Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Task force calls for parental involvement

The Gurdon Schools Closing the Achievement Gap Task Force met on Tuesday, Sept. 5, and heard a report on Benchmark test progress for all three schools and the Reading First program at Gurdon Primary School.

Both reports indicated that steps are already being taken by the district to make sure students tagged as under-achievers will have the maximum opportunity not to end up that way.

Charles Bullard, Achievement Gap Task Force chairman, told the group that one of the goals of the group is to get more parents involved with the learning process.

"The more parental involvement at home, the better the student will perform," Bullard said.

The group gave away two older school computers to parent for becoming involved with the task force.

The computers went to Michelle Thomas and Terri McClure.

Thomas, who is the mother of Harley Thomas, a 9-year-old fourth grader at Gurdon Primary School, said her home computer has a bad mother-board so the used one from the school task force would really come in handy.

"Our old one has gotten to the point where it would not even come on for 15 or 20 minutes," she said.

Bullard said giving older computers, with Windows 98 already installed, would continue as an incentive to get more and more parents to come to the task force meetings.

The drawings for computers will be conducted at the end of the task force meetings.

The Achievement Gap Task Force will meet again at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 14, at the Gurdon High School Student Center.

Gurdon Primary School Principal Rita Roe said fund raising efforts by the task force for school supplies to be given to those who could not afford them were successful.

Gurdon Superintendent Bobby Smithson thanked everyone who donated to the supply cause.

"Charles and Anita Cabe donated $1,000, and there were several who donated $100 or more," Smithson said.