Education Focus - November 2006

Education Focus - November 2006

Written by Rachel Youens Tuesday, 07 November 2006

Sometimes even parents need to go back to school

To help the LISD parents learn new tips and tricks to raising successful students, the Parenting A Champion Kid program is sending them back to class.

The PACK workshops are part of the district’s initiative to prevent truancy, violence and substance abuse and is funded using the Safe School, Healthy Students grant awarded in 2003.

More than 300 parents attended the first PACK workshops last year, which addressed topics such as drug abuse and bullying. This year’s workshops were developed using feedback from last year’s sessions.

“The evaluations were wonderful the first year. The people who came really wanted more information,” said Mary Ann Kluga, LISD substance abuse prevention coordinator. “They wanted to know what they could do to help their children.”

Kluga, a psychiatric registered nurse and a licensed chemical dependency counselor, writes the curriculum for the workshops.

The session features the True Colors technique, which pinpoints the differences between a parent’s personality type and a child’s on a personality scale and then bridges that gap.

“These are interactive, fun sessions, where parents can meet and network, and learn what problems other parents are having and methods they’re using,” Kluga said.

The workshops teach parents strategies they can use every day for building healthy kids.

“Parents will find themselves saying ‘I can do that’ or ‘I hadn’t thought of that’,” Kluga said, “or maybe even ‘well good, I’m already doing that’.”

PACK Workshop information

Next workshops - January 9,10,11 and March 6,7,8

Canyon Ridge, Wiley and Cedar Park Middle Schools

11 a.m. - 2 p.m.

Classes are free, open to parents of all grade levels and lunch is provided; there is limited space so parents are asked to register by calling 434-5395.

LISD changing elementary school boundaries

The elementary attendance zone committee, comprised of 104 parents and community members, will begin designing new school boundaries for the 2007-08 school year to relieve crowding.

Designing new boundaries isn’t an easy task, but it becomes especially complicated when human factors are taken into account. The committee formed a list of “characteristics of a good decision” factors that should be taken into account as the boundaries are designed such as considering the amount of time a child will spend on the bus and drawing the zones so that students who already walk to school will continue to be able to do so.

Another aspect the committee must consider is the two new elementary schools due to open in 2008-09. The committee hopes to draw the zones so that students won’t have to change schools in the 2007-08 school year and then change again the following year. These new schools, #20 and #21, will be located in the River Place subdivision and the Grandview hills subdivision and will relieve crowding at Bush, Steiner Ranch and Deer Creek elementaries. The committee is reviewing 18 plans submitted by members.

LISD, with a student population this year of 7,538, has added more new students in the last five years than any other district in the area.

The demographic report projects that in the next ten years, if the district keeps with its current population growth, LISD will need 15 new elementary schools.