NURTURING GIFTED CHILDREN:

PARENT SOCIAL

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Gifted Coaching NW is excited to invite you to our

upcoming parent social event, Nurturing Gifted

Children: Parent Social.

This casual gathering is designed to bring together

parents and caregivers of gifted children for

meaningful conversations, shared insights, and

community building. Whether you’re seeking

support, new friendships, or simply a space to connect

with other parents, this event is for you!

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4 PM - 6 PM APRIL 12

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SYNDICATE

WINE BAR &

RESTAURANT

2620 SW FIRST STREET,

BEAVERTON, OR 97005

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Sponsored by: The Oregon Association for Talented &

Gifted

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REGISTER HERE:

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??Space is limited—reserve your spot today!??
$10.00 per person | Financial assistance available through volunteer opportunities -- contact Candice Guertin-Garey at?candice@...? for details.

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Friends:

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The Educator Advancement Council has openings for two directors.? One is for a middle school teacher and the other is for a representative of a philanthropic organization.

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The EAC directors provide guidance for the Education Advancement Council which coordinates networks of regional EACs providing professional development for teachers in the region. The EAC’s work is funded with grants from the state.

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Directors serve two-year terms.? It would be great to have someone interested in professional development on talented and gifted instruction on the Council.

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Learn more here:

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Margaret

A big thank you to everyone who provided testimony for SB 933 and SB 934 yesterday.

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you can find it here:

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and here:

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The journey for these bills is just beginning. The next step is a "work session" (ie. committee vote) on the bills. The chair of the Senate Education Committee, Lew Frederick, is supportive, but he won't schedule a work session without support from his other committee members

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These bills were opposed by the Oregon Education Association, the Conference of Oregon School Administrators, and the Oregon School Board Association on the grounds that they would "open the floodgates" because

• "every parent thinks their children are gifted,"
• because they would be new and burdensome mandates
• because there are "no resources" to pay for TAG .

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The first is a myth.... research has found that parents are a least as good at recognizing giftedness as untrained teachers (and most districts do allow parent referrals and aren’t flooded by requests) and the second just points to the fact that we currently don’t have any categorical TAG funding.? I wish I thought they would also be supporting more TAG funding but that isn’t going to happen. ?

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SB 933 does call for additional reports from the Department of Education, but in most cases the Department already HAS the information—it just isn’t compiling and publishing it in a helpful way. ??My testimony on the value of using student GAINS instead of scores can be found here:

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You can always find out about a bill’s text and progress on the relevant committee homepage:

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Learn more about the bills, and how to communicate with your representatives here:

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Margaret

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Thank you, Candice:

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I appreciate the feedback—It’s hard for me to know what is really going to be helpful and what is just annoying!

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Margaret

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Margaret DeLacy, President

Oregon Association for Talented and Gifted

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OATAG provides information at no cost to support Oregon students, educators and families. Your OATAG membership is essential for this to continue.

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Yes Margaret, I appreciated the bill summaries and the ease of clicking a link to go directly to testimony.

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Maria

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For people who like shortcuts:

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Here are links to submit testimony.? Testimony can be very brief but please be polite and include your name!

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First public hearing Monday at 8:00 AM

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Submit testimony

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Senate Education Committee

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House Education Committee

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Learn about the process here:

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Read more about the bills here:

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Friends:

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The two Senate Bills, (Reporting TAG data and student achievement gains) and (TAG referrals)

are now in committee and scheduled for a hearing first thing Monday morning (8AM).

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The house bill, HB 3420 hasn’t yet been assigned to a committee, but I expect that it will be assigned to the House Education Committee.

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On this page you will find information on how to submit testimony or to testify in person or online about a bill

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The easiest way to follow what is going on is to become familiar with the homepages for committees.? The Senate Education Committee currently has agendas for the next few meetings, a place to sign up to testify, the texts of the bills assigned to the committee, their status, a link to streaming and archived audio/video for each session and other relevant information.? Other relevant information such as any amendments, a summary, a fiscal impact statement etc. are added as they are provided to the committee. For streaming and recorded a/v, click on the small arrow next to the date of the hearing.

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The information is available on the site in both English and Spanish.? There are also interpreters and a sign language interpreter during the hearings.

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Anyone can sign up to testify or submit testimony to a committee and having a lot of participants, even if their comments are very brief is very helpful in securing passage of a bill.

