“Race to Nowhere” FREE Showings
The Challenge Parents Association (CPA) is hosting showings of the movie “Race to Nowhere.” Race to Nowhere is a call to action for families, educators, and policy makers to challenge current assumptions on how to best prepare the youth of America to become healthy, bright, contributing and leading citizens. Raise your awareness about our children, who sometimes put themselves under so much pressure to be perfect.
Register for your FREE tickets online:
Friday, May 17 @ 7 PM http://www.racetonowhere.com/epostcard/6815
Saturday, May 18 @ 3 PM http://www.racetonowhere.com/epostcard/6817
Saturday, May 18 @ 7 PM http://www.racetonowhere.com/epostcard/6816
Sensory-Friendly Performance
There is a FREE “Sensory-Friendly” performance of Skippyon Jones that is specifically for children who need a modified performance style. Sunday May 12 at 4pm in Everett.
Admission to this performance is FREE with advanced reservations. Please call the Everett Performing Arts Center Box Office at (425) 257-8600.
Monthly Math Hour & Math Playground at UW
Sunday, May 5, at 1 pm, the Monthly Math Hour at University of Washington presents “How to Win Some Games You’ve Never Heard Of” by Prof. Martin Tompa of the Computer Science and Engineering department. FREE math lecture for grades 6-10 in Savery Hall 260.
No RSVP required.
Across the hall from the Math Hour, there will be a FREE Math Playground for students grades 1-4, presented by Prime Factor Math Circle. FYI, Prime Factor also hosts afterschool math circles for grades 3-9, and is starting a new summer camp program this summer.
SENG Webinar Event, May 16th – A Multidisciplinary Approach to Understanding and Managing Developmental Asynchronies in Young Highly Gifted Children
Date: May 16, 2013
Time: 4:30 p.m. Pacific [90 mins.]
Presenter: Stephanie Meyer, PhD
Children with superior intellectual capacities frequently manifest lagging skills in other areas of development. A variety of available intervention methods can help minimize the impact of developmental asynchronies on a child’s capacity to express his/her intellectual and creative gifts. This webinar features a panel comprised of a child psychologist, occupational therapist, speech pathologist, special educator, behavioral analyst, and developmental optometrist, all of whom will discuss empirically supported strategies, within their respective fields, designed to target areas of challenge commonly seen among highly gifted youth.
SENG Webinar Event, May 14th – Families with Gifted GLBTQ Youth
Date: May 14, 2013
Time: 4:30 p.m. Pacific [90 mins.]
Presenter: Terry Friedrichs, PhD, EdD
Gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (GLBTQ) youth experience much higher-than-average rates of verbal and physical harassment, parental rejection, and suicide. However, these students also have great potential for academic success, as seen by their disproportionately-high representation in programs for the gifted.
This session explains how parents, siblings, and teachers can build on these students’ potential and can diminish the effect of others’ harm.
View Past SENGinars Anytime!
Even if you are unable to attend one of our live SENGinars, you can still enjoy the recording. All registrants are sent an email the week following the SENGinar with a link to the recording. You can also order past SENGinars online and watch them at your leisure.
SUMMER ENRICHMENT FOR HIGHLY CAPABLE KIDS
A free resource publication brought to you by the Northwest Gifted Child Association (www.nwgca.org)
SATORI Camp (Eastern Washington University, Cheney, WA) http://www.satoricamp.org, 800-999-8363
Western Youth Programs (Western WA University, Bellingham, WA) http://www.acadweb.wwu.edu/eesp/youth/index.shtml, youth@wwu.edu, 360-650-3308
Robinson Center for Young Scholars (University of WA, Seattle, WA) http://depts.washington.edu/cscy/programs/summer/, rcsummer@uw.edu, 206-543-4160
Cougar Quest (Washington State University, Pullman, WA) http://www.cougarquest.wsu.edu/camp_info.asp, 509-335-1235
Camp Metamorphosis (Whitworth University, Spokane, WA) http://www.whitworth.edu/campmetamorphosis/
Summer Institute for the Gifted (Redmond, WA & Nationwide) http://www.giftedstudy.org/day/overlake/
Center for Talented Youth (Seattle University & Nationwide) http://cty.jhu.edu/summer/index.html
Education Program for Gifted Youth Summer Institutes (Stanford, CA) http://epgy.stanford.edu/summer/
Institute for Educational Advancement (Pasadena, CA) http://www.educationaladvancement.org
Davidson Institute for Talent Development (Reno, NV) http://www.davidsongifted.org
Gifted Education Resource Institute, Purdue University (Lafayette, IN) http://www.geri.education.purdue.edu/youth_programs/index.html
Duke Talent Identification Program – TIP (Nationwide, mostly east coast) http://www.tip.duke.edu
Summer at Seabury (Tacoma, WA) http://www.seabury.org/summer/summer.php, seaburydirector@comcast.net
Evergreen School (Shoreline, WA) http://www.evergreenschool.org/summer_overview
Open Window School (South Bellevue, WA) http://www.ows.org/summer_program.php
Soundview School (Lynnwood, WA) http://www.soundview.org/summer-camp/
ENRICHMENT FOR ALL KIDS
Internal Drive Camps (Univ of WA Seattle & Univ of WA Bothell & Nationwide) http://www.internaldrive.com/
Port Townsend Marine Science Center (Port Townsend, WA) www.ptmsc.org, 360-385-5582, 800-566-3932
Northwest Maritime Center (Seattle, WA) http://www.nwmaritime.org/programs/
Saturday Academy at Portland State University (Portland, Oregon) http://www.saturdayacademy.com, 503-200-5858
Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (Portland, Oregon) http://www.omsi.edu/camps-classes, 503-797-4661
Camps for Curious Minds from the Pacific Science Center http://www.pacsci.org, 206-443-2925
Camp Invention (Numerous sites in WA and OR) http://www.campinvention.org, 800-968-4332
Destination Science (Numerous sites across King County, WA) http://destinationscience.org/
U.S. Space Camps & Space Academy (Huntsville, Alabama) http://www.spacecamp.com, 800-637-7223
Canoe Island French Camp (Private Island near Orcas Island, San Juans, WA) http://canoeisland.org/
Catalina Sea Camp (Catalina Island, CA) Residential, Ages 8-17
Marrowstone-in-the-City, Youth Symphony Orchestra (Seattle & Redmond, WA) http://www.marrowstone.org
Studio East (Kirkland, WA) http://studio-east.org/summer-programs/
Taproot Theater (Seattle, WA) http://taproottheatre.org/summer-acting-camps-2013/
Youth Theatre Northwest (Mercer Island, WA) http://youththeatre.org/classes-camps/2013-summer-camps/
Centrum (Fort Worden State Park, Port Townsend, WA) http://www.centrum.org/programs/youth, info@centrum.org, 360-385-3102 x120
From The Washington Coalition For Gifted Education – May 2nd
Your Action is Needed Immediately! Last chance to influence Highly Capable funding – contact the legislators below.
“Legislature Determines That Access to Highly Capable Basic Education Must Continue to Depend on Your Zip Code”
This might well be the headline, UNLESS YOU CHANGE IT. Today, 40% of districts offer no programs or services for their most advanced learners. Not surprisingly, inequalities in access and programming disproportionately affect small and rural districts, minorities, and poor students. The Legislature has done nothing to remedy the situation for the future.
There is no other part of basic education that is being told that to ensure proper funding, parents must go to their local school boards and ask for it. Access to highly capable programming needs to be uniform statewide and should not depend on your zip code.
The state Constitution requires that the state fully fund basic education for all students and HCP services are basic education for gifted students.
Relying on local school districts to decide whether or how to fund a portion of basic education is neither fair nor equitable. The McCleary Decision says it is unconstitutional. Today’s state funding level – 2.314% of enrollment, unchanged since 2007- is demonstrably inadequate.
The Legislature must correct this situation in this session for all of Washington’s Highly Capable children, and follow the Quality Education Council’s recommendation for increased funding at 5% of enrollment.
What you need to do today:
Please use this message, or compose one of your own, and send it to each of the legislators listed below. Not all are participating in the budget negotiations but all have influence with those who are.
You may wish to use the Legislative Hotline but that requires a much shorter and more concise message. 1.800.562.6000
ACTION ALERT! – From The Washington Coalition For Gifted Education – April 22nd
Time is running out to get the HCP funding formula changed. The last bill alive is HB 2051, which was heard in the House Appropriations Committee this morning. Because of the short notice given on this bill HCP advocates were not able to testify. We need you to flood the House Appropriations Committee with messages before the executive session tomorrow (April 23) at 10:00am. So please get your emails and hot line messages in before then.
