A meeting has been organized to "P.U.L.L." community support for education.

The Scotland County Closing the Achievement Gap Task Force – called Project P.U.L.L., or Partners United to Lift Learning – is sponsoring a kick-off meeting Thursday at 5:30 p.m. at I.E. Johnson Elementary School as an information session for students, parents and community members.

Closing the Achievement Gap Task Forces are mandated by the state, according to the local group's co-chair, Pastor Darrel Gibson. He said the groups aim is to reduce the disparity between those who perform well and those who fall short.

"The two goals we have set in place are to educate the community, parents and the school on the need for collaboration ... and secondly, we want to initiate the collaboration effort," Gibson said.

This meeting is meant not just as a kick-off for Project P.U.L.L., but also to begin this collaborative effort, Gibson said.

"What we have found throughout the state as well as our community is that it is hard to get parents to the schools," Gibson said. "It's hard to get the information from the schools to the community. We are trying to have an event where we can pull all three of the areas together for the benefit of the child.

"I hope that everyone can leave from this event feeling that it has lit or has relit a light within them that says I will commit myself to do better, I will do more," Gibson said.

He hopes community leaders will leave the meeting with ideas of what they can do in their church or organization to help people.

"There are so many things that as a committee we think is causing this gap, but one of the biggest things is a lack of support," Gibson said. "People are made up of more than one area. In order for a person to be successful, you can always give into the cognitive area and forget that there are physical and emotional parts of a person. The best way for us to close this gap is for everyone to work together to support our students."

The community meeting will begin at 5:30 p.m. with a number of booths on services provided by the school system and community agencies.

This will be followed by a welcome and several educational sessions.

Sessions are organized by school level with a first and second session for each.

For elementary school sessions, there will be a class on preparing students for elementary school and a lesson in best practices for after-school programs.

The middle school sessions will be on character development and a gang free community and schools.

The high school sessions will be on goals for educational outcomes and the need for parental and community involvement in high schools.

A meal will be served during the event.