June 27th Roundtable Discussion on educating gifted youth in New York State.

1. Thanks for making the effort to make connections, learn about what is going on in the public
schools, and hear the frustrations that many parents and teachers of the gifted and the twice
exceptional encounter. It was a pleasure to hear from all of you.
To recap the meeting: You were concerned with
· Budget cuts in public school
· School systems recognizing the twice exceptional child
· Absence of laws that protect gifted youth
· Challenges of raising gifted children
· Moving legislators forward
· How to encourage administrators to get services
· How gifted children desperately need peer groups
· Worried that gifted children will become non-performing adults due to boredom and not
being properly challenged.
You posed a question:
· What percentage of the gifted population is also twice exceptional?
I sent out a few emails to AEGUS and to Northwestern University with the hope that we can get
an answer or an estimate.
We quickly reviewed the major points of the legislation that is being proposed:
· To mandate services for gifted youth (Bill S03301)
· To require all teachers to take a course in gifted education (Bill A05506)
· To mandate 1.5 state aid ratio to put programs into place
· Restore dedicated Gifted Education Funds to the state aid formulas, which would allow for
schools to offer ability grouping and acceleration when deemed appropriate

2. What we would like:
· For school systems to encourage accelerations by entire grade level or by specific subject
area
· For students to take AP courses or on-line college courses when older
· Offer full time, part time, gifted programs or courses for students
· A modified IEPs should be established to mark the growth of gifted children, as they are
held back by the standards. Gifted students should grow proportionately to their cognitive ability,
not by the common standard
· To prevent the national gifted dropout rate of 20%
· To encourage everyone we know to write to their assembly member
How Synergy Will Respond to Your Concerns:
· I have decided to start a program that will launch in August. It will offer challenges to all
gifted learners. I've already hired a Social Media expert and we have been working on this new
concept for the past month.
· Each month, a new challenge will be posted on the Synergy Facebook page
(www.facebook.com/synergywestchester). If you cannot find the page, type in "Synergy Gifted"
and you will see our fabulous fish logo.
· Samples of challenges are:
o Invent a new instrument
o Design a garden and put it into place
o Design a picture made out of recycled bottle tops
I've made a list of 30 + ideas already, but am open to any suggestions
· Students will have a month to work on the challenges and then to post their results. The
population at large will be able to vote on them for the winner, based on age groups.
· Students can work on the challenges by themselves or with a small peer group. Respecting
how gifted kids produce, some like to brainstorm ideas collectively while others like to "take
orbit" by themselves.
· One participant recommended that we begin to create a list of mentors who can work with
gifted children on these challenges. I think that's a great idea.

3. While we work hard to put this idea into place, I'd love to hear your reactions on how you might
be able to help us with this endeavor.
If you are interested in coming together to discuss this, please let me know.
Once again, it was great to hear from you all!
Andi
Andi Stix, Ed.D. & PCC
G·tec Kids & The Interactive Classroom
astix@optonline.net
http://www.gteckids.com