Magnet Cluster Parent Group (MCPG) Minutes 11/12/07

The meeting was called to order at Head Middle Magnet School. Thanks to Head Magnet for refreshments and a lovely setting for our meeting. Our special guest was the principal of Head Middle Magnet, Dr. Angela Carr. The representatives attending were

Charisse Shut from Head Middle, Rubye and Howard Patterson from Head Middle, Lavonda Bakori from Carter-Lawrence, Kristen Vaccaro from Hume Fogg, David Kern from Meigs, Habeeb Kotun from Rose Park, Louise Reed from Head Middle, Gillian Kotun from MLK and Rose Park, Alan Coverstone from Hull-Jackson, and Laura Daugherty from NSA

Alan gave the MCPG an update on the letter to the Mayor. He also sent copies to the media, but they ignored the letter. Mayor Dean responded promptly. He states that he will have a town meeting at a Magnet School, and he will try to attend one of our meetings. The MCPG decided to try and coordinate our meeting with the Mayor with the Town Hall meeting, unless an urgent issue with the Magnet Schools occurs.

PAC Meeting update: The PAC meeting after the Town Hall meeting at Donelson just discussed rezoning.

Most of the meeting was the PAC members trying to understand the rezoning maps. Some comments were made that upset Alan: Mr. Collier stated that a Magnet School at the elementary level would be impossible because of the many standards elementary schools have to follow (Hull-Jackson does have some trouble with this). Dr. Garcia said that John Early has not had a Paideia program in a long time and therefore the school should be changed to a zoned school.

At the rezoning meeting at Bass middle school, Alan said the people were mainly interested in McKissack.

Carter-Lawrence has special math and science programs that are run by Vanderbilt University.

One of the major goals of the rezoning is to have more neighborhood schools. This is to help parents be more involved in their children’s schools. It was agreed that the schools, the PTAs and PTOs, the Central administration, and the school board all need to work together to get the parents more involved.

The rezoning has pushed the Magnet lottery back into the second semester. The timetable is on Metro’s website. Parents will not know if their child has been accepted to a magnet program until after they need to commit to a private school. This will cause trouble for the magnet schools. The action taken by the school board on the rezoning plan will be: Approval, Rejection, Accept Antioch rezoning and look at the rest in 3 months, Accept Antioch rezoning and look at the rest sometime in the future. The last two options will cause trouble with the Magnet Lottery.

A program that is just a name is no good for anyone, so the MCPG needs to support our authentic magnet schools. Here is a list of actions we can take: 1) Communicate with parents about the Magnet Lottery deadlines 2) Tell elementary schools about the Magnet lottery deadlines 3) Talk to our school board members and get 10 other parents to talk to their school board members 4) invite school board members to the MCPG meetings

Remember: The Open-Mike meeting on rezoning is Dec. 4 at 6:30PM. The meeting will be at East Literature.

The Next MCPG Meeting will be at the

Nashville School of the Arts on December 10, starting at 6:30 PM!