SAGT
Southlake Association for Gifted and Talented
Join/renew your SAGT membership for 2024-2025 school year!
Upcoming Events
Check back in January for a new list of spring events!
Mark your calendar:
Brown Bag Series: Navigating the 2025-2026 Academic Planning Guide. February 4th, 11:00-1:00, Carroll Admin Building
Overnight at the Fort Worth Zoo: March 29th. More details to be announced.
Brown Bag Series: Roadmap to Your Child's Success. April 9th, 11:00-1:00, Carroll Admin Building
Recent Event Highlights
Leveraging AI for Education
On Tuesday, November 12th, Parent Programs hosted a Brown Bag Event: Leveraging AI for Education at the CISD Administration Building. The event featured Dr. Suzanne Newell, Ed.D., Chief Education Strategist for GTS Technology Solutions. Dr. Newell, a longtime educator in Texas, works alongside K12 institutions with her deep commitment to understanding Generative AI in order to be a knowledgeable and supportive guide for educators as the use of AI grows at a rapid pace.
Dr. Newell started the presentation promising the attendees plenty of "ah ha!" and "oh no!" moments and she delivered on the promise. A key takeaway from the event was focusing on learning what skills kids need in order to be resilient in this new world while also being cautious of becoming the product of AI tools. Students, and parents alike, should focus on expanding the questions asked of AI tools, breaking down the answers and reworking the questions to set themselves apart from the crowd. Dr. Newell's complete presentation is available here: Leveraging AI for Education Presentation
College Admissions Panel
On Wednesday, October 16th, Parent Programs hosted the 2024 College Admissions Panel event at the CISD Administration Building. The interactive panel with local experts was designed to assist parents in the college application and administrations process and to discuss how to help students stand out.
Panelists included:
Nick Kennedy, Partner at Baker McKenzie, LLP, Harvard graduate and Harvard Admissions interviewer
Stephanie Williams, former SAGT President and mother of 4 Carroll graduates
Gina Peddy, CISD Executive Director of Curriculum & Instruction
Deborah Wagner, CISD Coordinator of Counseling
Barbara Milhizer & Sarah Thomas, College Collective Consulting and former CISD Language Arts teachers
Stephanie Williams shared an important message that the "college admissions process is a match to be made, not a prize to be won," reminding parents and children to keep an open mind throughout the process. Nick Kennedy added that admissions offices are more interested in applicants that can share the "why" instead of the "what" when describing activities, which was a comment agreed upon by the entire panel. A final note was to allow kiddos to be passionate in fewer activities, in order to be "well lop-sided" vs. "well balanced." The event was well-attended by nearly 50 SAGT members.
Brain Focus and Taking Care of the Whole Child
Dr. Christina Sherrod, MD, Pediatrician at Cook Children's and Dr. Zui Pan, PhD, Professor of Graduate Nursing and Kinesiology at UT-Arlington, shared some of the impacts of our environment and how they can affect a child's ability to focus. They provided suggested nutrition, supplements, sleep schedules and addressed signs of concern in our children. The event was well attended by approximately 55 SAGT members. If you were unable to attend the event, the presentations are available here and here
Study Skills Classes
Kids from grades 5-12 learned valuable study and organization skills from teachers, leaders, and student panels to get them ready for the new school year. This was a super popular event!
Welcome Back to our Quest and GT Teachers!
SAGT held a back-to-school lunch to celebrate our teachers as we start the 2024-2025 school year.
Just as we do every year, SAGT will offer events of interest for the parents of students as well as opportunities for students and parents to learn together.
2023-24 has been a fantastic year! Thanks to the work of our SAGT Board along with the membership fees and donations of all our members we were able to:
Supported two sessions of Camp Invention to kick off the 2023 summer
Welcomed GT teacher back to school with a catered lunch and goodies including custom t-shirts and Target gift cards during staff development week
Over 460 people attended six Parent Programs - 3 speakers and 3 panels including our first joint Parent/Student event
Started the school year off with a study skills session for over 100 secondary students followed by Student Programs that included the always-popular, stargazing plus two coding events, and the much-enjoyed zoo overnight
Provided a $1500 scholarship to a deserving student, selected by a panel of SAGT members
Awarded teacher grants for a total of nearly $9,000
Sent 19 teachers to the TAGT conference at a cost of over $7,681
Continued to build our presence in social media/district communications including getting events in the district-wide eBlast
Maintained an up-to-date website making membership and events information easy to access for the GT community
Continued to exceed previous membership numbers
Hosted socials for each CISD school in the fall and a joint social for elementary schools in the spring
Sponsored substitutes for a one day for all Intermediate and Middle School GT teachers to give them extra planning time
Thanked our fantastic GT teachers with custom cookies and a $25 gift card during GT Awareness week
Thank YOU for your membership! We look forward to another successful year!
Einstein
Andrea Schroeder
Karuna Kantor
Alisha Thachet
Abhishek and Neelam Dube
Nick and Annie Kemphaus
Sara Changizi
Anna Simpson
Elizabeth Doros
Jennifer & Dusty Paschall
Alison Hamilton
Hyeyeon Jeong
Jennifer & Brendan McMurrer
Lakshmi Beeravolu
Lauren & Jeff Gilstrap
Tia Ellerman
Xi Chen
Yao Zhang
Hilary Prokop
Lauren Fanninf
Jim Abraham
Shalini Selvan
Ashley Veccia
Miral Amin
Ben and Amy Green
Meghan Kinslow
Nathan Emerson
Courtney Larson
Naga Vadlamudi
Mary, Daniel Tevis
Zoe Sexhus
Chaitanyeshwari Meesala
Kavya Yalamanchili
Gloria and Adekunle Adekola
Michelle Reeve Garland
Mary Hardenbergh
Tham Trinh
John Engler
Aimee Martin
Bianca Cords
Michelle Adams
Kris & Susan (Trieu) Norenberg
Brian and Erin Ingram
Renee and Zach Hotz
Sheresa and Brian Lee
Elisha Rurka
Andrea Simon
Joshua Rothman
Amrita ChatterjeeRaj
Brittany and Sushrut Shidham
DaVinci
Roopa Yarlagadda
Darren and Nikki Rich
Daisy Bartlett
Bin Cai
Yannan Sun
Zach and Shelly Heinrich
Rupal Dave
Sirisha Sankara
Melissa Karson
Imee Mantilla
Preyank Sheth
Jill & Cary Kennedy
Sahrish Soleja
Swetha Botcha
Shaqin Yang
Michael Klinkenberg
Michael Klinkenberg
Hayley Mirza
Erica Willis
Elizabeth Morgan
Katherine & Mark Crocker
Lauren McAfee
Lori Davidson
Randi Hanlon
Kristen Nelson
Kelly Near
Cheryl Majors
Virginia and Roth Hinkle
Janine Timmermann
William Lipsmeyer,
Nikita Kennedy
Anuj Harkauli
Sarah Stojak
Matt & Gina Johnson
Anh Nguyen
Pamela Daniel
Jodi Seris