ACADEMIC
ADVOCATES YEAR END REPORTS
2000-2001
President’s
Year End Report
Our first
year began in early January of 2000.
We had a series of meetings throughout the spring working on our
purpose and mission statements. At one of these meetings the group
decided on the name LISD Academic Advocates Association.
By May we had developed a purpose and mission statement, written
our bylaws and elected our first set of officers.
We applied
for and received incorporation and our employer identity number in June.
During the summer Lori Horton and I worked on the 501(c)3 non-profit
application and received that status in a record five weeks.
During the
summer of 2000, Lori Horton was able to obtain the domain name
academicadvocates.org. Jennifer
Dawkins created a website for the organization which was running by the
fall.
With the
opening of school we began a charter membership drive that lasted
through October 31, 2000. We
had membership tables set up at most campus open houses, and also spoke
to many LISD groups about our existence and goals.
The Advocates have about 200 charter members.
Our
meetings are usually held on the 4th Wednesday evening of
each month. The meeting
formats have alternated between a business meeting one month and a guest
speaker on alternate months. Some
of our speakers have been Tom Glenn, LISD Superintendent; Bobby
Hawthorne, UIL State Academic Director; Dr. Bill Hopkins with the
Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin; and James
Sombathy, the Region XIII Gifted and Talented Director.
Recently,
the Academic Advocates have had the opportunity to give a $250
scholarship to a deserving teacher for a summer reading workshop. We had no applications for the student scholarship this year,
so the funds were saved for next year.
During the summer of 2001 the Grant Committee will be working on
finding grants for the eight grant applications we have received.
It has been
a pleasure to work with the officers and the membership of Academic
Advocates for the improvement of academics in the Leander Independent
School District.
Elizabeth
Frey, President
Vice
President’s Year End Report
One of the
first things we worked on after developing the bylaws and the purpose
and mission statement was a document detailing our goals.
We held meetings with interested ACAD members to develop the
goals. Then we summarized and discussed our goals in meetings with
several LISD administrators, including Tom Glenn and Monta Akin, to have
their input. The final
Goals document was presented to the ACAD group at a fall 2000 meeting,
where it was adopted. It
can be seen on our website or a copy is available from me.
We chose a
few short term goals to work on for the 2000-2001 school year:
-Website
-Recognize Academic Accomplishments
On website
On campuses with certificates and prizes
Academic competitions supported
-Apply for Grants
-Support Challenging Academic Programs
This is what was accomplished on these goals:
The website, academicadvocates.org, was
developed and used by us for most of the 2000-2001 school year until the
bankruptcy of the host caused disruption in availability.
We plan to have the website back and available to the public by
August 2001.
We helped recognize academic achievements by
posting them on the website, discussing them at meetings, and as Chris
Kay reports, helping to establish an Academic
Hall of Honor at Cedar Park High School.
We supported academic competitions by having a speaker from UIL
tell about academic competitions, and by publicizing results from the
academic UIL competitions of students from Cedar Park High School and Leander High School as they were
available.
We awarded a scholarship, as discussed by
Elizabeth Frey. We are working on finding grants for the eight grant applications we
have received.
We supported challenging academic programs
in many ways. Some of our
members are also involved on District and Campus Site Based Committees,
where they are able to support academic challenge in the schools.
Members of ACAD have spoken to the school board about our
progress and our goals, including our support for having more
challenging courses. We
have discussed what sorts of programs we would like to see in place to
advance academics and changes we think would benefit the students in the
district.
We also formed several Standing Committees. They
are: Membership;
Scholarship; Goals; Education Standards; Ways and Means-Grants,
Contributions, Foundations; Recognition; Web Page; Newsletter;
Nominating; Mentoring/Tutoring; Programs; Elementary; Middle School;
High School.
We have a solid core group of involved members, and
are working on many activities in the district to support academic
achievement. As we grow and have more support we will be able to
accomplish more of our goals.
Christina Cavalli, Vice President
High
School Coordinator’s Year End Report
The
committee for high school academic recognition began with a bang for
Cedar Park High School. An 8 x 10 color picture was taken of every
student who had made all "A's" for first semester. These
pictures were encased in clear frames and mounted in an Academic Hall of
Honor in the front entrance of Cedar Park High School. The front
bulletin boards were decorated with the pictures of the top five
students with the highest GPA for their class. This was quite an
undertaking considering CPHS had 201 students who made all
"A's".
Numerous attempts were made to coordinate something equally impressive
for Leander High School. Paula Barnett of LHS was willing to work
with a committee, but we could not find anyone ready to coordinate a
project for LHS academic winners. We will continue to try to
foster interest and get a program going there.
