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Notes from the President
May is the Membership Drive Month so bring a prospect to this weeks meeting. If you bring a guest who joins the club, those club members names will be put in a drawing to win $100 toward their Paul Harris fund. Let's get motivated!!
Kurt Toliver announced a new Paul Harris matching fund drive for the month of May. The club will match up to $200 toward a members Paul Harris.
Today is the next board meeting. It will be held in downtown Temple at Susan Connolly's office at noon, 8 N 9th street. This is a chance for all you red badgers to get to a board meeting. Bring your own lunch.
District 5870's outgoing GSE Team is currently in Japan. If you'd like to get a taste of what they're experiencing, go to http://gse2010austintojapan.wordpress.com/ to look at their blog. You can also subscribe to the blog there and then they'll send you an e-mail whenever it is updated. They are short entries but always include lots of pictures, so it's a quick and fun read!
Early Act First Knight
Friday May 21, 1:00pm - The Last Service Meeting & EAFK Knighting Ceremony of the Year
If you are interested in joining this committee please get with Barbara Bozon. To find out more about this program go to the Early Act First Knight website is www.eafk.org.
Last Weeks Program - By Judy Duer 
Last week was education week at Rotary when we followed up the honoring of the educators of the month with a program by Lanelle Holbrook, who is one of two teachers in the Accelerated Learning Center at Western Hills Elementary. The Accelerated Learning Center has been in operation there since 2006 and has been growing steadily since. The center is a self-contained center for exceptionally gifted students in grades 1-5. This is a step above the regular gifted and talented program. To participate students have to score at least 137 on the district assessment test and be recommended by the advanced academics committee. Even if a student is recommended, he or his parents can decline to put them in the program.
The program, which is called EXCELL (EXCellence in Education for Lifelong Learners) was patterned after the ACE program of the Carrollton Farmer’s Branch system. TISD was the 2nd school system to implement this type of system, and even now there are only 4 others in the US. Students stay within the program rather than going from class to class although they do interact with other students for art, music and Phys. Ed. There are currently 27 children in the program at Western Hills. They function way above their age and are taught in 2 groups with 1st and 2nd graders, and 3rd through 5th graders working together. If the student seems to be able to advance to a higher grade the teacher can just start giving them the curriculum for that grade and after a period test them for promotion.
Their math curriculum, which Ms. Holbrook teaches, is called Project M³ and is put out by Kendall Hunt, which is published at William and Mary, the premier source for gifted and talented education. English and Social Studies are integrated. The program recently received a grant to purchase Tech 4 Learning, software which allows the students to use digital animation to create a webpage to show what they are learning. As part of a “History Through the Arts” program, the children also get to go on education field trips. Some of their recent visits were to the Kimball Art Museum, the Waco Symphony, and the Browning Library.
As we learned through her introduction, Ms. Holbrook received the “Rising Star” award from Region 12 for her exceptional performance in her first 3 years of teaching gifted children. If her enthusiasm for the program is any gauge, I can see why!
District 5870 Information
The February, 2010 District Newsletter is currently posted on the District Website. The link to the district newsletter is http://www.rotary5870.com/Newsletter.cfm
Scheduled Programs for May & June
Please let me know if you have a program you would like to share and we will book them.
May 20 - Lakewood Elementary School to discuss EAFK
May 27- Lamar Eidson - Kids Against Hunger of Central Texas
June 3 - TBD
June 10 - Sheri Givens - Texas Public Utility Council
June 17 - TBD
June 24 - Rotary Assembly
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