It appears we have all survived the snow, ice, power outages and loss of internet connections. Despite all these problems, we were able to continue to organize last minute arrangements for Gifted Education Day on January 23 and more than 400 enthusiastic parents and students braved the icy highways to come to Olympia. The unofficial award for furthest distance traveled goes to the intrepid group from Stevenson-Carson School District, down on the Columbia River.

Our thanks to Charlotte Akin who drove up from Battle Ground to remind us why we care about our highly capable students and their unique needs.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn spoke to the group and took the time to answer questions from the audience.

Governor Christine Gregoire received an enthusiastic welcome and spoke to encourage all of us to continue to advocate for gifted students and the contributions they will make to our future.

Now that we were all revved up and ready to go, Kelly Munn of the League of Education Voters spoke to us about how best to interact with Legislators.

Our special thanks to Kelty Pierce from Puyallup who introduced Supt. Dorn and to Charlie Hannigan from Lake Stevens who introduced the Governor. We also thank all the students who made presentations to our honored guests or made remarks. Due to disrupted communications I do not have the names of all these students, but you know who you are and we say Thank You for participating.

We need to know which Legislators were visited and the results of those visits. Pasted in is a Contact Report. You have several options for reporting to us.

• Fill it in right in this email and click the reply button. I’ll extract the information.
• Highlight the text and copy it, paste it into a new email, complete it and send it to wagifted@earthlink.net.
• Highlight the text and copy it and paste it into a word processing document, complete it and mail to WCFGE, 18149  147 Ave. SE, Renton WA  98058.

CONTACT REPORT FOR PERSONAL VISIT
Name and title of person contacted:
Type of contact (personal or group visit)  (email contact)  (letter)  (phone)
Issues discussed:
Is the Coalition expected to follow up with this contact?
Describe any follow-up needed:
Notes and comments; was contact supportive or enthusiastic about HCP:
Your name:
Group, if any:
Your email address or other contact information in case we need to check with you.

The afternoon of January 23, the Senate Early Learning K-12 Education Committee held a public hearing on SB 6246 (Sections 4, 5 and 6).  Ethan Berg, a 4th grader from Puyallup, was the first to speak and reminded everyone why we were in Olympia. He was followed by Janis Traven and David Berg who are board members of the Coalition and served on the Highly Capable Program Technical Work Group and the subcommittee which wrote the new definition. They testified with concerns about the bill’s wording of the proposed new definition of a highly capable student and several other items. Their concerns were strongly supported by Ramona Hattendorf of the State PTA. As a result of their testimony and documentation, committee members and staff have agreed to work with us to try to amend the bill language to address our concerns.

The House Education Committee held a public hearing on companion bill HB 2506 that evening. We presented written testimony to that committee and will be working with them on possible changes to address our concerns.

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO CAME TO OLYMPIA ON THE 23rd DESPITE THE IFFY ROADS. YOU ARE INDEED SUPERIOR ADVOCATES.