Chris
Kay, High School Coordinator
Middle
School Coordinator’s Year End Report
During the
2000 - 2001 school year, the middle school focus for the
Academic Advocate Association was to identify and document the following
information:
- What information is essential for students and parents to
better understand middle school at LISD
- What are the primary academic courses/subjects being provided,
- How are these subjects provided,
- What are the extra-curricular and campus organizations available to
students and parents,
- What are the LISD support services provided to the students and
parents to ensure academic achievement, and
- What are the internal and external resources currently
available to students and parents at middle school.
A member of
our association working with the Cedar Park Middle School Campus
Improvement Committee has completed a draft document with contains the
information needs noted above. This document will appear in
print by next school year. Members
of the association as well as non members will assist in evaluating this
draft document before final publication.
This first
year fact finding approach will help our association and LISD identify
our middle schools’ strengths and improvement opportunities. Additionally,
this campus improvement effort demonstrates the importance and
effectiveness of volunteering and collaboration with our schools.
John
Tristan, Middle School Coordinator
Website
and Public Relations Chair End of Year Report
This year I created a Web site where members and
potential members can go to find out about and join our group, learn
about the latest events in LISD, check the time and place of our next
meeting and read the minutes of our last meeting. From this site, we
advertised our scholarship and made materials available online,
announced projects and recruited volunteers, and created a forum for
LISD alumni comments. Our web site is a good starting point from which
to grow in the future. I also helped in setting up an easier way to
communicate via e-mail through a group mailing list. As a greater
percentage of the group subscribes, this mailing list will become more
useful. To add your
name to the group email go to our website:
www.academicadvocates.org and click on the link to “Join the
Academic Advocate’s Mailing List”.
Jennifer Dawkins, Public Relations and
Website Chair
Membership
and Grant/Scholarship Chair Year End Report
Membership
Our
membership campaign was off and running before school began. We had membership tables at many of the elementary school
open houses. We staffed
tables at as many schools as we had people to work.
Other
opportunities were used to tell the LISD community about our existence.
Elizabeth Frey spoke about Academic Advocates at many volunteer
orientations and PTA meetings. Pam
Manly worked in the community gathering corporate and individual
memberships. Aimee George
spoke at the Steiner Ranch Volunteer Orientation and was such an
excellent speaker that we were able to make Steiner Ranch the school
with the most members.
Charter
membership closed on October 31st.
The names of our Charter Members were placed on the web site.
The Charter Members included many administrators, teachers,
staff, parents community members and all but one member of the school
board. We ended the year
with 225 individual members and nine corporate members.
We will continue to list the corporate members on our website.
Information
about joining and a printable form for membership are included on our
website.
Scholarship
Committee
A group of
members worked on an application form and information brochure for
student and staff scholarships. The
decision was made that the first scholarships would be for $250.
We planned to give one each for students and staff. The application deadline was March 15th.
There were
no applicants for the student scholarship this year, and so we will
leave the money in the bank and accrue a little extra interest for next
year. We had six staff
scholarship applicants. They
were from staff members from Giddens Elementary, Faubion Elementary,
CPMS, LMS, and LHS.
A
principal, a counselor, and the committee made a selection based on the
qualifications. The
selection was blind; the committee did not know who the candidates were
or from which school they came. Kris
Galles from Leander High School was chosen for the scholarship.
She is an English instructor and coordinator of the campus’s
dyslexic program. The
scholarship money was used to attend a conference on dyslexia.
See our website for a picture and more information, including
scholarship applications.
Grant
Committee
The Grant
Committee met and designed a brochure and application for the teachers
to use when requesting money for special projects outside of what the
school district can provide. Our
first grant deadline was March 15th.
(We have since decided that we don’t need to have a deadline
for grant applications.) The
brochure and information was sent to all the campus principals who
informed the teachers about the grant application.
There were eight applications for the first deadline.
Applications were received for the following grants:
Zoology Center-Greenhouse, Bagdad Elementary Courtyard Garden,
America at War: World War
II Oral History and Multimedia Project, Reading Adventures, Science and
Social Studies Interchange: Linking
Geography and Weather, Microscopic Explorations, Recorder Roots and
Nature-Links Discoveries.
The
committee has met to divide up the work and is currently working on
letters of inquiry and several applications.
We have received a request to apply for a grant from 3M and have
several other local leads for grants.
Information about our organization has been placed on the
www.BBBCharity.org web site. This
was a requirement for one of the applications.
Our first
year has involved a learning curve, and we are steadily making progress.
Information about grants is on our website.
Pam Manly, Membership
and Grant/Scholarship Chair
