Alabama Association for Gifted Children

Greetings!

It is indeed a good day in Alabama for gifted education!!  In case you have not heard, Gifted Education was signed as a line item on the Alabama Education Trust Fund Budget.  You can see it at: http://www.lfo.alabama.gov/

I want to thank everyone who was a part of making this happen.  Teachers, please thank your children for me for their cards, letters, and emails to their state representatives.  I know it was their efforts that truly made this happen.  The AAGC board and I would also like to thank Representative Paul Lee who has been our first big supporter.  He made it possible for us to visit Jay Love and present to him the true need for gifted education.

However, we are not through though, and there still remains much work to be done.  Please write or email the representatives you contacted and Governor Bentley for making our funding happen.  Then, keep in contact with these elected officials.  Invite them to your classroom.  Get them to be true stakeholders in gifted education.

Thanks again for your continued support.  Helen Keller said it best when she said, “I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.”

Stay in contact with us at our AAGC web page at http://alabamagifted.org and follow us on Facebook (AAGC group) and Twitter (@aagc11).

Sincerely,

Audrey Fine, President

Alabama Association for Gifted Children

I get inspiration from many bloggers but I have one favorite blogger – Krissy Venosdale – a gifted specialist from Missouri who has given me permission to use many of her posters in my blog post.  One touched me this week, entitled The Faucet.  It says, “Gifted kids often want to drink from the firehose of learning, but in many classrooms they are asked to sip from a trickling faucet.”  I don’t know about you, but this seems so sad that this is happening to our future leaders, entrepreneurs, researchers, and problem solvers.  Are we willing to settle?

In many of our school districts, gifted is being adapted into something that I no longer recognize has gifted education.  My own son, who is now grown, was identified as gifted in second grade and then had direct gifted services all the way through high school.  It breaks my heart, that this same school district has essentially phased out all gifted direct services to any except grades 3-5.  Do they stop being gifted after grade 5?  I think not.  While honors classes, pre-AP, and AP are wonderful and essential – they are not gifted education and should not take the place of gifted education.

Please don’t let the doom and gloom about our economy stop our efforts to get funding for gifted education in Alabama.  Presently (as of yesterday 5-11-12) gifted education is a line item on the propose budget (see http://bit.ly/IQAdPC - page 4)

Of course, we want full funding, but becoming a line item is HUGE.  From what I understand, this budget is going to the Governor again.  It is so important that you all contact the Governor and let him know that gifted education must be funded.  You can go to his contact information here - http://governor.alabama.gov/contact/contact_form.aspx

If you need ideas on what to write, look at some of our earlier post.  Email your friends, post on Facebook, and Tweet – asking your friends and colleagues to do the same thing.  We need to take action now.

Thank you so much for making this possible.

Audrey Fine, President, AAGC

Dear Friends of our Gifted Children of Alabama,

The Senate has presented a budget to the Governor that includes a line item for Gifted Education (see http://www.alsde.edu/Home/Legislative/Default.aspx and http://www.lfo.alabama.gov/pdfs/FY2013%20Budget%20Info/ETF%20FY%202013%20PASSED%20SENATE.pdf)

Now is the time that everyone needs to take action. If you have written, emailed, or Tweeted, I thank you for your participation. Please contact Governor Bentley today to ask the following:

Please add gifted education to your Education Trust Fund budget as recommended by the Senate.

You can email the Governor at this address: http://governor.alabama.gov/contact/contact_form.aspx

Also, if you Tweet, you can message him at @GovernorBentley If you have not been on Twitter, now is the time to try it. It is a strong social media and our elected officials do pay attention to it.

Please forward this email to all of your friends and family. We need to truly let our Governor know the importance of gifted education.

Sincerely,

Audrey Fine, President

Alabama Association for Gifted Children

http://alabamagifted.org

This post may be a little long, but please take a few minutes to read it. I feel you will be touched by what you are about to read.  Recently, I heard from one of our AAGC members and gifted specialist, Leslie Mattox, of Redland Elementary in Elmore County.  She gave her students the following assignment:

1. Give some information about yourself
2. Tell how you feel GATE helps your learning
3. Tell how you would feel if there were no GATE classes
4. Ask for support of Gifted Education in Alabama.

This is what one of her students, Bria, wrote:

Dear Senator …

My name is Bria.  I’m twelve years old and my school is Redland Elementary.  I’m really, REALLY interested in language and science.  I want to either be a marine biologist or a wildlife photographer.  This past February, I won the Elmore County Spelling Bee.  I competed in the State Spelling Bee and stayed in until the twelfth round (5 hours later). I am also the top reader in my school.  I have earned 1,508 AR points from 4^th to 6^th grade.

In regular classrooms, math, for example, we learn things over and over.   Gifted classes give you a chance to learn not-so-regular things.  We are now studying Medieval Times which is something rarely discussed in history class.  Did you know that about 20% of all gifted students drop out of school from frustration of learning things over and over?  That could be me in five years.

Gifted lets me (and kids like me) think outside the box.  Gifted Education isn’t like a coloring book, there’s no lines, no specific colors to fill in the blanks with.  Regular classes are like cardboard copies of original paintings – bland with no originality.  Gifted classes are like splatter paintings, a blank canvas standing before a student who is surrounded by millions of colors, and waiting for that spark to create.

