Spring Break: Rest, Relaxation, Reflection

As the school year starts to wind down, we discuss some ways to ease this sometimes stressful transition from an advocacy perspective.

Hello Gifted Guides!

We’re so glad you’re here—and we’d like to extend an extra special hello to all the new friends we met at the 2025 CEC Convention last week!

How are you doing?

For many in the United States, it is Spring Break, a time to rest, recharge (and maybe sneak in a little fun) before the end of the school year. In that spirit, we will keep this issue of Guiding Gifted short. We want you to maximize the rest and fun of Spring Break.

While themes of Spring are often focused on growth and new changes, we also know that the approach to the end of the school year is a daunting time for many Gifted Guides.

If you’ve had a hard advocacy year, you may be crawling across the finish line of the last day of school completely exhausted and depleted. If you had a good advocacy year, you may be starting to worry about how all that work will translate into next year’s experiences. Or maybe you're feeling both: exhaustion from this year and stress about next year.

This is not uncommon. As we’ve said before, gifted and twice-exceptional (2e) advocacy is slow, hard, thoughtful work. It is an ongoing process. This means there are very rarely easy answers. Most of your advocacy wins will require time and effort—even when it feels like you don’t have any of either.

So, what do you do as you approach the transition that is the end of the school year?

Keep Calm, and Maybe Carry a Little Less

While many of us would love to see into the future and know exactly how each of our advocacy efforts is going to pan out long-term and know our learners will be ok in absolutely every way, we can’t know the future. The advocacy landscape could look different come the start of the new school year—or it might look the same, who knows for sure?

As an advocate for a neurodivergent learner, who may be on an IEP or 504 Plan, you might be particularly concerned. That’s natural. Understood.org recently put out a video that might be helpful to you, if you’re feeling unsettled or concerned about future advocacy efforts.

But what can you do if you can’t tell the future and can’t take immediate action?

You can take inventory of what you do know. Take some time to think through this past year. Consider the progress you made, what worked, what didn’t. To help you focus your reflective inventory (and to make sure you spend some time acknowledging your success, as well as noting challenges), we’ve compiled the following list of questions to get you started:

• What are three things that went well for your learner this year (inside or outside of school)?

• What are three things that were a challenge for your learner this year (inside or outside of school)?

• What are three things that went well for you this year (inside or outside of school)?

• What are three things that were a challenge for you this year (inside or outside of school)?

• If you could do the 2024-2025 school year over again with all the knowledge and experience you have in this current moment, what would you do differently?

These questions are meant to highlight the ups and downs of the last few months. Often, if we aren’t exactly meeting our goals, in the ways we had envisioned, we count the experience as a failure. But the truth is rarely so black and white.

In answering these questions, we hope you’ll be able to find a more nuanced understanding of your progress as a Gifted Guide.

We hope that your answers to these questions will show you what we already know: You are a tremendous advocate for your learner, and they are lucky to have you on their team. You have made progress this year, even when it hasn’t felt like it. You dealt with uncertainty this year, and now, you’re even better equipped to face future challenges and uncertainties with confidence.

Conclusion

We see how hard you’re working, and it’s an honor to be in community with you as we all work to support the gifted and 2e learners in our lives. Remember, through the ups and downs of your advocacy work, you’re never alone. The Guiding Gifted and Davidson community are here to support you.

We hope you find some moments to rest, recharge, and enjoy as we move into Spring!

What’s New at the Davidson Institute?

Apply to Young Scholars! 2025 Application Open Now!

If you’re interested in joining the Young Scholars program, you can learn more and start your application today! Get started by visiting our How to Apply page!

Testing Opportunities – SPRING TEST SESSIONS ARE OPEN TO REGISTRATION!

Through our partnership with Northwestern University’s Center for Talent Development, throughout the year, we are able to offer low cost, remote testing for students in grades 3-10.

This testing can be used to apply to the Davidson Institute’s Young Scholars program, along with the Davidson Academy, Reno and Davidson Academy Online.

To learn more and register for Spring 2025 testing (or to join the Fall 2025 waitlist), check out our Eligibility Assessment page today!

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We’ll see you next month. Stay well, Gifted Guides!