In an effort to let the community, teachers and parents know what’s going on in the gifted and talented world, Ector County ISD will host ECISD GT Super Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Nov. 12.
The event will be at Blackshear Elementary School, 501 S. Dixie Blvd. The event will be in English and Spanish and they will each have keynote speakers.
For the English part, it is Kathy Koch, an author and founder of Celebrate Kids Inc. and co-founder of Ignite the Family.
Liseth Ceja Prado, a multimedia journalist at CBS7 and Telemundo, will be speaker for the Spanish portion.
“We wanted to have an opportunity to get our students together with the GT teachers outside of school, which is part of the state plan is that there’s opportunities for students to engage in gifted activities outside of the school day,” Director of Advanced Academic Services Kristen Vesely said.
She added that they wanted teachers to have an opportunity to get their required six-hour training update all at once.
They also decided to have Super Saturday in English and Spanish and make sure parents and the community got a chance to engage with GT, the teachers and staff and other aspects.
“We really are trying to build those connections. The goal is to build an advocacy for gifted and talented education in ECISD. We’ve also invited districts in the surrounding area to come, and so hopefully, several years down the line, maybe we’ll have a larger group where the school districts and communities from several different places come together and we can work to make gifted education better for all students,” Vesely said.
The goal is for parents to see how the gifted program works for students in elementary school and what the next steps look like through middle and high school and on to college.
“We’re really kind of working it as an advisory for parents at the same time, as it’s an opportunity for our students who are playing with the GT teachers in a kind of a mini Camp SIP environment, so they get to pick their passion of four different strands. They get to pick the one they like the best and then they’ll be working with the GT teacher all day in that strand of whether it’s creativity, science, technology,” she added.
SIP stands for Scholars in Progress.
English and Spanish speakers will start together in a bilingual fashion and then separate and they will come back together in the last hour, Vesely said.
Chief Communications Officer Mike Adkins will moderate a GT panel starting at about 2:45 p.m. Some on the panel will speak English and some Spanish, she said.
Elementary Coordinator for Advanced Academic Services Stephanie Wright said Koch has written six-plus books and she’ll have books for sale at the conference.
Vesely said Prado has has “a really neat story about becoming an educated woman and following her dreams and her passions.”
“We’re super excited to have both of them,” Vesely said.
The conference is free and there will be door prizes and giveaways.
Different departments at ECISD will have tables to share information and resources.
Wright said UTPB will attend to talk about the Falcon Free scholarship.
“We’re just kind of trying to make it a community event as much as we can,” Vesely said.
