In a school district that is rich in opportunities and full of students who excel in all areas, it must be a challenge to provide coverage of school news. Yet over the years, I have appreciated your efforts to print news — with students’ names — that reflect the outstanding achievements of West Windsor-Plainsboro students.
In the April 2 edition of the West Windsor-Plainsboro News, for example, we learned not only that students won top awards at the State contests for Science Olympiad and Math Counts, but also all the National History Day students who advanced from regional to state competition. We read about students who qualified for NJ Geography Bee, won the NJIT Programming Contest, were awarded scholarships, and much more.
With newspapers under terrific pressure to provide news with increasingly limited space, it is gratifying that the WW-P News remains committed to covering so much local school news.
This has a personal relevance for some of my students. Each year — for many years — some of those who qualify choose to accept the ROGATE Gold Satori challenge that requires that they apply their ROGATE research from the past year to new audiences and in service to the ROGATE program.
Offered by the National Talent Network, ROGATE — Resources Offered in Gifted and Talented Education — encourages students to pursue in-depth research that is presented and assessed at state-wide expositions.
Nothing about the Gold challenge is easy. These middle school students — without teacher or parental help — must find and make arrangements to speak to an audience that would benefit from their research. I don’t know what is more daunting for them — making the contact or doing the presentation before an audience. This year one student addressed a state teachers’ conference, one spoke on behalf of a national Holocaust survivors group, and one encouraged senior citizens to exercise to enhance their well being.
In addition, students must write an article or letter to the editor that reaches a significant audience — and is NOT a school publication. That is difficult, but not as difficult as being the subject of an article that is published in a local paper. It is this requirement that frustrates ROGATE Gold success. Ironically, it is the only requirement that students can not control. After 20 years of ROGATE Gold “news,” newspapers are generally uninterested. That is, except our local WW-P News.
Joan Ruddiman, EdD
PRISM coordinatorm,
Grover Middle School
