Anonymous wrote:These kids are being bused to a school which is not their home school. They probably do not know any other kid in the classroom when they enter HGC.

This varies. Our home school sent 8 kids my son's year--then clustered all the boys from that school in one class, and all the girls in another. (The way of dividing kids from home schools varies from year to year, but at our center, at least, they do seems to try to group kids who knew each other already. They also advertise their willingness to accommodate requests to be with one other child.) In addition, once there, we found that my child knew some of the other kids in the programs--from sports, summer camp, church, etc. All in all, there were at least 4-5 familiar faces in the classroom for my child at the start of 4th grade. Then they spend a lot of time at the beginning of the year helping kids get to know each other.

Anonymous wrote:There is a real need for connecting with other parents for car-pooling, socializing, birthday parties etc. There is a great opportunity to have a cohort of kids participate in extra-curricular activities.

All the things you mention--carpooling, socializing, birthday parties--can be done with a simple class email list or school directory, or with general emails to the school listserv. For things like carpools/bus problems, especially, it makes more sense to write on a listserv to ALL parents on the bus route. That way you can catch 4th and 5th graders, as well as kids at nearby bus stops.

Anonymous wrote:I asked about this at our HGC meeting, the response was that the administration did not want to enforce the idea that the HGC was a separate program and wanted all parents to integrate into the school community,

LOL. It is a separate program. These kids are being bused to a school which is not their home school. They probably do not know any other kid in the classroom when they enter HGC. There is a real need for connecting with other parents for car-pooling, socializing, birthday parties etc. There is a great opportunity to have a cohort of kids participate in extra-curricular activities.

I understand the agenda of the administration in not encouraging the listserve. I do not think that it is in the interest of the parents though.

Our class has one an there is only one HGC class per grade.

Nope, no list serve at ours.

I asked about this at our HGC meeting, the response was that the administration did not want to enforce the idea that the HGC was a separate program and wanted all parents to integrate into the school community,

We have a list serv for our HGC class but almost no one uses it.

Anonymous wrote:No mine did not. I think the schools encourage integration with the neighborhood families rather than seperate systems. Communications worked fine. Teachers e-mailed when they needed to on specfic topics.

+1. I think ours actually discouraged an HGC-only listserv.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've joined the school listserv and found it to be plenty.

What kind of issues would you expect to have on an HGC listserv that would be different than that of the whole school?

e.g. Bus transportation issues since HGC students typically have longer rides

We usually have about 12-15 kids get on the bus at our home school bus stop for our HGC, so the parents set up an email list at the beginning of the year to communicate about bus issues. It has worked well.

Regular list serve can be used to address issues of late busses or concerns. It is not like every issue applies to every kid regardless of class. We did not have any more bus problems going to the magnet than the neighborhood school (btw)

Anonymous wrote:I've joined the school listserv and found it to be plenty.

What kind of issues would you expect to have on an HGC listserv that would be different than that of the whole school?

e.g. Bus transportation issues since HGC students typically have longer rides

I've joined the school listserv and found it to be plenty.

What kind of issues would you expect to have on an HGC listserv that would be different than that of the whole school?

No mine did not. I think the schools encourage integration with the neighborhood families rather than seperate systems. Communications worked fine. Teachers e-mailed when they needed to on specfic topics.

I also hope the HGCs are organized enough to do this.

Which center?

Are the parents organized through listserv in your HGC? I am seeing PTA listserv but not HGC.