About 5 yrs ago, a few parents formed a local gifted association when services to our kids were threatened to be cut. Since that time, the assoc. has been successful in working with the district and our gifted program is going well. The association has 3 meetings/yr with interesting guest speakers, 3 newsletters/yr, disseminates articles & info to big email list of parents, organizes a big science festival (3 days long), and poetry olio. Sadly, there are now only a handful of people doing all the work, meetings are poorly attended, no one contributes to the newsletters, etc.

I have visions for how we can grow (offer competitions, knowledge bowls, spelling bees, science olympiad summer camp, etc.)...so many possibilities. But I can't imagine expanding our offerings without getting more people involved, 'cause it's already too much for me.

Does anyone have insights about recruiting enthusiastic volunteers--or knowing when to call it quits? We have 594 gifted students in the district, but our meetings have about 6 parents and 6 teachers/admin. They're short and really do have interesting speakers.

How many people participate in the Science Festival?
Can some of those parents be cultivated to step up to the plate and take on "just" the Science Festival?

At what grade do services to the kids start? I'll bet you can find some interested parents if you look at the group that isn't getting services - LOL - wink!

I've been thinking lately that a poster in the Library for a book group of reading preschoolers would be a great way to "recurit" new interested families.

Perhaps you can get your local Pediatricians to keep their eyes open for new families to join the network?

As for the families of already identified kids, what are their interests? Can you get them to fill out an email questionare about what they like about the group and where they have interests that might be developed.

Do you have a state organization or smaller regional organization that you can link up with? Perhaps your speaker can be open to surrounding towns? What incentives are availible to get the teachers to these lectures? Can they get educational credits? Dunkin Donuts gift cards? What topics are they interested enough in that they wouldn't need addional incentives?

Best Wishes,
Trin

Hi Trinity,

I really appreciate your ideas. I have been battling with this for some time and guess the end result is that my interests (one of which is gifted research/ed) are not necessarily shared by many here.

The science festival is city-wide for grades 4-6 (and K-3 gifted), so about 2500 kids attend. It's quite an undertaking, but is really wonderful. Still, I've been asking the gifted association whether this is the best use of our time. Perhaps we should recruit for the city-wide festival and have the assoc. focus our time/efforts on activities for gifted kids specifically. I dunno.

My ennui will probably be extinguished in a few weeks when the festival is done and I get summertime to recoop/re-energize.

Recently a statewide gifted organization started up but seems to be mostly a resource to teachers (noticing continuiing ed courses and gifted certification offerings, conferences, etc.). I'm still pleased to see a state-wide organization and maybe it'll evolve to have support for parents and gifted kids.

We are located so far from other towns (couple hrs driving) that teaming with other communities would be difficult (though not impossible). I agree that appealing to families with younger children is the way to grow and we've started by printing brochures about the association for teachers to hand out at all IEPs. Maybe that'll help. I think it's really that we have a strong gifted program, and parents aren't worried about it. But I still devour articles and info, even though my kids are being challenged & enriched.

Anyway, thank you for your suggestions!
Cym

Cym -
Sounds like you are doing a major amount of work on the science fair, and that it isn't where you want to be putting such a large amount of your energy, yes?

I think that you can train up a support team for the science fair, but sadly, it will take time.

I think it's great that your children are being appropriatly educated - Yippee!

What do you think of the online "interest survey" idea? Would folks even respond? How about a paper interest survey to hand to the parents at the science fair?

Sometime I think about taking online courses in gifted education, don't they all sound yummy?

Trinity