Kate Simkowiak

Alerts

Important time critical information.

Guest Speaker for March 3rd meeting will be rescheduled

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Guest Speaker will be rescheduled:

We regret that our announced guest speaker, Stephen Martin, has taken ill and won’t be able to speak at our meeting on March 3rd.

Our general membership meeting will go forward beginning at 6:30, and will include electing next year’s board of directors for CPA, as well as a recap of Gifted Education Day and discussion of other CPA activities coming soon.

We are working to reschedule Mr. Martin to our May meeting. Thank you and we’ll see you at 6:30 on Thursday, March 3rd at Terrace Park Commons.

Challenge Parents Association Board of Directors

Update – Message from the Washington Coalition for Gifted Education

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This message has been sent to you by The Washington Coalition For Gifted Education. Comments or questions can be sent to wagifted@earthlink.net or grevewandi@gmail.com If you wish to have your name deleted from our mailing list, send a notice to wagifted@earthlink.net.

OUR FOCUS FOR GIFTED EDUCATION DAY AND BEYOND

The Supplemental Budget has passed both the Senate and the House but in different versions which will need to be reconciled. Since both versions provide nearly the same amount for HCP as in the original budget for the current school year, it appears that the first hurdle of this legislative session has been successfully –  well –  hurdled.

The Biennial Budget and SB 5475 lie ahead of us. The fate of SB 5475, introduced on behalf of the Governor, will be basic to the budget.

The Legislature has some important decisions as outlined below.

• Proceed with the scheduled implementation of Education Reform (ESHB 2261 and SHB 2776) and they will write one budget.

• Follow the Governor’s proposal to delay implementation of parts of Education Reform and this requires a different budget.

– Delay implementation to 2013 and the biennial budget needs to contain approximately $18 million in categorical funding for HCP at at least maintenance level. This funding is not a sure thing.

– The Governor’s proposals assume delayed implementation (SB 5475) and $0 in funding in her budget.

The Coalition Position

SB 5475

We request that the words “Beginning with the 2013-14 school year” be removed from Sec. 2 (2)(g), Section 3(10)(c), Sec. 5, and Section 6(1) of SB 5475 as these would delay inclusion of HCP in basic education until 2013.

Other sections of this bill move forward with the 2011 inclusion of the Learning Assistance Program, and the Transitional Bilingual Program into basic education

and implement the prototypical school funding formula, MSOC allocations and the new transportation formula. The QEC has linked HCP with LAP and TBL as programs that close the opportunity gap; this bill removes that linkage.

Educational reform was designed as a whole. Delaying some parts of it will upset the design and make planning difficult. It will be disruptive to districts and students. Local districts have limited funds to continue programs in a delayed implementation. It will be more expensive to reintroduce them than it would be to implement them now.

We understand that implementation cost is high and that funding in full is not likely. Better an underfunded reform than no reform. For HCP, better an underfunded mandate than no mandate. Funding can be adjusted upward as the fiscal situation improves.

Your contacts with Legislators, until further notice, should request that implementation of the new definition of basic education not be delayed beyond the scheduled date of September 2011.

Since the bill is currently in the Senate, contact with your Senators should take place first but both Senators and Representatives will need to be contacted.

The Budget for 2012-2013

If inclusion of HCP is implemented in full in 2011 we hope that some amount of Section 708 funds will be appropriated along with MSOC but have not taken a position on how much this should be. We need to see what is in the budget proposed by the Legislature. (Information on these categories of funds is in the attachment.)

If implementation is delayed (SB 5475), it is our position that we will advocate to obtain as much funding for the current categorical program (which will still exist) as we can. Again, we will signal we are willing to accept a cut but it must be proportional. The budget proposed by the Governor provides no funds for HCP (as a categorical program based on her request to delay implementation of HCP inclusion). This is not proportional.

More Information.

If you are relatively new to gifted advocacy or you just like to dig into the details, please see the (long) attached pdf file which has all the appropriate references and citations.

For those in the Seattle School District, we have attached Dr. Robert Vaughan’s statement to the Senate Ways & Means Committee on January 31 regarding SB 5475.

