Kate Simkowiak

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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 That is, the 6.287% across-the-board-cut ordered by the Governor this fall is rescinded.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

SENG Model Parent Group Discussions are Here

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Special Invitation to Seattle Parents

Parents of Gifted Children! SENG Model Parent Group Discussions are HERE!

You are invited to participate in a discussion related to the complexities of parenting gifted children to include such topics as:

  • motivation
  • discipline
  • stress management
  • peer relations
  • sibling rivalry
  • tradition breaking

This opportunity is an important part of a two-day comprehensive training in which parents and professionals in your area are being trained to conduct guided discussion groups based on the SENG (Supporting Emotional Needs of Gfited) model. The empahisis of these groups is on positive aspects of parenting, avoiding power struglles, and helping childrene learn appropriate life skills whicle enchancing the parent/child relationship and parent self-esteem.

For more information, please see attached Seattle SENG Parent Flyer.

Thank you.

Budget Update – Message from the Coalition for Gifted Education

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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, including $170,000 per year for Centrum and $90,000 per year for FPS/DI. That is, the 6.287% across-the-board-cut ordered by the Governor this fall is rescinded.
This bill plugs only half of the budget hole so there will have to be either another supplemental when session starts on January 10, or another round of across the board cuts. For those interested in the details, you can get the bill and the explanation at http://leap.leg.wa.gov/leap/budget/detail/2010/co2010p.asp Click on  Summary.
The Governor’s budget proposal for the 2011-2013 biennium is due out no later than Wednesday. When we see what is in it for highly capable funding, we will have a better idea of what advocates need to do.
This was just an opening skirmish in what is likely to be a bruising contest for limited funds. Your outstanding efforts in contacting Legislators have brought us this far. We will need additional efforts in the coming weeks and months. If you have a newly elected Legislator(s), make every effort to contact him/her to begin their education about gifted. Newly elected Legislators will not have Olympia email addresses or phone numbers until they are sworn in on January 10. Many campaign web sites are still active and contain contact local information.
And do make plans to be in Olympia for Gifted Education Day on February 11, 2011. Your presence is vital to our efforts.

Budget Update – Message from the Coalition

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There is a face-off going on down in Olympia. The Governor v. the Legislature. The Governor v. her own democrats. The democrats v. the republicans. The house v. the senate. And caught right in the middle is funding for Highly Capable Programs in the supplemental budget.
It appears there will be a special session beginning Friday to consider the supplemental budget, provided the five parties to the discussions get their act together. We can’t wait to see if they do. We need you to take action immediately to make known your wishes regarding Highly Capable funding for 2009-2010.
The governor made across-the-board cuts in November. That resulted in 6.3% cuts to Highly Capable Programs:  $561,000 from categorical funding to districts, $11,000 from Centrum and $6,000 from FPS/DI, totaling $578,000 and leaving an appropriation of $8,628,000 for the year.

Now the governor proposes to totally eliminate all highly capable funding retroactive to September 2010.

Update – From the Washington Coalition for Gifted Education

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Threat of a Special Session is Back

There has been a significant amount of budget news over the last two days.  Both the Washington State House Democratic Caucusand the Washington State Senate Republican Caucus released responses to Governor Gregoire’s earlier suggestion of budget cuts.  The House Democratic Caucus proposal would leave in place the earlier across the board cuts to highly capable funding that the Governor imposed, but would go no further and would not eliminate all funding for FY2011.  The Senate Republican Caucus also would not result in any additional cuts to highly capable funding.  Representative Alexander also sent a letter to the Governor that argued that whatever cuts are made in a special session, they should not be retroactive.  As you might remember, the Governor’s original proposal would have made the elimination of highly capable funding for fiscal year 2011 retroactive to September 1, 2010.

It remains unclear whether there will be enough agreement to justify a special session, though there is mounting pressure for all sides in the discussion to resolve their differences and get something together very quickly.  The Seattle Times editorialized yesterdaythat the Governor’s cuts, including the elimination of highly capable funding, should be adopted immediately.  It is essential that you contact your representatives now, before a special session begins.  Once a special session begins, it is quite likely that there will already be an agreed upon solution in mind.  Your chance to influence your legislators is now.

Urgent! Governor Proposes Cutting Gifted Education

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90 seconds of your time NOW can make a lifetime of difference for your child.

The immediate future of gifted education in Washington state is in peril.

Governor Chris Gregoire, in an attempt to deal with the larger than projected revenue shortfalls and the reduction in tax revenues that resulted from the outcomes of the recent election, has put together a list of suggested cuts (and only cuts) that she has sent on to the legislature for their consideration. Included in the six program cuts are four that are education related, and one of them (the least expensive program on the list) is funding for gifted education in Washington.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Article: Gregoire: Eliminate health insurance for the poor, school programs. Rising deficit leaves policymakers with few choices

In order to implement these cuts, the legislature would presumably have to change the legislation currently scheduled to go into effect in September that includes gifted education as a mandated component of basic education in this state. It would also put the brakes on the work of the Highly Capable Program Technical Working Group, which just presented it’s initial recommendations to the Quality Education Council last week on how to bring Washington into the forefront in the provision of education for gifted students in the US.

This is critical, as without state funding, gifted programming in Edmonds School District will be decimated, if not eliminated all together.

Now is the time to let our legislators know how important gifted education is for our families. Historically, the legislators who represent the families in the Edmonds School District service area have been supportive of gifted programming and have voted to continue funding with each biennium. We urge you to contact them directly to let them know that “unfunding is unacceptable” for gifted students. Our students do what they can to convince our legislators of the value of our programs (why participation in Gifted Education Day is so important), but it is up to those of us who have the right to vote to lobby for them.

The expectation is that the legislature will be called back into special session before the scheduled January reconvening. Please utilize the links below to contact your legislators and let them know how you wish them to vote. You can email or phone them.

  • Find Your Legislator will launch a search page. Fill in your address information and it will provide links to the legislators who represent your district. Be sure to leave the default of “Legislative District” checked for this search. Select any of the representatives or senators listed for your district. Select the email link on that legislator’s personal page. On the email form, you will have the option to send the same message to all of your district’s legislators.
  • Contact the Governor will launch a pre-formatted contact page for you to complete.

This is urgent! The legislature could be called back into session any day now. The more they hear from their constituency, the better-informed their voting will be.

Please take 90 seconds now to contact your legislators.

Challenge Parent Association Board of Directors