CPA General Meeting – 12/01/10 Terrace Park Elementary, 6:30 p.m.
In Attendance: Sue Wilson-Schmitz, Pam Gaspers, Tina Marohn, Mary Freitas, and 20 parents.
Introductions
Secretary’s Report (Tina Marohn)
Meeting minutes from 9/30/10 presented and approved
Treasurer’s Report (Tina Marohn on behalf of Tracy Hannuksela)
more fall pledge donations received
paid money out to some teachers for WAETAG stipends
fulfilled a grant request (World Atlases for 6th grade classes)
filed last year’s taxes with the IRS and they were accepted and approved.
**A request was made to see the budget spreadsheets on the website.
Vice President Report (Pam Gaspers)
Festival of the Famous this spring- Pam is looking for a person to help gather in costumes from older students. This is the first year we are attempting this and we’ll see how many costumes we end up with to determine if we keep them for next year or return them to families.
Gifted Ed Day t-shirts are available for purchasing. Pam needs to have orders in soon and would like them in before January to provide processing time. Parents can use the order form if they wish and leave it in the office.
Principal’s Report (Mary Freitas)
State Report – Our neighborhood school at Terrace Park Elementary received a “School of Distinction” award. There will be a school celebration on Thursday. This is a great and honored achievement for Terrace Park!
Financial support of Gifted Education is at stake. The Governor is reviewing the budget and looking for more items that can be cut to compensate for the budget deficit. Highly Capable funding is on the cut list.
The OSPI, Office of Superintendent Public Instruction, website has the Highly Capable Work Group Recommendations for supporting Gifted Students. The document, created by state and national experts, discusses how gifted education is poorly funded, what the definition of gifted education is and what the program ideally should look like. In the future this information can have a large impact on classrooms and students. These recommendations probably won’t be fully funded at this point.
A question was raised on what else parents can do to help and CPA Board responses included:
Get involved and show support for the Washington Coalition for the Gifted Education
Continue to write and call legislators
Attend Gifted Education Day – February 11th, 2011
Letters from our students to the legislators continue to be a powerful message
Attend District meetings and school board meetings.
President’s Report (Sue Wilson-Schmitz)
On January 6th, CPA is having a Gifted Education Day preparation meeting. A volunteer list was sent around the room and will also be available at this January meeting. We are still looking for volunteers to help with the following:
Provide light snacks for kids
Provide quiet activities for kids between speakers
Be a group leader (take small groups to speaker events and carry letters)
Drive a carpool
CPA Recognizes Mary Freitas for receiving the Washington State Distinguished Leadership Award. Congratulations Mrs. Freitas!
Meeting adjourned 7:04 p.m.
After the business meeting was adjourned, there were presentations on the UW Early Entrance program, Summer Challenge program and Summer Stretch Program by Dr. Maren Halvorsen, Associate Director of the Halbert and Nancy Robinson Center for Gifted Youth with support from the new Director, Dr. Nancy Herzog and Kristy Carter (Program Coordinator). She also announced that they are starting up a Saturday Math Class for math lovers grades 5-8 and 9-12 in January. She also wanted parents to know that the mission of the Robinson Center is to be a resource for all gifted children and parents and encouraged all to access that support as needed.
Following that 35 minute presentation and video was a 45 minute presentation on the International Baccalaureate Program at EWHS by Mrs. Kathy Ludgate.