Date: June 29, 2005
Contact: Irene Cromer
Community Relations Supervisor
703-791-8720

COUNTY’S GIFTED TEACHERS NAMED TEACHERS OF THE YEAR

The Northern Virginia Council for Gifted/Talented Education has named four Prince William County teachers as Gifted Education Teachers of the Year. The teachers are Krista Kimble, Alvey Elementary School; Louise King, Saunders Middle School; Vernice Turner, Godwin Middle School; and Terri Wiseman, Stonewall Middle School.

Krista Kimble began teaching fourth and fifth graders in the Prince William County gifted program nine years ago. During this time, she has opened three new gifted education centers in Prince William County schools. Kimble began her career teaching gifted students in Mineral County , West Virginia , where she also obtained a grant and began an after-school program to teach literacy skills to parents and their children.

Kimble develops curriculum documents for the gifted education program and presents staff development workshops on such topics as Thinking Maps, extension strategies, and identification. She has a master’s degree in special education from West Virginia University . She is on the board of the Northern Virginia Battlefield Chapter of Phi Delta Kappa.

Louise King has been a teacher with the gifted education program since 1998 when she began teaching gifted education at the middle school center located at Osbourn Park High School. During that first year of teaching at the Osbourn Park center, she wrote a policy waiver to provide gifted education students with a site-based program at Saunders Middle School .

King has her master’s degree in curriculum and instruction and is endorsed to teach gifted education. She has taught graduate classes for teachers at George Mason University as well as math classes for students at Northern Virginia Community College . She is a trainer for total quality management and for Thinking Maps. She has served as the president of the Northern Virginia Battlefield Chapter of Phi Delta Kappa.

During the past seven years, King has been a committee leader for the Prince William middle school division level identification/placement committee. She also coordinates the annual testing of Prince William applicants for the Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Technology.

Vernice Turner has taught in the gifted education program since 1998. She began at the Woodbridge Middle School gifted education center and developed the policy waiver for the site-based gifted education program at Godwin Middle School . Turner’s students at Godwin developed a Web page for STAWRS (Simplified Tax and Wage Reporting System) through a program sponsored by the federal government.

Turner provides yearly staff development opportunities for teachers at Godwin Middle Schooland has incorporated the gifted education program into the instructional program at Godwin. In 1994, she was the Dale City Middle School Teacher of the Year.

Terri Wiseman began teaching in the gifted education program in 1996. She first taught at the Osbourn Park High School center for gifted middle school students. When individual schools began site-based gifted centers for students in grades four through twelve, she prepared the policy waiver for Stonewall Middle School and instituted the site-based program there in 1998.

Wiseman has provided professional development for teachers in gifted education. She will do a presentation on the use of Thinking Maps in the Prince William County gifted education program at the National Thinking Maps Conference this summer.

Wiseman has also worked on the current identification manual for the gifted education program and oversees the identification/placement committees for the middle school level. She has served as a professional representative on the gifted advisory council for the school division.