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Newsletter Spring 2013

In This Issue

2013 WAETAG Conference

Gifted Education Day

The Tortoise and the Hare,Take Two

Celebration of Talent 2013

WAETAG Elections

Quick Links

Visit WAETAG online!Find summer opportunities for

students, teachers and parents,

2103 Conference information, learn

how to join WAETAG, and more!

2013 WAETAG SummerScholarship Winners

WAETAG awarded twosummer scholarships of $500each this year.Edward Yang, an eighthgrader from Kenmore JuniorHigh School, will be attendingthe Summer Stretch programat the University ofWashington.Nakoa Richardson, a fourthgrader from MidwayElementary in Colbert WA, willattend Whitworth University'sCamp Metamorphosis.Congratulations Edward andNakoa!

2012-2013 WAETAG Board

President: Charlotte Ak in Past Pres.: Stephen Martin Vice President: Kari DeMarco Secretary: Susan Casey

Dear Jan,

This has been a year for making a dream cometrue for me. I have long felt that affordable,accessible professional development wasneeded across our state. As we look atimplementing HB2261, which made highlycapable programs a part of basic education, thetask became imperative. We currently have 40%of Washington school districts withoutprogramming for this population. That is 118 school districts!WAETAG supported a proposal I made last summer to get behindworking with ESDs to try to make this happen. We needed moneyto do this, people willing to help and partners at the university andstate level. What began as a dream is becoming a reality. We havehad support from OSPI, private donors, all nine of the ESDsand Whitworth University, as well as from people across the state.The last week in June a cadre of over 20 people will work togetherto create three clock hour classes for each ESD. The first class willbe Nature and Needs and include best practices. The second classwill be on Differentiation for Highly Capable Learners. The finalclass will be An Introduction into Metacognition: Critical andCreative Think ing. These classes will be basic, enough to get adistrict started. They aren't intended to replace university level work,but they should whet the appetite of those interested for furtherstudy. So, spread the word: Classes in highly capable will becoming to an ESD near you starting in August of 2013. Now, that'sa dream come true! Sincerely,Charlotte AkinWAETAG President

2013 WAETAG Conference

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Financial Manager: TinaTidd Regional Representatives ESD 101: Mike Cantlon ESD 105: Suzie Bennett ESD 112: Lisa Morgan ESD 113: Laurie McGovern ESD 114: Jan Kragen ESD 121: Roger Daniels ESD 123: Heather Westendorf ESD 171: Kathy Moody ESD 189: Linda Varner Private Schools:

Sandi Wollum

*****

Newsletter EditorKyra Richardson

Conference Chair

Kari DeMarco

Conference RegistrationPatty Anderson

OSPI Representative

Gayle Pauley

NWGCA RepresentativeMarcia Holland

Keynote Speaker: Linda Kreger Silverman, Ph.D., is alicensed psychologist. She founded the Institute for the Study ofAdvanced Development, and its subsidiaries, Gifted DevelopmentCenter (GDC) and Visual-Spatial Resource in Denver, Colorado. Inthe last 33 years, she has studied 6,000 children who have beenassessed at GDC, the largest data bank on this population. Thisresearch enabled the creation of extended norms on the WISC-IVand WPPSI-IV. Her Ph.D. is in educational psychology and specialeducation from the University of Southern California. For nine years,Dr. Silverman served on the faculty of the University of Denver incounseling psychology and gifted education. She has beenstudying the psychology and education of the gifted since 1961 andhas written over 300 articles, chapters and books, includingCounseling the Gifted and Talented, Upside-Down Brilliance: TheVisual-Spatial Learner and Advanced Development: A Collection ofWorks on Gifted Adults. Her latest book, Giftedness 101, is due tobe released in 2013 (New York: Springer). Watch the WAETAG website for our call for presenters andconference registration, coming soon!

Gifted Education Day: March 19, 2013

Why is everyone wearing a green scarf? If you were in Olympia, anywhere near the capitol, on March 19,you might have been asking this question. It was Gifted EducationDay, and parents, educators, students and supporters of giftededucation were given a scarf to wear as they arrived. The day was

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organized by the Washington Coalition for Gifted Education andprovided an opportunity to let legislators know of the criticalimportance of adequate funding for highly capable programs.Speakers in support of gifted education included parent David Bergand Senators Joe Fain and Ann Rivers. The governor had convened a special session of the Senate, andone highlight of the day was the reading of Senate resolution 8622.Sponsored by 47 senators, the bill voiced strong support of highlycapable programs and the need for increased funding for giftededucation. After the reading, Senators Fain and Rivers invited thestudents in attendance to come onto the floor of the Senate for agroup photograph.