We oppose Section 3(10)( c) of HB 2051 for Highly Capable Program funding. The Legislature asked OSPI and the State Gifted Advisory in 2010 to define what constitutes a basic education program for Highly Capable students. These recommendations, including an appropriate state-level funding structure, were sent to the Quality Education Council which has three times adopted them and sent them to the Legislature.
Yet, Highly Capable is the only basic education program that has not received increased funding in the $1.3 billion McCleary appropriations proposals before the Legislature.
Highly Capable Programs are an integral part of basic education which means Highly Capable students as a class are entitled to a basic education. A basic education no matter what district they attend. Students who are sometimes identified as behavior problems in elementary school or who might become drop outs in middle and high school are often unidentified gifted students whose needs have not been assessed and addressed. Gifted students in small, rural, and high poverty school districts are entitled to the same opportunities for a basic education as those in urban and wealthy districts. Current funding levels do not provide this opportunity. Requiring parents of Highly Capable students to lobby their school board to ensure access to a basic education in NOT equitable, yet that is what the current level of state funding requires them to do.
Ask legislators to please fund Highly Capable Programs at the 5% of FTE level and at the hours recommended by the QEC. Providing Highly Capable Students a basic education is good for both the students and the State.
Please contact the members of the House Appropriations Committee as soon as possible. Use any of the information provided above to formulate your message. A list of committee members follows. Because using the Legislature’s email service requires you be a resident of the district, you will need to email each member separately. The format for names is FirstName.LastName@leg.wa.gov. It may be easier to use the Legislative Hotline: 1.800.562.6000.
If you do so, be sure to write out your message before placing the call. Operators take down your message verbatim and send it on to the legislators so having it written out before you begin ensures your message is clear and gets to the legislators as you composed it.
Ross Hunter, Chair
Timm Ormsby, Vice Chair
Gary Alexander, Ranking Minority Member
Bruce Chandler
J.T. Wilcox
Vincent Buys
Reuven Carlyle
Eileen Cody
Cathy Dahlquist
Hans Dunshee
Susan Fagan
Tami Green
Kathy Haigh
Larry Haler
Paul Harris
Zack Hudgins
Sam Hunt
Laurie Jinkins
Ruth Kagi
Marcie Maxwell
Dawn Morrell
Kevin Parker
Jamie Pedersen
Eric Pettigrew
Liz Pike
Charles Ross
Joe Schmick
Larry Seaquist
Pat Sullivan
David Taylor
Also, our Facebook and Blog pages have the committee members names as link in your email program. Will save you the effort of entering all of them yourself.
http://www.facebook.com/wagifted
http://wcge.wordpress.com
We really need you to make this effort!!!!
This may well be our last chance to influence the budget this session. Please contact the above legislators before 10:00am Tuesday morning!
Thank you for your advocacy for and support of our Highly Capable students.
Message From the Washington Coalition For Gifted Education – April 21th
Still no movement on the budget in Olympia. To summarize, maintenance level funding for FYs 2014 and 2015 has been calculated to be $19,083,000. The various proposals from the Governor and the Legislature hover around that number, with none being less than that amount. As soon as we hear anything substantive, we will let you know.
Meanwhile, our major goal of enactment of the revised Washington Administrative Code (WAC) for the Highly Capable Program has been accomplished and the new WACs approved and published. They are available here. These are the rules with which your local district must comply in implementing Highly Capable as part of Basic Education.
If you are interested in how OSPI will interpret and enforce the new WAC, there are two webinars you can participate in. I’ve copied this from a forwarded email so if the links don’t work, go here to sign up.
Highly Capable Program and Basic Education WAC 392-170 Changes
Find out what you need to know about the changes to WAC 392-170—Special Service Program—Highly Capable Students—background information for why the changes were made, overview of new and repealed sections of the WAC, and details about amendments to specific sections which are consistent with the RCW 28A.185—Highly Capable Students, effective September 2011, which finds that for highly capable students, access to accelerated learning and enhanced instruction is access to a basic education.
Register for a session now by clicking a date below:
Wed, May 1, 2013 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM PDT
Wed, May 1, 2013 2:45 PM – 4:15 PM PDT
Once registered you will receive an email confirming your registration with information you need to join the Webinar.
Direct questions to Kristina Johnstone, Highly Capable Program Supervisor, at kristina.johnstone@k12.wa.us or (360) 725-4991.