Senate Bill to Delay Inclusion of Highly Capable in Basic Education

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On Monday, January 31st, the Washington State Senate K-12 Education Committee will hold a public hearing at 1:30 p.m. on Senate Bill 5475, a recently submitted bill that includes a delay of inclusion of Highly Capable in the 2009 Education Reform Bill definition of basic education until 2013-2014. If SB5475 passes as currently written, highly capable programming would remain optional for districts to provide and vulnerable to funding cuts that basic education funds are not.

If it is possible for you to attend this meeting and make public comment on this bill, please follow these links for details on how and where to testify.

Committee Agenda and Meeting Location

How to Testify in Committee

Basic Information on Visiting the Legislature and List of Related Links

Are You Coming to Gifted Education Day 2011? Here’s How You Can Let Us Know!

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YOU ARE INVITED

Please plan now to attend Gifted Education Day in Olympia

We are all in this together! And we need you!

DATE: Friday, February 11th, 2011

TIME: 7:30 AM ~ leave Terrace Park School by carpool and/or caravan

Estimate 3:00 PM ~ leave Olympia ~ (optional, pizza dinner)

WHERE: State Capitol Building in Olympia, WA.

WHO: Parent(s), Child(ren), Teachers and Administrators of Edmonds School District Highly Capable Programs

PLEASE NOTE: If you attended the Thursday, January 6th meeting in the Commons and completed the sign-up sheets there, or have already turned in a form to the school, we have your information and you do NOT need to return this form, unless you wish to order more t-shirts. Thank you!

Please click on the Attendee form link below, print, complete, and return the form and any payment due for t-shirts to your child’s teacher or the CPA box in the Terrace Park Office by Monday, January 31st.

You may also email the requested information to challengeparents@gmail.com.

Attendee form

Update from the Washington Coalition for Gifted Education

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This message has been sent to you by The Washington Coalition For Gifted Education. Comments or questions can be sent towagifted@earthlink.net or grevewandi@gmail.com If you wish to have your name deleted from our mailing list, send a notice towagifted@earthlink.net.

Pause, take a deep breath!

The supplemental budget bill left committee with funding restored for Highly Capable.

By voice vote, on an amendment proposed by Rep. Hunter, nearly full funding as established in the Second Supplemental from December was restored – for details, see fact sheet below. Centrum and FPS/DI took approximately 6% cuts in their already small funding, but the funds to districts are fully restored at the rate of $401.08 per student. As of this writing, the full text of 1086 is not yet available on the web sites so our information is from the amendment as posted and from watching the webcast of the session.

Now, the bill, as amended in committee, goes to the House floor on Friday, January 21, late morning (after the caucus meetings, where floor managers make sure they have the votes they need before proceeding to a vote). You can watch on TVW if you have time.

Next step.

Limber up those fingers and get busy contacting your district Representatives today. The risk to Highly Capable funds would come from a floor amendment to either reduce the amount and/or to impose a cutoff date to funding during this school year. (A cutoff date amendment failed in committee on a party line vote.) Ask Representatives to reject either option and to support section 508 for Highly Capable as reported by the committee.

If you had already contacted your Legislators because they are members of the Ways & Means committee, say Thank You for the funding and please vote to uphold it on the floor.

Emails can be sent through the Legislature web site. Go to http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rosters/MembersByDistrict.aspx

and find your district. A click on your Representatives will take you to the individual home pages from which you can send your email.

Your overwhelming response has heartened all Washington advocates of the gifted. We thank you on behalf of the highly capable students of Washington.

Chairman Hunter remarked that he had received a great deal of email about the gifted funds.

Pat yourself on the back for a job well done.

From here the supplemental will go to the Senate where we may have to again make many contacts to ensure funding. We will keep you informed.

For the most current information, follow us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/wagifted

or on our blog at http://wcge.wordpress.com

Don’t forget Gifted Education Day in Olympia on February 11. We need you there.

Fact sheet for those of you who like to dig into the details.

Approved December supplemental budget called for $9,188,000 for 2010-2011.

Governor’s and Hunter’s proposed budgets called for $2,053,000. Included slightly reduced funding for Centrum and FPS/DI ($159,000 and $84,000) and nothing for districts. (About $1.78 million was to cover payments to districts for 2009-2010 made after the start of the state’s fiscal year but during the school year. Please don’t ask why; it’s too complicated.)

Difference $ 7,135,000.