The Tortoise and the Hare, Take Two

By Kathleen CasperDo you remember the fable about the tortoise and the hare? The one where theyrace and the hare is so fast that he lies down to take a nap since he is so farahead, but then the tortoise passes him by while he sleeps...? And the moral ofthe story was that being slow and steady is better than being fast sometimes...that the hare shouldn't have been so confident of his abilities to win that he got toococky and slept while he was passed up.... Yeah, there's a reason I always hated that fable when I was a kid. Because I likedbeing quick. I wanted to be happy being a hare. And even as a child I was aware

that there were probably more reasons why that hare lay down than the story said. So I didn't think itwas a good fable at all. Now as an adult, I surely do not believe it is a moral we should perpetuate forany of our youth. I mean really, do we want our tortoises to feel they can only win when the hares fall asleep? And dowe want our fastest students to be so bored in school that they are racing ahead and then so boredwhen they are ahead that they fall asleep? Do we really want them to feel bad for being fast, or to notbe proud of the way they can speed ahead? Of course we want the slow and steady people to finishthe race too, but what if the hares of our world were encouraged and challenged so that they were ableto speed ahead as fast as possible ... maybe we could increase the race length ... maybe we couldset the bar higher for speed and accomplish even more with amazingly quick and eager racers like thehare. But instead we set the course so that it is so easy that the quickest fall asleep instead of racingahead. Our current school system is set up so that learners who race ahead are often penalized with havingto sit around and wait for the rest of the class to catch up, or having to do page after page of mathproblems, or reading comprehension questions that they could probably do in their sleep. They aretaught that to achieve, they need to complete every page of their usually repetitive homework so thereare no gaps in the grade book, and that they have to sit still and listen to directions so they cancorrectly fill in the bubbles on multiple choice standardized tests. They are taught to sit quietly andamuse themselves when they are done early with their work, or are doomed to having to "tutor" otherstudents even though they aren't trained as teachers and certainly can't teach someone else how to"get it" when "getting it" comes naturally to them. Continued on our website under "SENG Article."

From Prodigy Northwest

Celebration of Talent - Inland Northwest 3013

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Gifted Education Conference for Students, Parents & Educators

Saturday, June 22, 2013 - 9:00am - 3:15pm

Whitworth University, Spokane Washington

$50.00 for the entire Family or $30.00 for an individual

22 Fantastic Breakout Sessions available to choose from!Clock Hours available for Educators

With Gifted Education now mandated as part of Basic Education in Washington State, this is afantastic opportunity for teachers of traditional classrooms and parents to learn more about thechanges and requirements in gifted education and how they affect all of us in Washington.

2013-2014 WAETAG Elections

If you are a current WAETAG member, please submit your vote by June 15, 2013. Click here forpresident's email. To affirm the listed candidates, write "yes." Alternatively, you can write in acandidate's name and aspiring board position. Secretary: Laurie McGovernLaurie McGovern is a third grade teacher at Pioneer Primary School in Shelton, Washington. She isthe Highly Capable Coordinator of Pioneer Primary School and directs and facilitates workshops forfirst through fifth graders in an after school arts program called Imagination Station. Laurie has servedon the WAETAG board as secretary and district representative for many years. Technology Advisor: Jan KragenJan Kragen works at Suquamish Elementary School in the North Kitsap School District where sheteaches a self-contained 4/5 gifted class. She's a National Board Certified Teacher. She's been on theboard of WAETAG for several years, and now she's running for the new position of Tech Adviser. Theboard has had her do a lot of work on the WAETAG web site, and they often come to her with othertech questions. If she can't answer them herself, she usually know who to ask and can get answersquickly. Check out her website atkragen.net

ESD 101: Mike CantlonMike, who has a Master's Degree in education with endorsements in curriculum development, specialeducation (including gifted education) and biology, began his public school career in 1978 as aneducator for the Kent (Washington) School District elementary gifted and talented program. Fromthere he went on to aid in the development of gifted and talented full-time self-contained programs inKennewick as well as the Odyssey program in the Spokane School District. In 1984 Mike co-createdand has directed for the past 29 years Satori, an extremely successful residential academic summercamp for gifted high school and junior high school youngsters. Satori has drawn from all parts of theUnited States and from as far away as South Africa and Japan. This camp is housed on the campusof Eastern Washington University where Mike has had the opportunity to teach as an adjunctprofessor for ten years. Mike Cantlon is an incredibly devoted and passionate teacher who spends hissummers not only directing Satori camp, but also works as a teacher leader for People to People andhas had the opportunity over the past eleven years to take high school student ambassadors tocountries all over the world. Mr. Cantlon has taught for both the Tessera gifted program and the A.P.P.L.E. (Alternative ParentParticipation Learning Experience) program, both housed within the Spokane School District. He hasserved on the boards of the Spokane Area Children's Chorus and Allegro Baroque and Beyond.

