Germain Elementary Gets Five-Star Honor from Assn. for the Gifted

Principal Sonia Ugarte announced Monday that the Chatsworth elementary school received a special “Five Star Designation,” an honor from the California Association for the Gifted (CAG) last weekend during the CAG conference in Palm Springs. Germain is the only school in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) to have received this honor.

“We are tremendously proud of our teachers, students, and parents to have received this special honor. It speaks to the high level of instruction provided for our gifted students, who are in our School for Advanced Studies (SAS) program,” Mrs. Ugarte said. “Our teachers have long been committed to learn the pedagogy of Depth and Complexity from Dr. Sandra Kaplan of USC. They continue to advance their learning and use depth and complexity in instruction for all students at Germain to varying degrees.”

The application for the program was written by Nancy Wankovsky, second grade teacher and gifted coordinator. Members of the CAG committee visited the school last month to observe gifted instruction in the school’s SAS classrooms. Accepting the award in Palm Springs were SAS teachers Young Mi Son and Ricki Martin.

Germain was one of the first schools in LAUSD to become an SAS school in 1998. Germain is also a finalist to become a California Distinguished School.