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If you wish to testify in person or online, be sure to put your most important point(s) first.? You are likely to be asked to stop after two or at most three minutes.? Sometimes people are only allowed one minute or are asked to return for a later hearing.? Usually, when that happens if there are people in the room the chair will ask who has come from far away and take them first.

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There is still construction going on in the Capitol.? The hearing rooms are open, but the cafeteria is gone and parking can be difficult.? If you want to testify, I have found that testifying online is usually very easy and efficient.

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You can learn more about the bills and find some samples of how to communicate with your legislators here:

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Find your legislators here:

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Friends:

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We now have a TAG funding bill: HB 3420 to accompany SB 933 and SB 934.? Learn more tonight when we chat!

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Margaret DeLacy is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

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Topic: Let’s meet!

Time: Jan 28, 2025 07:30 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

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Meeting ID: 838 5761 9179

Passcode: 380320

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One tap mobile

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Meeting ID: 838 5761 9179

Passcode: 380320

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Find your local number:

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Friends:

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The Senate Education committee is arranging a public hearing at 8:00 AM Monday, February 3rd for two bills that we requested and Senator Taylor has sponsored.? This hearing will accept public testimony, written, online, or in person.

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I will host an information session ONLINE tomorrow night for anyone who is interested or would like to learn more about how to participate in the legislative process. See below for the zoom link and come join the chat!

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addresses accountability data about student achievement AND issues related to TAG data reporting at the state and district level.

?The first part of the bill addresses a decision by the State Board of Education that excluded TAG and high achieving students out of the provisions of the Student Success Act designed for students in groups with special needs.? This section of the SSA spells out groups of "underserved" students who will be explicitly included and for whom there will be "longitudinal growth targets."? Several other provisions of the SSA and even of other bills, laws, and rules reference this section, so when TAG students were excluded from this section of the SSA, the data called for elsewhere also did not include TAG students.

?The bill calls for a breakdown of TAG students by income, ethnicity, ELL, and Special education status,? compared to the overall population in a district.? It also calls for district-level reports on spending for services, student performance, course taking, FTE and staff credentials, and results of parent surveys "on the adequacy of instruction provided to talented and gifted children.," and also adds this data to the state report card together with district size.

Most of this information is already provided by districts to the Oregon Department of Education but it is not consistently reported.? Some of this information is in the state report card, but some of it is in reports that each district submits separately to the Department and is not collected for a statewide report.

Collecting and reporting this information will make it possible to ensure that our new identification rule and our TAG spending are having the intended outcomes.

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However, the most important part of this bill is not limited to TAG or to high-achieving students.? It requires the Oregon Department of Education to report student achievement GAINS broken down by grade level, ability level, and income/ethnicity.

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Currently (including in the latest accountability "Dashboard") the department does report overall student achievement levels by ethnicity and income but this does not show how much these students are learning—it just shows where they are at a single point in time.?

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The only way to use achievement scores to ensure that every student is actually learning is to look at student growth during the school year.? Breaking this down by ability level ensures that the gains of students at either end of the achievement scale aren't concealed by the gains of students in the middle.

States that anyone who knows a student may refer that student to an identification team for assessment for TAG.? This ratifies current practice in most Oregon districts, but it was missing from our original TAG mandate.? Research has shown that when referrals for assessment are limited, some gifted students are more likely to be missed.
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Margaret DeLacy is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

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Topic: Lets meet!

Time: Jan 28, 2025 07:30 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

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Meeting ID: 838 5761 9179

Passcode: 380320

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One tap mobile

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+12532050468,,83857619179#,,,,*380320# US

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Meeting ID: 838 5761 9179

Passcode: 380320

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Find your local number:

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Thanks for the info, Margaret.? I just wrote Lew Frederick who is well-positioned on two committees.

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Maria

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Friends:

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Here is a list of the membership of the education committees in the current legislative session.

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If any of these people represents YOU, please contact them and ask them to support funding and services for our TAG students.? If you are not sure who represents you or how to contact them you can find out here.? If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at president@...

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Let’s get this over the top this session!

