GT STUDENTS NEED ADVOCATES

Among those retiring is Sandra Johnson, gifted and talented education specialist at the Ozarks Unlimited Education Service Cooperative in Harrison. She grew up in Louisiana as a student in a developing gifted program. The list also includes Barbara Prichard, Fayetteville School District's first and only director of gifted and talented and Advanced Placement programs; Larry Driver, gifted and talented education specialist for the Northwest Arkansas Education Service Cooperative; and Jo Vanderspikken, the kindergarten through 12th-grade gifted and talented program coordinator and economics coordinator for Springdale School District. "All four are long-term providers of services to gifted students and were instrumental in the early years of the development of programs and services to students in Northwest Arkansas," said Mary Kathryn Stein, the Arkansas Department of Education's director of gifted and talented and Advanced Placement. "Their efforts and examples have been shared throughout the state." She described the four outgoing Northwest Arkansas educators as advocates for gifted education in their districts and in various leadership roles in state organizations. Vanderspikken is a past president of Arkansans for Gifted and Talented Education. Prichard and Johnson are former presidents of Arkansas Association for Gifted Education Administrators. "They have demonstrated their love for service to gifted students in so many ways that they have been the recipients of numerous awards and accolades from these groups, as well as their local school districts and education service centers through the years," Stein said. "It will be impossible to replace them in the field of gifted education in Arkansas, but their influence will be felt far into the future." Johnson, now 53, was a new teacher in the Bruno-Pyatt School District when gifted education was developing in Arkansas. She earned an education degree focused on elementary and special education. The late Bruno-Pyatt Superintendent David Land encouraged her in the field by providing money for her master's degree in gifted education and sending her to national conferences. The majority of her teaching experience in gifted education was in Bergman. "People tend to think that gifted kids will just get it on their own, that they don't need the support," Johnson said. "The saddest thing I have experienced is gifted students who weren't challenged enough to stay in school." Johnson, who has been an educator for 31½ years, said she remembers with regret one gifted third-grader who later dropped out of school. He was advanced academically, but socially immature. She remembers him bringing Matchbox cars and Tom Clancy's novel The Hunt for Red October to recess. If he couldn't find a peer group to play with, he would read. Johnson, as a gifted coordinator, worked to advocate for his needs, but an educator for gifted students -- often the only one employed in smaller rural school districts -- cannot alone meet all academic needs in all subjects for gifted children. Strong gifted programs provide layers of services and options, Johnson said. They have open-door referral policies and actively work to identify the 5 percent to 10 percent of children who are gifted. All educators need to know about the traits and needs of gifted children and how to respond to those needs, she said. "Our gifted kids come to school with such a desire to learn," Johnson said. "When they spend years not being challenged it has a damaging effect. Our gifted kids can be the most harmed in our districts if not provided with strong, good growth." Specific needs Prichard, 71, earned a minor in special education while obtaining her bachelor's degree in elementary education at the University of Kansas. As part of her minor, she took a graduate course in gifted and talented education. She learned about the research on how underserved gifted children were in schools, she said. "There were children languishing in classrooms," she said. "There are students who have been left behind and forgotten." Gifted children have distinguishable characteristics that require different kinds of instruction, Prichard said. Characteristics include being unusually curious, having a large vocabulary compared with children of the same age, sustained interest in one or more fields, concern about world problems, a tendency to question the status quo and the ability to reason abstractly. Gifted children have specific educational needs as would any other student with a special need, such as those with a learning disability or those with a physical impairment, she said. "There are all kinds of needs we look for in children," Prichard said. Arkansas has been a national leader in gifted education because Act 445 of 1983 mandated school districts identify gifted children and provide programs for them, she said. The requirement comes with funding, she said. "The funded mandate is important so we're not taking money

GT STUDENTS NEED ADVOCATES

Photo Credit: Brenda Bernet

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