Kim Belletti, President, Northampton PAGE (PA Association for Gifted Education)
I'd like to thank the board & special education department, especially Dr. Firestone, for your roles in hiring Mr. LoGiudice to evaluate our gifted program here at NASD. I think it was long overdue and am encouraged that we are hopefully on the right path now to make improving the gifted program a priority. We owe it to the gifted students. I think we are very fortunate to have terrific gifted teachers who are excited and motivated to do great things with the kids, but frankly, for the most part they haven't been given either the leadership, encouragement, latitude nor the resources to accomplish the programming they would like to develop. I sincerely hope with the direction of Mr. LoGiudice's report we can move forward with developing a gifted program to be proud of here at Northampton School District.
Northampton PAGE is here to help in whatever capacity we can. We're off to a great start with 30+ members so far and we have a terrific group of individuals serving on our steering committee. Our next public meeting is scheduled for Tuesday March 12, 7:00 at George Wolf, the topic being discussed will be GIEP's. Anyone is welcome and encouraged to attend.
To meet the academic and social needs of the gifted students (both equally important), we would like to request that resource rooms in both the middle and senior high schools be made available for the gifted teachers and students for next school year. Although we investigated the possibility of such a room for this year, due to space issues, it was not feasible. Regardless of space issues, I have asked Dr. Ott and Dr. Firestone to consider it a priority request by Northampton PAGE for next school year.
At this time, the PAGE chapter, gifted students and I would like to know how the board plans on proceeding in regards to Mr. LoGiudice's recommendations?
I would like to make it clear that PAGE does not consider gifted students to be better, they're just different. Because they are "different", PA state law states they have special needs that must be met by Northampton School District. I do not believe those needs are currently being met to the best of our abilities. I would like to offer Northampton PAGE's help to the school board and administration in terms of support, research, education and request a formal ongoing cooperative working relationship in the form of a committee, or some other group to be determined by the board.
Lastly, I'd like to share some documented "misconceptions" about gifted students with the board and the audience: