Posting a January 19th email from the Washington Coalition for Gifted Education. Coalition Membership Form attached: membership 14-15 form

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 wagifted@gmail.com.  If you wish to have your name deleted from our mailing list, send a notice to wagifted@earthlink.net.

The Legislature is back in session. This is a budget year and the session bids fair to be one of the most difficult and contentious in decades; after only a few days there are already red lines in the sand. The Coalition will keep you informed of action on Highly Capable legislation and the budget, as things develop.

Want to keep track of what is happening in the Legislature on your own? The web site has been redesigned to be more user friendly. (After years of struggling with the old site, I welcome the new version.)

So take a look at  http://leg.wa.gov/Pages/default.aspx and you will find:

• the current day’s calendar of committee meetings, floor session and caucus meetings;
• several links to member information and how to contact them, important information in order to make appointments for Gifted Education Day;
• information on what committees are doing, who is on the committee and who is on staff;
• each day there is an updated list of bills that have been introduced: click on Find Bills and look in House and Senate Introductions;
• how to comment on a bill;
• how to set up your own tracking for a bill in which you are interested;
• links to proposed budgets and fiscal reports;
• information on going to Olympia;
• links to the RCW and the WAC.

As a matter of fact, this home page will get you to almost everywhere on the Legislature web site with links to other sites.

We’ll be looking for you in Olympia on Gifted Education Day, March 11th. We’ll be in the Columbia Room of the Legislative Building beginning at 9 am. You can use the room to meet with friends or fellow advocates, eat lunch and leave your coats and bags when you go for appointments or tours (we assume no responsibility for anything, especially electronic devices, left in the Columbia Room however). Superintendent Dorn will address the group at 9:15 am. More information will follow in later messages

We are in need of your financial support as we still do not have sufficient funds to see us through our current fiscal year. Go to https://wcge.wordpress.com/ to contribute or use the attached contribution form. Thank you to all who have contributed so far this year!