Over the last few weeks, Congress has taken significant steps to eliminate the only federal investment focused on high-ability, disadvantaged students, the Jacob Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act.

Thankfully, Congressman Courtney (D-CT) and Congressman Gallegly (R-CA) are leading the effort to reinstate Javits funding by asking their fellow members of Congress to sign on to a letter to the powerful Appropriations Committee (the body that makes federal spending decisions).

We need your help! Contact your Representative and urge them to sign on to the Courtney-Gallegly letter TODAY! Congress will only act if their constituents make it a priority!

NAGC suggests you use CEC’s Legislative Action Center. It will to make contacting Congress easy and fast by providing a sample email and contact information.

Our nation is failing high-ability, disadvantaged students; don’t let Congress continue down this path.

Take Action Today!

A refresher about the Javits program:

While the Javits program is small by federal standards, funded at $7.5 million last year, it impacts thousands of students, teachers, and schools across the country.

Studies are showing a growing gap at the highest achievement levels between low income students and their more advantaged peers. Our nation is failing to serve high-ability, low income students. The Javits program directly addresses this issue. It focuses on developing strategies to identify and serve students who traditionally have not had access to gifted education programs. Because of work done through the Javits program, teachers have been trained to better understand how to identify high ability in students and modify curriculum to meet their needs. If the Senate eliminates the Javits program, this work will end.

Additionally, the Javits program solely funds the National Research Center on Gifted Education. The elimination of funding for the Javits program would result in closure of the Center and a tremendous loss to classrooms. The mission of the center is to develop best practices, which have been disseminated and implemented in schools across the nation.

Programs funded through the Javits program include a program that helped to serve as a model during the redesign of QUEST, and one that is being used by the Washington State Highly Capable Technical Working group as it works on its recommendations to the Quality Education Commision and the Washington State Legislature.

• Identifying and Recognizing Giftedness
• Challenges of Parenting Gifted Children
• Underachievement Issues and Twice Exceptionalism
• Gifted Minorities, Gifted Boys, and Gifted Girls
• Misdiagnosis and Depression in Gifted Youth
• Advocacy for Gifted Children, Teaming with Educators and Legislators
• Parenting Supports and Resources

We’ve linked to each of the newsletters on SENG’s site if you missed this fantastic information the first time around.

Representatives from ABC have been working with SENG in advance of their 2011 National Conference which will be held in Seattle.  We’re looking at ways to bring more of the tools that SENG has developed to our parents during the coming year.  Be sure to check out the newsletters and the articles they’ve made available.

All current QUEST and PAGE students and their families, as well as all new QUEST and PAGE students for 2010 – 2011 and their families are invited to attend.

Two Sisters Concessionaires will be back with Kielbasa Meals available for purchase for $7, and Hot Dog Meals for $5.  Also available for purchase will be Shave Ice (provided by the Foulon Family), cookies, and drinks.  There will also be a 30 foot long inflatable obstacle course for QUEST families to enjoy.

This year has provided us with some significant challenges as we’ve adjusted to the district’s new regional model, but we’ve had some amazing victories.  Thank you for helping us make those victories possible.  Come celebrate all we’ve accomplished this year!

Volunteers are needed between 3:15pm and 6:00pm to help with setup for the event, from 6:00pm to 8:00pm to help us keep things running smoothly, and from 8:00pm to 8:30pm to help with cleanup.  Please contact amyprez@comcast.net if you are available to volunteer.

Parents of gifted children often struggle to understand how to best need their son or daughter’s needs. When a gifted child has some type of puzzling behavioral, social, or learning challenge, this struggle can intensify which can result in numerous visits with professionals and people in the know.  This “quest for help” can be a very frustrating and exhausting experience. In this webinar, Dr. Curtis will begin with a description of the pathway of the “quest for help” that so many parents of gifted children take.  This will be followed with a presentation on the common characteristics of gifted children, how gifted children are identified, common controversies and myths, and how gifted children are often misunderstood and mislabeled as having something else.  Parents will then learn about possible educational options and ways to create/implement a strength-based strategy of success.  The goal of this webinar is to help parents better understand the needs of their child, know how and when to intervene, have a better understanding on who to turn for help, and feel more empowered to help their gifted child find success.  By participating in this webinar, parents and caregivers will find that the quest for help is much less costly and more effective in the long run. 

ABC is hosting a special group night in the library at Stewart Elementary to participate in the webinar.  The webinar will begin at 7:00pm on April 15th.  To register for the ABC viewing of the webinar, and receive a free download of the webinar presentation, a $40 value, please send your name, child’s school, and number of adults attending to president@questabc.org.  We will pay the registration fees for any parents joining us at Stewart.

For more information on the webinar, or to register to participate from home, please visit the SENG website at www.sengifted.org.

Before the webinar, at 6:30pm, families from Stewart, Meeker, and Karshner are invited to meet Anne Hoban, Principal of Stewart Elementary.  The QUEST Regional classrooms that have been hosted at Meeker are moving to Stewart beginning next year, and many  parents have expressed an interest in being able to meet Mrs. Hoban.  She has welcomed us into her school and is excited to work with us to support our QUEST students.