Amendment to the proposed supplementary passed the committee and calls for $7,118,000 in HCP funding.

Add to the $2.035 million and this totals $9,171 million. Add on the cut amounts (total $17,000) from Centrum and FPS/DI and we arrive back at the $9,188,000.

Alert – Message from the Coalition for Gifted Education

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This message has been sent to you by The Washington Coalition For Gifted Education. Comments or questions can be sent towagifted@earthlink.net or grevewandi@gmail.com If you wish to have your name deleted from our mailing list, send a notice towagifted@earthlink.net.

This is an urgent message deserving of your immediate attention.

Today the House Ways & Means committee heard proposed substitute house bill 1086 and has fast tracked it for executive session on Thursday, January 19, at 3:30 pm. This bill provides no funding to districts for Highly Capable Programs for the current school year, retroactive to September 2010.

We understand that there will need to be cuts to non-protected programs but a total elimination retroactive to September 2010 is neither proportional nor equitable.

When the House Ways & Means committee meets on Thursday, members can propose amendments to this inequitable provision. We urge you to write immediately to all members of the committee to ask that any cuts made to Highly Capable Programs be proportional to cuts to all other programs and that they not be retroactive. Retroactive cuts will be seriously disruptive to districts and the students they serve.

http://www.leg.wa.gov/House/Committees/WAYS/Pages/MembersStaff.aspx is a complete list of all members of the House Ways & Means committee. Each name constitutes a link to a legislator’s home page from which you can send an email.

If you write now, there is still time to amend this bill to provide some level of funding for Highly Capable Programs. It is easier to amend a bill in committee than when it gets to the floor so please WRITE IMMEDIATELY.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION FOR THOSE WHO WANT MORE

1. The bill and the summary document are available at http://leap.leg.wa.gov/leap/default.asp

Click on Legislative Proposals with the yellow ‘new’ button. Then click again on Legislative Proposal with the yellow ‘new’ button on the next page.

2. Here is the summary in brief. This budget proposal suspends funds to districts  for Highly Capable Programs for the entire school year 2010-2011. The $ 2 million in the bill covers some payments made in 2010 for 2009 plus funding for Centrum and Future Problem Solving/Destination ImagiNation for 2010-2011. To repeat, there is no district funding for Highly Capable Programs for the current school year.

From the bill summary, page 49:

“The state allocation for highly capable students is suspended, effective at the beginning of the 2010-11 school year. The 2010 supplemental budget allocated a rate of $401.08 per funded student, up to a maximum of 2.314 percent of each district’s full-time equivalent basic education enrollment. The remaining funding in this budget reflects program costs from the prior school year, two months of which fall in FY 2011.”

3.Based on prior biennial and supplemental budgets for the current year, funds have already been sent to districts and these funds will be recaptured by the state through cuts in basic education appropriations for the remainder of the school year.

From a power point presentation by Supt. Randy Dorn on January 6, 2011:

“If adopted by Legislature, OSPI will adjust district apportionment payments to reflect cuts.

“OSPI will transfer Highly Capable program to General Apportionment in order to then make adjustments to district apportionment.”

Superintendent’s Roundtable is this Wednesday

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From the Edmonds School District:
Please join us this Wednesday, Jan. 12 from noon to 1 p.m. at the Educational Service Center for this month’s Superintendent’s Roundtable, on the topic “Role of Federal Money in Our Schools: AYP and Stimulus Dollars.” Panelists featured for the roundtable include:
  • Bill McKeighen, Budget and Finance Manager
  • Nancy Katims, Assessment and Research Director
  • Katy Wysocki, Student Services Director
  • Charlotte Beyer, Cedar Valley Community School Principal
  • Margaret Mesaros, Spruce Elementary Principal
  • Dan Davis, Meadowdale Elementary Principal

The Educational Service Center is located at 20420 68th Ave. W., Lynnwood, 98036.

Gifted Education Day Planning Meeting–Thursday, January 6th

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Please join the CPA board on Thursday, January 6th in the Terrace Park Commons at 6:30 for a planning and information session on Washington State Gifted Education Day.

Gifted Education Day is an annual event held at the Capitol in Olympia. Challenge program families have attended in large numbers for several years now. While annual attendance is important, this is an especially crucial year for us to show the legislature how important gifted education is for our children and our families.

