email Mary Jo at rmjdavis@peoplepc.com if you
would like to participate on the steering committee. It is also important for all current members of the steering committee
to attend the June 4 meeting or call(944-5023)/email Mary Jo prior to the meeting so we know if you want to continue on the
committee for this next school year. Our first general meeting for the 2001-2002 school year will be Tuesday, October 16.
Mrs. Barbara Saxton, Associate Superintendent for Personnel, Saline School District, will be speaking on the hiring/training/retention
of teachers here in the district. As we all know, the quality of our childs teacher makes all the difference to the success
of our children. This will be a time for parents to ask questions about who gets hired, what is the tenure track, how do
parents let the district know about an outstanding teacher, what to do if you have conflicts with a teacher, etc. We are
hoping to sponsor this meeting with another Saline parent group, Parents Who Care. It will be open to all parents in the
district and we hope to have a large group (at least 100). Please start spreading the word now!
6. The last
part of our meeting was focused on our topic- Summer Opportunities for Children. Barb Cey, our gifted and talented coordinator
put together some great packets of information for all the attendees. They included a 10 page list of Summer Excursions in
and Around Saline/Michigan. A handout on getting kids published if you have a poet or writer in the family. A list of summer
camps and programs as well as a calendar of local events. Barb has additional copies of this material if parents who were
unable to attend want to pick it up from her at her office in Woodland Meadows. Her phone number is 429-8000 ext. 3405.
Barb also had some books to share that revolved around kids and computers. Titles were: Internet Field Trips, Exploring the
World on the Net, Exploring the Presidents on the Net, Exploring the US on the Net and Power Point- Simple projects. Barb
thought she had gotten these in the educator section at Barnes and Noble.
7. Mary Jo and Carrie shared their
copies of the list of summer opportunities published by MAGE (another reason to join-members get a copy mailed home!). We
discussed several of the opportunities with which people were familiar including the Kids on Campus programs at Schoolcraft
College (continueed@schoolcraft.cc.mi.us) and the computer camps at U of M (http://campcaen.engin.umich.edu). The summer
programs put on by the Livingston-Washtenaw Math and Science Center (lawmasc@scnc.lesa.k12.mi.us) are very affordable and
worthwhile. Carrie mentioned the half-day week long sessions at the Natural History museum at U of Ms campus as worthwhile
as well as the programs at the Hands-on Museum. Carrie mentioned that if your child is at the young end of the Hands-on Museum
classes (ie they are in Kindergarten and the age range is K-2) your children will get more out of it than if they are on the
high end. She was unable to get her child placed with older children as they approached the top end of an age range. Someone
asked about foreign language opportunities and we discussed that Saline Community Education will have various classes this
summer, maybe including foreign language. They are definitely going to have classes in the Kid University series that was
started last summer. Their brochure should be coming out within the next few days. Lastly, Mary Jo passed around a list
of camps/classes that was published in the Ann Arbor news at the end of February.
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