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ESD 112: Lisa MorganLisa Morgan has enjoyed serving as the WAETAG, ESD 112 Representative for the past four years.She has been teaching gifted 3rd and 4th graders at Image Elementary in the Evergreen SchoolDistrict for 12 years. She received her Masters in Teaching from Washington State University. Lisahas been member of WAETAG for 12 years and has attended, and presented at many conferences.She also teaches a year round after school program called "Conservation Kids." Through their work,Image Elementary became the first school in Washington to achieve level four certification fromWashington Green Schools. Lisa was recently selected as the 2013 Innovative Teacher by the Councilof Facility Planners International. She lives in Ridgefield, Washington with her family. When notteaching, she enjoys kayaking on the Columbia River. ESD 113: Susan CaseySusan Casey, ESD 113, served as our most recent WAETAG Secretary. She has taught in MasonCounty for nearly thirty years, concentrating most of her teaching efforts in music education, with anemphasis on serving the HC student population at Pioneer School District #402, located north ofShelton. Susan has coordinated pull-out programs for HC students at Pioneer, and has experienceproviding differentiated instruction within the traditional self-contained classroom. She has also been agrant writer for the implementation of Vertical Teams with the goal of curriculum-mapping, in additon tocoordinating many in-service training sessions for colleagues on the topic of serving Highly Capablestudent learners. For the past seven years Susan has directed middle school band, choir, in additionto teaching Social Studies, Language Arts, and art classes. Susan understands the needs andconstraints of implementing services for HC students in small, rural and economically disadvantagedschool districts. She would like to continue supporting the efforts of parents and teachers attemptingto serve this subpopulation of student learners via a strengthened collaboration between WAETAG andESD 113. ESD 114: Laurie DyeI have been a teacher for thirty years and have taught in Oregon, Idaho and Washington. Seven years

ago I discovered elementary highly capable students and fell in love. Right now, I teach 4th and 5th

graders at Voyager Elementary in the Peninsula School District. We have fifty students in our self-contained program. I teach all the math and science and my partner teaches the language arts andsocial studies. I cannot imagine teaching anywhere else. In my free time, I enjoy reading andgardening. My husband is also a teacher and we have two grown children and two adorablegrandchildren. ESD 121: Kathleen CasperKathleen Casper is a teacher and a licensed attorney who is currently working as an instructor in theTacoma Public Schools' Highly Capable Program where she provides the "JAWS program" pull-out

gifted services to 3rd through 5th graders from schools all over the city at two different schoollocations. She is very involved in many advocacy organizations in Tacoma, and she is a director forthe national organization SENG ("Supporting the Emotional Needs of the Gifted,") where she is alsothe Chair of the SENG Liaisons Committee and the Co-Chair of the SENG Editorial Committee.Kathleen has presented at the national SENG conferences and last year presented two sessions ofworkshops for WAETAG as well. She is endorsed in many subject areas (Pre-K through grade 12,)and holds a specialty endorsement in Gifted and Talented Education, with the 300+ hours of giftededucation coursework taken in Florida while she was teaching at Ridgecrest Elementary Center forGifted Studies (the magnet school for gifted children for Pinellas County Schools in Largo, FL.) She isthe author of many articles on education and children's issues, many specifically on gifted education,and is a local artist with some of her pencil drawings appearing on items such as t-shirts in localstores. She has four children of her own and is also a foster parent. Kathleen was one of Washington'sKCTS Golden Apple Award winners for 2012, as well as a Business Examiner's "40 Under Forty"award winner, a finalist for the WA Civic Educator of the Year Award from the state legislature in 2012,and has received many awards in Florida as well (including two Florida Governor's Awards forExcellence in Teaching Economics, and was a semi-finalist for Pinellas County's OutstandingEducator of the Year award.)

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ESD 189: Linda VarnerLinda Varner has been a representative for ESD 189 for the past two years and is currently working asthe Highly Capable Specialist for the Snohomish School District for the elementary and middle schoolHonors programs and has held this position for the last 5 years. Linda has taught in the 4/5/6 HighlyCapable program for over 20 years. She coaches in the Future Problem Solving program and iscurrently on the board. Outside the classroom Linda enjoys working with her girls book club, Relay forLife and advocating for our Gifted and Talented students.

WAETAG Mission Statement

WAETAG was formed by educators dedicated to the improvement of educational opportunities forgifted students, by strengthening services to and providing information for professionals serving thesestudents in all settings. Toward that goal, WAETAG has adopted the following aims and purposes:

Increase public and professional awareness of the need for appropriate educationalopportunities for talented and gifted students.Encourage development of programs for professional preparation and growth in gifted andtalented education.Assist with national, state, and local legislation to provide consistent challenge for all students.Cooperate with other groups to organize and to enhance educational opportunities for allstudents.Support quality programs which increase challenging educational opportunities for all students.

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