The CPA Board had a successful and very productive 2010-2011 school year, continuing to work toward our priority of establishing or continuing to develop solid working relationships and good will with our mission partners: PTA, Edmonds School District administration, UW Robinson Center, and SENG. Four of the previous year’s six members continued on for a second term. We went from a crew of six to five this year, however, as we decided to have just one Vice President instead of two. We all came to the table with our own goals, we worked alongside each other with our very diverse working styles and gifts, we grew and learned, we improved the organization, and we are all personally better for it.

The board had many accomplishments this year. From within, we decided to vote to expand the CPA umbrella to include the highly capable students, their families and teachers at Brier Terrace Middle School. This decision was reached after many discussions with principals, district leaders and the Highly Capable Programs Task Force. We then formed a committee, headed by Renee McFarland, to revise the bylaws to incorporate the Highly Capable Middle School program beginning in the 2011-12 school year. The revised bylaws were voted on and approved by our membership in May 2011, and we updated the CPA website to reflect the bylaws changes. With the school district, we requested and were granted a review of the district’s “conditional status” policies and procedures. We also nominated officers for the 2011-12 school year, adding a Co-Vice President, splitting the secretary job into two positions (recording secretary and webmaster/email administrator), and adding an At Large position to ensure board representation for both Terrace Park and Brier Terrace parents.

From without, we spearheaded several legislator contact campaigns at the behest of the Washington Coalition for Gifted Education, and we met with parents from Shorelines and Lake Stevens’ Highly Capable Programs to support their efforts to form parent groups. As neighboring districts that share legislative districts with Edmonds School District, these new parent groups will help to solidify the message to our legislators about how much their constituents need and value gifted programs in the public schools. Sue has also recently been consulting with a parent group in formation in the Olympia School District.

On the fiscal front, we met our fundraising goals as well as our fiduciary responsibilities by conducting an audit and filing our annual forms with the IRS. We followed the transition to the semester system with two successful fund drives during the school year (one each semester) as our primary means of financial support from our families, including a new option to “give what you can when you can” rather than keep to a set amount and time frame. In all, 72 families contributed $10,264.73 in donations. With those funds, we were able to award professional development grants of $1,500+ to support Challenge program work on curriculum alignment; $300/teacher in classroom support for additional materials, professional development, etc.; and $600 to Washington Coalition for Gifted Education (to support Gifted and Talented program advocacy). We supported the CML awards and helped sponsor the 6th Grade Tea. An additional $2,100 in grants were awarded for:

• Islandwood “Make a Difference Summit” – paid for substitute to enable teacher to attend and transportation for students.
• Copies of required student planners for eight teachers (all teachers except primary).
• 5^th grade – memoir novels (Small Steps by Peg Kehret).
• 3^rd grade – wooden hinged boxes for Native American unit.
• 6^th grade – social studies curriculum (ancient civilizations, Ancient Egypt, Greece, China, Rome, and Mesopotamia).
• 6^th grade – 30 world atlases.
• 5^th grade – 20 US road atlases.

This year was filled with events, many of them hosted by CPA. As usual, we started out with the annual August Back-To-School BBQ. We had another huge turn-out, approximately 200 attendees, breaking the previous year’s numbers. From last year, we continued the (Almost) Monthly Parent Coffee Chats at local coffee shops to give parents a forum for informal parenting discussions. We held five board meetings and five general membership meetings. In keeping with our goal of combining a social or educational activity with our general membership meetings, we held our first ever Festival of the Famous Costume Rental as a community building and fund raising event, and had two presentation nights in combination with general meetings: International Baccalaureate and University of Washington Early Entrance Programs information night, and a presentation from Stephen Martin, president of WAETAG.

