While you are hopefully having a splendid summer, here is another reminder of why it is so important to join P.A.C.E. (Parents for Academic Challenge and Enrichment).

There was a largely adulatory article recently in the Columbus Dispatch concerning the first year of Dan Good’s first year as interim (now permanent) Superintendent of Columbus City Schools: “A year in, Dan Good has won fans with style”.

I notice that in the article

Good said his biggest “misstep” was the botched April rollout of changes to the district’s gifted and talented program, which led some parents of gifted students to threaten to keep their kids out of state proficiency tests.

It is good to see that Dr. Good is aware of these concerns. (Also, the issue is not fully resolved.) While many of the parents who made the most noise may not have been members of P.A.C.E., they ought to be! It is important that we help guide Dr. Good, the Board, and other educational leaders to be able set policies and procedures with the knowledge that they have heard from parents of gifted and talented students.

When P.A.C.E. can engage the Superintendent (or other officials) as an organization representing many parents, the officials will listen!

Those membership numbers matter! Even if you can’t be as active in the organization as you might like to be, I still encourage you to join. Then you can be counted among those who raise important concerns. At any level of activity, you can learn more about gifted education — not just for the good of your child, but to the benefit of all our children. (And when you are ready to be a more active leader, the steps to that are shorter.)

The same principle of strength in numbers applied to our advocacy at the state house, through our affiliation with O.A.G.C., the Ohio Association for Gifted Children.