ADMINISTRATORS INSTITUTE

Monday, February 24, 2020: 8:00 – 3:00 pm (Eastern Time)

INTENDED FOR:  Superintendents, Principals, Assistant Principals, and All Educators Who are Key Decision-Makers in Schools, Districts, and Organizations

PURPOSE: If gifted students from all levels of society are to be nurtured to be college and career ready and to reach their full potential, then key decision-makers must make informed decisions rooted in research-based strategies and best practices in gifted education. All children, including gifted children, need encouragement, and appropriate learning experiences from caring adults in order to make the most of who they are and will become.

About the day:

Start with the keynote: Leaving Genius on the Table: Practical Tools to Unleash the Potential of Underrepresented Populations in Gifted Education by thinkLaw’s Colin Seale and follow it with sessions designed to challenge your thinking regarding providing direction, assistance, and resources to support and enhance performance of students with high potential. Listen, interact, and learn from colleagues. Explore how nurturing potential requires eliminating barriers and boosting opportunities at the district/school levels.

Sessions at the Administrators Institute include:

• The Bigger Picture: Rethinking Quality Gifted Programming as a District Wide Strategy for Raising the Bar, presented by Colin Seale, thinkLaw – This session explores powerful, but practical strategies innovative districts are using across the country to invest in fulfilling the promise of gifted students to move them to distinguished levels of performance and increase offerings of advanced academic coursework to a broader range of students. Come for an interactive, problem-solving experience that moves theory into practice. And leave with a plan you design specifically for your district’s unique needs that will help you shift from conversations around closing the achievement gap to practical strategies for shattering achievement ceilings.

• What’s in Place and What is New in Gifted Education, presented by Julia Link Roberts, Ed.D, and Mary Evans, Ed.D., The Center for Gifted Studies, WKU – Participants will learn about and discuss the report by the Education Trust, Inequities in Advanced Coursework: What’s Driving It and What Leaders Can Do, the 2019 Pre-K-Grade 12 Gifted Programming Standards, the Excellence Gap, and other current documents seen through a Kentucky lens.

• But We Don’t Have Any Gifted Kids Here…, presented by Leann Pickerill, Ed.D., Paris Independent Schools, This session is designed to help address the misconceptions that gifted students don’t exist in high poverty, high diversity schools. We will examine practices that are successful in identification and support of gifted students in underrepresented populations and schools.

INFORMED DECISION-MAKERS MAKE APPROPRIATE LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES HAPPEN FOR GIFTED LEARNERS!