You are dowsing that spark with cold water instead of adding our dreams to it to make it into a roaring bonfire.  We elected you to serve, serve everyone, but do you just forget about us?  We are not as important as other kids?

I write for every gifted student when I say we need more – more money, mover time, more open minds.  No gifted education means no originality, no paint on the canvas, blank spots in the future where we should go.

We need your support.  We need your approval.  We need your agreement.  We need you.

Sincerely and waiting for a reply,

Bria Milligan

Ms. Mattox and Bria gave me permission to post this letter.  This current legislative session is not up.  As far as I know, they have not passed an education budget.  So, it is not too late to contact your elected officials in Montgomery.  Please do as Bria, write a heartfelt message to Montgomery and let them know just how important gifted education is to our students of Alabama.

Thank you.

Audrey Fine, President

Alabama Association for Gifted Children

We are pleased to announce our theme for our September conference – The Many Faces of Gifted.   Our keynote speaker for Friday will be Sylvia Rimm.  More information will come later.

The registration form can be found here.

If you are interested in presenting at our fall 2012 conference, please download the the attached  form and follow the instructions.

Call for Proposals

So, ho-hum, things just go on as usual and nothing gets done.  It’s time for that to change.

By now, most everyone is back from their spring break, including our state legislators. Now is not the time to back off from our advocacy efforts. We need to continue out letter writing, emails, Twitter and Facebook posts, and telephone calls to our state elected officials.

Recently, a few groups of parents of gifted started to join together to make a difference.  I encourage you parents to do the same.  If you don’t know who to contact, check with your gifted specialist for your school.  Gifted specialist, invite a group of your parents to meet.  You will be surprised to learn that many do not know gifted education is not funded.  Many, also, do not know the risk of losing their gifted services they already have and some may also not realize what used to be in their system, is now gone.

Please, write to your elected officials.  It is not too late.  Our gifted children need to get the appropriate education they deserve.

Amazing Week!

This past week has been a wonderful week for gifted education.  Two parent groups formed and as we all know, parents have the power.  It’s going to take the parent’s efforts and concerns being sent to Montgomery to make a difference in the education of our gifted children.

I personally had the experience of meeting with over thirty parents of gifted children in our Birmingham City Schools district on Friday.  Myself, along with Amy Waine, Kim Crockett, and Jane Putman presented the need for funding for gifted education to the parents.  These were parents of children who had already been identified as gifted and did not know that Alabama does not fund gifted programs and that the gifted education for their children could be eliminated or severely cut.  They also had the opportunity to meet other parents with like-minded concerns for their children.  It was a positive experience and will be expanded across our district next month.

Friday morning, I was so happy to receive this email:

“We had our first parent meeting tonight.  Committees have been meeting to plan the event, which included our elementary, and middle school parents.  The participation and enthusiasm was so inspiring.  I am so proud of the leadership, courage, and commitment of Sherri Nowell who has worked tirelessly ever since we presented the pressing issues at our parent advisory meeting in February.  Other parents, like Amanda Hines and Jamie Edwards, participated in organizing the event and writing letters to our state officials.  Our group is fired up and ready to go.  Another meeting is planned for the week after spring break to officially make the group an active part of AAGC. 

 Hats off to the parents of Wetumpka Elementary and Wetumpka Middle Schools.

 Sherilyn Morgan

Gifted Teacher

Wetumpka Elementary”

Even if you think your parents are not interested, I encourage you to try anyway, because you may be surprised.  We invited about one hundred parents in Birmingham from four of our magnet schools and we had over thirty to attend (and this was on a Friday at 1:00 pm before spring break).  We were thrilled with the attendance.  Parents are very willing partners in our endeavors for gifted education and want the best for their children.

All the best,

Audrey Fine, President

Alabama Association for Gifted Children

I didn’t send out a mass email to our membership this past weekend, because I felt that I just couldn’t add anything to what I have already sent out.  Well, because of a couple of great parents in my district who are supporting me and our  program, I became revitalized.  This Friday, we are having our first ever Parents of Gifted meeting in our district.  I am so proud of them.  I encourage you, the gifted educator, and parents to have a meeting of your own.  Gifted specialist, your parents do need your help in organizing such an endeavor.   We gifted specialist have the knowledge of what is needed for our gifted children, and parents know that their children need more.  It is so important that we come together to make a difference.

Someone reminded me this week why gifted funding is so important.  I had a family friend over who was part of Future Problem Solving.  He is now a successful business man and shared with me how he felt this program made a difference in his education and career.  He is able to think “outside of the box” and is able to solve problems and make a positive impact  in his organization.

Maybe you are in a district that the students are not involved in wonderful opportunities such as robotics, Future Problem Solving, Science Olympiad, and such.  If you are, you know how important these programs are to your students and children.  In many cases, without funding, many students do not have the opportunity to be a part of these great programs.

I ask you to do this – continue to contact your state elected officials.  But, to really make a difference, we need parents.  Parents have the power.  Elected officials pay attention to the voters – parents!  Help the parents to organize and demand what is right for their child’s gifted education.