For Immediate Release • October 28, 2005
Terren Roloff, Director
Community Relations
Phone: 354-7338

SPS teacher to be honored

Tessera teacher Jayce Keeling will receive the Washington Association of Educators of the Talented and Gifted (WAETAG) Distinguished Leadership Award tonight in Vancouver, Wash.

The person selected to receive the distinguished leadership award has made outstanding contributions to gifted/talented education in Washington state as a teacher, administrator, school board member, parent volunteer or legislator.

The nomination effort, led by Keeling’s Tessera colleagues, resulted in many letters of support, including one from a former Tessera student. He wrote: “Teachers are those in life who demand excellence from themselves and encourage others with patience, care and humility, to follow their example. Mrs. Keeling is my teacher forever … Teacher, what a beautiful word. A title, a position, a privilege.”

Tessera is a one-day-a-week program at Libby Center for highly capable students in grades 3 - 6 who represent the top 3 percent of their norm group. Students are selected on the basis of academic, intellectual, and creative ability. It is the philosophy of the Tessera Program to provide a differentiated curriculum and learning environment which allows identified gifted students to develop their specific intellectual abilities.