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Margaret

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House committee on Education

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Joint Subcommittee on Ways and Means: Education subcommittee

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How to become an effective advocate for your students:

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Find out who represents you in Salem and then get to know them:

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Finding your legislator

• Go to the
• In the “Find My Legislators" box enter your address including zip code and click Go.
• By clicking on the tabs for "House" and "Senate" at the top you will find a listing of your legislators in that chamber. If you click on their web page link, you will find contact information, news and a biography for each legislator.
• It is an excellent idea to sign up for your legislators' newsletters. This will tell you what their priorities are and will also alert you to scheduled Town Halls in your district.? Every Oregon legislator eventually votes on nearly every bill (a couple are usually excused due to sickness or official business)
• You can sign up for their newsletter on their web page

At the bottom of the Oregon Legislative Home Page is a button labelled "esubscribe". This will take you to a central listing where you can enter your email and sign up for agendas, newsletters, and other legislative information.

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Capitol Phone:?503-986-1426
Capitol Address:?900 Court St NE, H-281, Salem, OR 97301
Email:?Rep.CourtneyNeron@...
Website:?

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Learn about the findings in the latest NAGC State of the States report in this free NAGC webinar

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January 23, 2025 | 7:00 p.m. ET
Free & Open to All
Speaker: Jaret Hodges

Join us as we debut the latest edition of the State of the States in Gifted Education report, covering SY 2021-22. What changes have happened nationwide over the last two years in gifted education policy? How are states implementing universal screening? Get answers to these questions and more during this session.

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Jaret Hodges is an assistant professor at the University of North Texas in gifted education. His research interests are in underserved populations in gifted education and education policy. He also has interest in promoting open science practices and computer programming in educational research. His current research examines how gifted students are depicted online

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Margaret

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Friends:

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Senator Aaron Woods, Representative Coutney Neron and ?Representative Ben Bowman are holding a Town Hall meeting on SATURDAY at 2:00 PM in King City, which on route 99 between Tigard and Sherwood.?

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I encourage you to attend if you can!? Town halls are always interesting.? Please take this opportunity to learn about their plans for the coming session and to ask them whether they will support TAG funding.

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Representative Neron will be chair of the House Education Committee this session.

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Representative Bowman is the House Majority Leader

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Senator Woods had a long career in our high tech industry

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To learn more about how to participate in the coming legislative session, which begins on January 21, go to

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OATAG provides information at no cost to support Oregon students, educators and families. Your OATAG membership is essential for this to continue.

My letter from Wednesday's Oregonian:

Readers respond: Student Success Act leaves some students behind

• Published: Dec. 13, 2024, 6:00 a.m.

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Like many other Oregonians, I cheered when the Student Success Act passed in 2019, (“Opinion: Student Success Act offers state a model for effective, accountable education funding,”)

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It promised a new beginning for our K-12 education system, but its promise was soon diminished.

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Sadly, the state Board of Education agreed that one group of special-needs students should be excluded from the full benefits of the act, perhaps the first time that any student group has been deliberately singled out for neglect. The bill created funding for students experiencing academic disparities. However, the board decided that lack of access to programs for academically gifted and high-achieving students does not constitute academic disparity.

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According to the report that underlay the act, many parents spoke to the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Student Success about the lack of resources for Talented and Gifted programs; the committee recommended categorical TAG funding.

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Today, half of all Oregon districts either do not fund or do not identify TAG students. Portland Public Schools, by its own admission, has been out of compliance for mandated TAG services since 2016. Tens of thousands of students have wasted much of their time in school while our tax dollars have been squandered on teaching them material they already know.

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In the words of the opinion writers, “if we want our kids to live out their most ambitious dreams, we must provide the education they need” and keep expectations high. Any education system that has high expectations for every student includes high-achieving students.

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Margaret DeLacy, Portland

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Here’s an example of why the exclusion from the SIA list of "focal groups" referenced in my letter matters:

Today the House Education Committee reviewed a document "A Renewed Vision for Oregon's Accountability System 2024" which can be found here:

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The document calls for "High-Quality Learning Experiences for ALL Students but the data "lever" references "SIA Metrics and Longitudinal Performance Growth Targets" The outcome it seeks is "Scholars regularly attend school, READ AT GRADE LEVEL, are on track to graduate...." (my emphasis). Those "SIA Metrics and Growth Targets" exclude the very group of students making the smallest growth: high-achieving students who exceeded state benchmarks. Elsewhere it describes "attention to year-over-year growth," but again, high-achieving students will be excluded.

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Margaret