The Read-A-Thon is our most important fundraiser of the year.  ABC uses donations to support you, your teachers, and your classrooms.  ABC has paid for computers, printers, field trips, and professional development for your teachers.  So far this year we’ve also hosted the back to school ice cream social and the pool party.  We’re working on adding more opportunities for parents to share their experiences and learn from each other.

Every minute read counts.  Please use the pledge sheet on the Read-A-Thon envelope to keep track of the pledges you receive and the minutes you read.  Checks can be made payable to ABC.  We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit and all donations are tax deductible.

Be sure to put your name, grade, phone number, teacher, and school on your Read-A-Thon envelope.  Donors have pledged to provide prizes to every student who raises $40 or more during the Read-A-Thon.  Gift cards have been donated for the student in each grade who raises the most money.  There are also classroom awards for the class that earns the most money and the class that has the highest average number of minutes read per student — each will receive an ice cream party.

Reading that counts:

1. Reading aloud to other people counts, and having others read to you counts.

2. Reading aloud to the cat, the dog, or the fish counts.

3. Reading in a tree, on a bus, in a car, on a plane, in a hotel and under the bed covers with a flashlight counts.

4. Assigned reading counts.

5. Reading comic books, newspapers, or magazines counts.

Reading that doesn’t count:

1. Reading that you think you will do in the future if you have extra time does not count.

Important Tips:

1. Use a clock, timer or stopwatch to keep track of your reading time. No guessing.

2. Keep your reading record handy at all times.

3. Do not go door to door to collect pledges and do not ask strangers. Your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, babysitters, doctors and family friends are all good choices.

 Please return your completed Read-A-Thon packet and your collected donations to your classroom on Friday, April 9^th.

Second graders, and students who’ve filled their pledge sheets can download a copy of our pledge sheet here.

Gifted Education Day 2011

We are scheduling GEDay 2011 for Friday, February 11, 2011. The 2011 Legislative session will be a long session budget year and the formulas for school funding will have changed. We have no idea of what this will mean for highly capable program funding as part of basic education so we will need a good showing on Feb. 11 to put our case for adequate funding before the Legislature.

2010 Legislative Session

Well, it is finally over! I want to summarize our actions in the Legislature this session.

1. SB 6604 originally contained a clause for highly capable funding “as funds may be available” which we felt would hamper proper funding for years to come. After our testimony this section of the bill was removed and has not reappeared in the version which passed the Legislature and has gone to the Governor for signature. We consider this a substantial victory.

2. HB 2776 for implementation of educational reform in Sept. 2011 has passed the Legislature and gone to the Governor for signature. Highly Capable Programs will become a mandated part of basic education beginning September 2011 with special supplementary funding. This will complete our victory of last year in being made part of basic education.  You must be aware however, that this does not mean more money for highly capable programs as the funding formula is based on the 2009-2010 budget appropriations.

3. SB 6696 also passed the Legislature and has gone to the Governor for signature. This bill contains the other measures needed for education reform, such as accountability for low performing schools, teacher, principal and superintendent evaluations, and several other items. It does contain directions for use of student data in these evaluations which support our work with the Data Governanace Group – see next item.

Data Governanace Working Group

The Coalition is working closely with the Data Governance Working Group on implementation of data gathering on Highly Capable Programs beginning September 2011 and with the Quality Education Council to resolve any outstanding questions about the programs. We will keep you informed of our activities.

Special Session

The Legislature returns to work on Monday to adopt a budget and tax package for 2010-2011. In the versions of the budget currently under consideration highly capable programs take only a 2% cut to $9.185 million. The funding will get us through the transition year of 2010-2011, until we become a part of basic education in Sept. 2011. This of course, could change in the negotiations that will be taking place. You may wish to contact your Legislators to support this funding. We will keep you informed.

Thank You!

Our successes in the just-concluded Legislative short session are due to the work of all of you in contacting your Legislators and in attending Gifted Education Day.   A big Thank You!

For more information, please visit the NEWS website.  The ruling does not change the need to renew our current levy, nor does it mean that our presence in Olympia tomorrow isn’t still very necessary.  It does, however, offer great hope for the future.  It will be very interesting to see what reactions are to this ruling over the next few days.

If you’re interested in reading part of the ruling, the News Tribune has provided a great excerpt on their website.  I’ll share the conclusion of the ruling here:

Thirty years have passed since our State Supreme Court directed the State to provide stable and dependable funding for basic education. The State has made progress toward this Constitutional obligation, but remains out of compliance. State funding is not ample, it is not stable, and it is not dependable. Local school districts continue to rely on local levies and other non-State resources to supplement state funding for a basic program of education. Recent legislation addresses, but does not resolve, the perennial underfunding of basic education.

Accordingly, the State is directed to determine the cost of amply providing for basic education and a basic program of education for all children resident in the State of Washington. The State must also comply with the Constitutional mandate to provide stable and dependable funding for such costs of basic education. Funding must be based as closely as reasonably practicable on the actual costs of providing such programs of basic education. The means of fulfilling this Constitutional mandate properly fall within the prerogative of the Legislature.