The list of events in which CPA participated or provided support is even greater, first and foremost being our participation in Gifted Education Day 2011 in Olympia. We organized the largest ever attendance from Edmonds School District, with over 120 parents and students from both Terrace Park Challenge Program and the Brier Terrace Middle School Highly Capable Program AND a 4th grade field trip. We held meetings with 10 of the 12 state legislators who represent the families in Edmonds School District. We coordinated and helped supply snacks, drinks, and activities for the kids; printed T-shirts for our attendees; posed for a large group photo on the Capitol steps; and worked with the teachers at both schools on students’ projects to communicate to our legislators about the importance of gifted education. Sue also joined the Washington Coalition for Gifted Education’s Leadership team. The Coalition is the main sponsor and statewide coordinator of Gifted Education Day each year. We worked with other state and national groups as well, most notably supporting the annual WAETAG (Washington Association of Educators of the Talented and Gifted) conference held in Bellevue in October, and attending a SENG (Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted) National Board of Directors reception in Seattle to establish a working relationship and offer mutual support. At the district level, we had representation at the Edmonds School District’s January Information Fair and at the information/orientation night for new Challenge families to let them know about us and provide the opportunity to join our mailing list. Each month we attended the Superintendent’s round table meetings and met with Terrace Park principal Mary Freitas. At least quarterly we met with Edmonds School District Highly Capable Programs Specialist Nancy Gilbertson and Assistant Superintendent Dr. Tony Byrd. And as part of our outreach across the highly capable programming at the district level, we met with the International Baccalaureate coordinator at Edmonds-Woodway High School to continue a working relationship and offer mutual support. At Tony Byrd’s invitation, Sue joined the district’s Highly Capable Task Force, which met monthly.

Communication has always been one of the primary goals for CPA, and this year we continued to improve on our ability to do that through improving our technology. For our online presence, we changed the CPA email address to challengeparents@gmail.com after we discovered our Yahoo! email address had been compromised. At the same time, in an effort to improve the efficiency and ease of sending bulk email to our membership, we opened an account with MailChimp.com, allowing us to send to all or targeted segments of our mailing list, with more options than our email account alone offers. We continued to increase usage of our website by conducting a website subscription drive encouraging all families to subscribe to automatic updates in order to receive our news in a timely and tree-friendly fashion. Subscribership to The Challenge Spot now exceeds 100 people, with over 170 entries posted since its inception in 2009. Tina Marohn did a wonderful job managing the site, including adding an archive section for older posts, convenient links for key programs and personnel in Edmonds School District related to Highly Capable education, and installing an updated version of WordPress to maintain the website. Pam Gaspers maintained the CPA bulletin board at the school as well, so all school visitors had the opportunity to find out about recent and upcoming CPA activities. Communication to people and groups outside our membership included letters to all parents of potential new Challenge Program students that were included in the notification letters sent out by the district to let them know of our existence, invite them to our meetings and events, and to subscribe to our website; a press release on Edmonds’ participation in Gifted Education Day that was submitted to and published in local newspapers, and invitations to our local state legislators to Festival of the Famous – three of whom were able to attend!!! Finally, we were very pleased to be able to communicate our thanks to many, many people who went above and beyond in their help and support of CPA and its goals. For their invaluable help with Gifted Education Day, we thanked the tour group organizer and group leader Kristin Merrill, group leaders Michelle Toshima, Bert Flynn, Jim Burns and Audrey Hamlin-Burns, photographer Bob Riner, the tour leaders at the Capitol, and the legislative assistants who facilitated setting meetings with our legislators. We also thanked Dr. Byrd for his support and participation at Gifted Education Day (with copies to the School Board, the Superintendent, the principals at Terrace Park and Brier Terrace Middle Schools, and the District Highly Capable Programs Task Force). At year’s end we thanked the School Board, the Superintendent, the Assistant Superintendents, the Terrace Park Elementary, Brier Terrace Middle and Edmonds-Woodway High School principals, the IB coordinator and the Edmonds School District Highly Capable Programs Specialist for their support of our children. And finally, a card with thanks and a receipt of tax deductible donation went out to each of our donors this year.

Goals to consider for next year and beyond:

• Continue to foster partnerships with all the entities mentioned in this letter. We’re all in this together!
• Focus on establishing strong communication and support with new Brier Terrace Middle School membership.
• Prioritize providing and supporting professional growth opportunities for new teachers, especially at BTMS.
• Transition from printed and mailed to electronic receipts for tax deductible donations.
• Strive to combine topical guest speakers with general membership meetings to both encourage attendance and provide valuable information for our membership.
• Re-establish classroom representatives for dissemination of information and solicitation of volunteer help when needed.
• Re-establish family outings to support our community building efforts.
• Establish a regular CPA presence at School Board and Superintendent Round Table meetings.
• Keep the gifted education programs in Edmonds School District in the public eye with regular press releases on events involving our students and families.
• Explore starting a SENG (Supporting the Emotional Needs of the Gifted) group.
• Identify community sponsors for support of the programs (grants).
• Establish outreach for “matching funds” donations.