CPA will provide light snacks and beverages for the meeting. We will also have handouts from the Coalition for Gifted Education and other organizations involved in the planning and preparations for Gifted Education Day.

Important Message from the Washington Coalition For Gifted Education

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This message has been sent to you by The Washington Coalition For Gifted Education. Comments or questions can be sent to wagifted@earthlink.net or barbaragmaurer@yahoo.com. If you wish to have your name deleted from our mailing list, send a notice to wagifted@earthlink.net.


“Failure to help the gifted child is a societal tragedy, the extent of which is difficult to measure, but which is surely great. How can we measure the sonata unwritten, the curative drug undiscovered, the absence of political insight? They are the difference between what we are and what we could be as a society.” — Dr. James J. Gallagher, University of North Carolina

The Governor has just proposed to eliminate all state highly capable program funding for the next two years.  This is the third time she’s made such a proposal.  Her last attempt was rebuffed by the legislature during the just completed special session only five days ago.  The only way she can legally do this is if the Legislature suspends implementation of ESHB 2261.

Highly capable programming is not something extra to be funded only when times are good.  As the legislature declared in ESHB 2261 in 2009, “for highly capable students, access to accelerated learning and enhanced instruction is access to a basic education.” The Washington Coalition for Gifted Education will work together with families of highly capable students and advocates for highly capable programming across the state to oppose the Governor’s short sighted decision.  The first step in our campaign will be to write letters to the editors of our local newspapers protesting this action and sharing the important role highly capable programming has had in the education of our students

You can find contact information for your local paper in the print edition of the paper or at the paper’s website. The Secretary of State also maintains a listing of newspaper websites at http://www.sos.wa.gov/library/wa_newspapers.aspx.  Most papers will provide contact information on an “About Us” or “Contact Us” page.  Many will accept letters to the editor submitted via email, while others will provide a mailing address.

If you have never written to a paper before, the National Association for Gifted Children’s advocacy web site at http://www.nagc.org/index.aspx?id=3148 has some excellent suggestions and examples of where to begin.  Be sure to adapt your letter to reflect your personal experiences and the issues facing highly capable programming in Washington State.

Some key issues in Washington are:

– Full funding of Highly Capable Programs in the 2011 – 2013 biennial budget.

– Full implementation of the education reforms promised in ESHB 2261 beginning in September 2011.  Under ESHB 2261, highly capable program services will become a mandated part of basic education. This places them within the protections of basic education regarding funding, and it is vital that implementation proceed as scheduled. The Governor’s budget proposes to not fund a program which will be protected as part of basic education unless the Legislature follows her request to suspend implementation to some unspecified future date.

– Highly Capable Programs are an essential part of securing Washington’s economic future. This is a high-tech state and gifted programs are the place where STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) talents are best nurtured. Funding highly capable programming is an investment in our state’s future.

This is just the first step in our campaign for highly capable programming.  You can stay current with the latest activities of the Washington Coalition for Gifted Education at our website, http://wcge.wordpress.com or by becoming a fan on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/wagifted.

Thank you for your continuing advocacy for our Highly Capable Learners!

News from the Northwest Gifted Child Association

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Conference for parents of gifted scheduled for Saturday morning, January 29, 2010, at Redmond High School. REGISTER NOW at www.nwgca.org

Parents of gifted rarely have the opportunity to get information about the specific academic, emotion and social needs of their gifted children. They have even less opportunity to talk with other adults candidly about the delights and the challenges of raising truly bright children. Don’t miss this half day symposium for parents of gifted. See the attached flyer for more information on topics that will be covered.

Legislature Restores Full Funding for Gifted in Special Session December 11, 2010!

Once again the Washington Coalition for Gifted Education, with the help of committed parents and educators, have prevented the Governor and legislature from eliminating funding for gifted education in the special legislative session held this weekend. The state Legislature has passed the second supplemental budget bill and it restores highly capable funding to the level in ESSB 6444 – $18,377,000 for two years. That is, the 6.287% across-the-board-cut ordered by the Governor this fall is rescinded.

Please send an email of appreciation to your legislators for preserving the funding for gifted education. Let them know, again, that gifted education serves a learning difference for our state’s most capable learners.

Marcia Holland, President

Northwest Gifted Child Association

www.nwgca.org