Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Parent Group Formation?

Hi everyone - I have been lurking around this forum for a while. I would like to hear the wisdom from the forum on whether or not it would be beneficial to start a "parents of gifted children group" in our local school district. We have a great program in the district from K-8 spread out over several schools. My thoughts are that a parents' program/group/PTA would allow for better communication within the district as well as across the schools. Parents might be able to share what they have learned or experienced with their kids (what extra-curricular programs were a hit and why)as well as having a few speakers come in 1x or 2x a year to address a topic of interest. Having been involved with a PTA in the past I wanted to stay away from that model of monthly boring meetings/fundraising. The district has a single person in charge of the gifted program but he seems to be just a "gate-keeper" to the program with most of his time consumed with applications. He does not seem to be interested in developing a community among the families in the program.

Do any of your school districts have such a group and if so how is it received by families and the district? I thank you in advance for any advice, direction, warnings you may have.

We have the GAGC, which is the Georgia Association for Gifted Children. Each county has it's own chapter. Does your state have something like that already?

I'm not involved/a member of either of ours... yet.

Is there a SENG group in your area?

No SENG group here or a statewide gifted group. We are the only district with a fully stand alone GT program K-8. Sometimes I think they keep it a bit under the radar. The PTAs in the schools with the program are basically all GT parents but what I was hoping for was something specific to the GT community. When I entered the GT world here there was a real attitude that we should just be thankful we "made it" and be quiet. I only have one kid and just would have liked to know what to expect from the program let alone a "gifted" child. I wanted the benefit of others experiences... Now with a son going into 4th grade I could share my experiences from K-3 with some of the new parents to the program.

I can only dream of having something like that here. I live in Newfoundland and from what I can tell, we had a Gifted Child Association here a while ago, but it seems like it's disbanded. I think it's a great idea to have something like this forum but the ability to meet in person and hear from others in similar situations. Go for it!

Our local school districts both do this. They have speakers come in and give presentations once every other month or so. I've been to a few of the presentations. I have found some of the speakers to be useful but haven't found the group to be something that is of huge benefit in terms of social networking with other parents.

I think that the main issue here in terms of it being a good support organization for parents is the way that our local districts ID gifted. Even the GT coordinator at one of the schools has said to me that we ID more high achievers than gifted kids and, thus, these events draw more parents of bright high achievers than parents of gifted kids. That makes it such that one can find some parents who are great to talk with and who are dealing with similar issues, but also such that many of the parents with whom you would be talking at these events aren't the best for commiseration or idea bouncing in that they don't have gifted kids.

Sorry about the run-on sentence!

Our school district also has an organization. They also have speakers a couple times per year. Mostly they keep people updated with a listserv that lets them know about speakers, political action and other topics related to gifted education in our area. Last year when the district was looking to save money by uprooting successful gt programs, the gt parent organization galvanized a letter writing campaign that appeared successful (no programs moved). They also have been disseminating information about some ballot initiatives that would decimate K-12 funding in our state.
I've heard that the non-speaker meetings tend to attract the negative people (i.e. people who want to complain that the district isn't doing what they want for their kid.) I haven't attended because they are at an inconvenient time.